So, I dealt with yesterday's (metaphorical) cell phone meltdown by finding a cheap, no-contract, no-credit-check provider and after probably not nearly enough thought, decided to sign on with them. (I had fewer options because most of them seemed to use the same satellite network that my previous provider used, meaning that they too would want to force me into getting a new phone, as I was told that it was actually the satellite network that made the arbitrary decision to no longer support the iPhone 6S.)
But I just have to say to the company that refused me service because of my credit rating: subjecting your customers to the whims of the draconian credit reporting companies is directly in opposition to the progressive mindset you claim to represent, Credo. (Also, is anyone surprised that of the three of their employees I talked to on the phone about this, the two women were very helpful and understanding, and the man was purposefully obtuse and idiotically kept talking about "once you've upgraded your phone" as if that was the problem, not the fact that credit reporting services actually punish you for not having credit cards even if you're paying all your utility bills (including phones) on time? Despite that I repeatedly explained that not wanting to replace my phone was the entire freaking reason I was looking for a new service provider in the first place?! He just could not--or would not--get it through his thick skull that what he was expecting me to want to do was the exact opposite of my stated intention.)
However, the cell phone thing is hopefully now more-or-less solved, since the new place is sending me the new SIM card by 2-day express, so I should be switched over several days before the current company can charge me for another month of service. (Assuming I can manage to switch the SIM cards, 'cause that little thing on the side of the phone did not look easy to open...)
But that was not the extent of my crappy day!
I ended up doing a lot more writing than usual, because I took my laptop with me when I went to my brother's place to do my laundry (long story there, but basically my washer is broken and also my basement kind of scares me), and as the drier was taking freaking forever to get my laundry dry (is it the cold weather?), after a while we got tired of watching stuff, and I went back to writing.
I've been having trouble for a while now with some of the keys not acknowledging it when I pressed them. The "h" and "n" keys especially, but also "y" and the left arrow key lately. So while I was writing again in the later part of the afternoon, I started getting really tried of it, and tried to lift up the key a bit to see if I could see what was blocking it and maybe get it out. Because I thought maybe it was a crumb or something.
It was dust.
Like, massive dust bunnies.
Inside my laptop's keyboard.
I've had this laptop for...I don't even know how long. At least fifteen years, probably. I know I already had it when I went to Peru in 2008 (not that I took it with me, lol!), and I think I'd had it a few years already at that point. It is precious to me, and I've written a lot of novels on it. (Also a lot of drafts of the same novels.)
And evidently, this dust has just been building up slowly over all that time, and is now reaching critical mass.
My plan was to finish the scene I was working on, save, turn off, wait until I got home, back up everything, and then try to carefully pry off the keys and remove all that dust with tweezers, or maybe a tiny vacuum if I could find one. (I remember getting one at one point, but it had very weak suction, and I don't remember where it went anyway.) But it was getting so that I couldn't finish the scene. I had put "h" in the clipboard and was copy-pasting it when I needed it, but I didn't want to waste time repeatedly changing the clipboard from "h" to "n", as that seemed like it would have taken even longer than repeatedly pressing/mashing on/holding down the mostly not-working keys. (The fact that they sometimes still worked (and even overworked) only makes this whole experience more frustrating.) So I tried pulling the "n" up to get the dust out (I'd already pulled an astonishing amount out from under the "h" key, not that it had helped much) and you can guess what happened: I messed up the mechanism that held it in place. :<
I had to just save the file as it was--not merely in the middle of a scene, but in the middle of a sentence!--and shut down the computer. (The fact that the battery was almost depleted wasn't helping anything, needless to say.) My brother had a spare USB keyboard, so I borrowed that, and tomorrow I'll back up the laptop and try out the USB keyboard. If it doesn't work, I'll have to finish writing my NaNo novel on this computer. Which sucks, because I don't like this one as much. (Although the fact that I haven't worn the text off half the keys might actually make things a little easier. It's hard to just go back and add a period, comma or missing m/n when all four of those keys have nothing written on them anymore...) Even if the USB keyboard works, I'm not sure what kind of writing setup I'll have to use, since most of my usual ones won't work that way. There was a folding standing/sitting desk I saw on sale at Michael's (of all the weird places for it) which I may look back into, because my current standing desk situation is just a folding desk tray on top of a regular table, so there's no special place to hold up the separate keyboard, you know?
So, yeah, basically, I've had two garbage days in a row. 😭
...ugh, and I just slipped and fell on the way to answering the front door, and I think I actually managed to hurt myself in the process. Definitely a garbage day. 😭
Yeah, I definitely hurt my wrist, and possibly my knee and my back, but definitely the wrist. Because what better to hurt in the middle of NaNoWriMo, right? Ugh...
Anyway.
Yesterday's total word count was 78,368.
Today's total word count is 86,302.
So, today I wrote 7,934 words. Which is pretty darn good, actually. (Would have been more like 8,100 words if I'd managed to get through that scene. The fact that I was so close to the end of it just made the whole experience even more frustrating, of course.)
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