Well, no sooner have I just about finished catching up on everything in Internet Land than my computer seems to be on the fritz. I'm having a devil of a time getting it to turn on these days (it usually takes more than ten tries before it will boot up) and none of the solutions I have attempted have worked. (Blowing out the dust, taking out and reinserted the RAM sticks/video card, etc.) I have a sinking feeling that my motherboard is on its way to that great Best Buy in the sky, so I've been spending the last several hours backing up all my crap on an external hard drive.

I've known for a while that I needed a new machine, and in fact have plans to get a friend to build me one, but I'm not sure yet where I'm going to get the money for it. So far I've had no word back from the applications I've sent out (although I need to send out more), and I know I've got a lot of other things to budget for (little things like bills and food), as well as two cons in January and February (business for , and one of them a chance to see my family again).

It's a lot to stress about. But you want to know what's funny?

I'm not really stressing over it.

This computer could die, true, but I've got all my data, and at worse I could use 's or 's while I'm getting on my feet. I haven't got a job yet, but people are going to be getting increasingly desperate as the holiday season gets underway, and somebody somewhere is going to need extra hands. We don't have much money to eat out on, but that's forced me to start eating more healthily than I ever have before in my life.

I've got a lot of things to worry about, and intellectually I'm pondering them, hashing them out, and trying to deal with them, but emotionally I'm just...very placid. Content. Maybe even happy.

In fact I don't think I've been this happy or content in a long, long time. I'm full of hope about the future, discovering new things I love about this place every day, and overall reveling in having sheer, true independence for the first time in my life.

This move was the best thing that's happened to me in a long time.

...which wasn't the original point I intended to make with this post, but I'm okay with that too. I think that's a better note to end on than a rant about failing electronics.