Bernadette Benda

Hello all.

I am currently writing this from my new laptop (can we just stop for a moment to talk about how hard it is to type on different keyboards? Like when you get a new laptop, or use someone else’s and all of a sudden you’re making a hundred typos because your hands don’t know where the keys are because it isn’t your laptop? Yeah. #thestruggleisreal. Except this one is feeling pretty ok)

Long story short, my parents are great and refurbished laptops suck.

Let’s talk about laptops for a moment. Our dearly beloved writing tools.

Writer’s used to use romantic tools. Like parchment and a quill pen. Scratching away at the late hours of the night, ink blotted hands. Then there came the typewriter, which made things a lot more efficient, and it too made good noises.

And then computers came. Not aesthetic nor romantic. Yet still laptops have become as precious to us as…as…precious stones or something like that. Diamonds. Your grandmother. Whatever.

And I’ve had quite some adventures with mine. So here are is an “ode” to All the Laptops I’ve Had Before.

#1

I don’t even remember where this laptop came from. I shared it with my sister somewhere around eighth grade, and I know there is a picture of me with it somewhere, wearing a cloak, since as I child I ran around clad as if I was in Middle Earth.

This laptop was a jumpstart for me writing. All of a sudden I could writer ANYWHERE. ANYTIME. The power was MINE (and my sister’s).

#2

I…I owe this one an apology because I absolutely murdered this one. By the end, this thing was covered in duck tape. Like the hinges were broken and the only thing connecting the screen and the keyboard was….duck tape. (I’m pretty sure some keys had fallen off as well) (it was the beater version of a laptop.)

(I once drove a beater mini van for a while that sounded like an actual tank)

I still remember the last wallpaper I had on on that wallpaper, a picture from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

I wrote a lot of this one, mainly my epic fantasy trilogy that I saw through high school (one of those things that I shut in a drawer promising myself that I won’t shut it in the drawer forever) (I really think I don’t because a lot of things are actually good???) (Like the world building: solid.)

#3

Now, there was one piece of duck tape on it (on the chord), and while it wasn’t physically falling apart, I could hear the fan whirring and working its little tail off.

(I still actually still have this one because I had trouble transferring my itunes (absolute nightmare) so I kept the old one just in case because I KNOW it has all my music on it)

#4

My last one. The first laptop I bought with my own cold, hard, cash. And why ever did I buy a refurbished one (if you’ve had good experience with one, good for you)

When this laptop arrived, the DVD player didn’t work and neither did the SD card player. I got the DVD player fixed, but now the mousepad keys don’t work, the battery doesn’t charge, and the SD card reader still doesn’t work. (Oh and I did put a piece of duck tape in this one because there was an annoying red light from the battery being dead and I COULD NOT focus it with it blinking and yelling at me out of the corner of my eye).

So sadly *wipes tear* it has to go…..I’ve written a lot of this baby, and haven’t had it for that long (I swear not three years. Maybe it has been three. I honestly have lost all sense of time)

#5

The new one. The one I am currently typing on.

Please, please be yar.

~~~~~~~~~~

So once again I am writing this watching the British Baking Show (why is it always hot when they make ice cream) AND we watched the Mandalorian too (Fridays nights are good nights). NaNoWriMo is chugging along, we’re all chugging along. (Are we though????? Or are we just a train speedily careening off the tracks??)

Alright. Time to go. Good night. (Good morning????)