5/2
My printer went out on me today. That's a huge pain, but it SHOULD have gone out on me months ago, when there was a paper jam within it and the only way to get the paper out was to open it up, and then it wouldn't go back together again, so it would still print, but the paper would come out the back (I took the cover off) instead of the top). And then, the roller that pushed the paper through the top broke on one side, and I kept using it, since the paper was supposed to come out before it reached the broken roller.
But then, today, the paper jammed again, and there was no way to get it out without pulling it through the top, and when I did that, the other side of the roller snapped off . . . and a piece of it fell into the mechanism. Oh, I swore like a Jehovah's Witness on Fat Tuesday, but I pried the whole thing open, shook it and fished around until the little piece of plastic fell out, and put it all together again, plugged it in, turned it on . . . and all the lights started flashing. Apparently, something inside the mechanism had been damaged, and it was impossible to go to lightspeed.
Luckily, my sister downstairs has a printer, so I "borrowed" it, plugged it into my computer . . . and it couldn't be detected. I went online and manually installed the drive for it . . . and it detected the scanner but not the printer. Well, no worries--even though I was now missing lunch--I grabbed my laptop, plugged the printer into it . . . and nothing. Same deal, it wouldn't recognize it. I found the Help file, did what it said, installed the "correct" driver . . . and it would scan, but would not print.
Damnation.
I looked, and the printer I'd been using the last couple of years can be found fairly cheaply (it's the toner cartridge that's expensive, and I bought two of those back in November), but I'd have to wait for another one to arrive, and I really HAD to print today.
So, I went to Walmart, got the cheapest printer on the market, just to print for the next few days while waiting for the replacement printer to arrive, got it home, plugged it into my computer . . . and nothing. To my intense horror, it was THE EXACT SAME MODEL my sister had downstairs. Well, this one at least had a CD-ROM with the install drivers, so I put that in my laptop (which still has a DVD drive), plugged in the printer, did an install . . . and you can guess what happened.
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| This is the printer at the bottom of the garbage can, though it looks a bit like a well to me. |
So, I was pretty upset now. I went to my email, sent myself the labels I needed to print, boxed up the new printer, and took it back. I was pleased that Walmart didn't ask any questions, didn't even check to see if the printer was in there, let alone all the cords and ink cartridges, just gave me my money back and sent me on my way.
I then went to the library, logged in, and used their computer to print out my labels* and was able to go home and continue my work. It only took an extra, what, three hours?
There was a family get-together in honor of Cinco de Mayo at what I've come to calling Shinooginah Hill in my stories, a big hill that was attached to an elementary school that closed down about twenty-two years ago, and I went along. My Uncle Len would've loved it, because there was lots of yelling and clapping and traditional music (my favorite moment was when they did "La Polka Norteña," which was a polka song and dance that was taught to the Mexicans by European settlers back in the 1800s, and sounded exactly like what you'd hear at Octoberfest, except in Spanish), but it got cold and we left early, and my mom bought everybody tacos at a restaurant we used to go to forty years back.
I came home, got some editing done (I need to get my Patreon Address published, despite having started on it more than a week ago), boxed up several bags of loose Star Wars guys (to put in the storage unit), and sat down to watch "Brooklyn Nine-nine." And then I started to fall asleep.
No big deal, I could just go to bed and start fresh tomorrow. Except . . . I'd made this stupid goal of either writing or exercising EVERY DAY in May, and it was only May the Second, and I hadn't done it. I moped around, feeling sorry for myself, and got ready for bed, and then thought, you know what, eff this, I'm gonna go for it. So I put on my tennis shoes, went outside, and ran for half a mile, before deciding I was too out of shape and too apathetic to go any further. But ah well, I did it, even when I didn't want to, and that's when it really matters.
I came back, sat down, and was too amped up to go to sleep, so I edited another half hour before finally going to sleep about ten minutes after when I normally do. Fun.
5/3
I streamlined the experience of printing labels a lot better today than yesterday. It's still a huge pain to have to drive over to the library, log into their computer, log into my email, download the labels (I took the extra time to save them all to an email so I could just send them directly to their printer, though I still had to resize the first one because it auto-resized too large), send them to their printer, log into that printer, feed money into it, and get my print-outs. Then I'll have to go home, stick 'em on packages, gather them up and take them to the post office on my way to the librar . . . oh.
You know, I'm at the library right now, typing this. Maybe I should take a few minutes to write here, so I won't have to come back later. Except I really ought to be focusing on work instead of the stuff I usually do when all my work is done (he said, having spent ten minutes blogging instead of doing so). I can't decide what to--
God, that asshole that called me "Lizardface" just came in. He commented on me to his invisible friend, and that made up my mind. Alright,
I'm taking off, and maybe come back tonight.
See you then.
I'm now a bit paranoid about losing my writing here at the library, so I've been emailing myself TWO copies of the "Balms & Sears" work-in-progress (once at the start of each session, and again at the end). Biggie Anklevich would say it's unnecessary, when googledocs saves as you go, but he's a Mac guy, so . . .
*My cousin suggested this, saying, "Spend a dollar or so to print at the library each day until your nice, high quality printer comes, rather than buying a crappy cheap printer you'll just have to replace again in four months."
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