Ritual and Madness

Today it was the kitties’ turn. I’m feeling flu-ish, so I skipped the rec center and slept in. Because I went to bed at 9 o’clock, this meant that I still woke up by about 6:45. David took the opportunity to skip, too, but had gotten up at 5:30 anyway, to soak in the bathtub. When I stirred, deciding I wouldn’t sleep anymore, however much I’d prefer to stay in my warm, dark den, both kitties trilled delighted meows at me and came running in to leap on the bed.

You’d think I’d risen from the dead.

I dragged myself into the kitchen and they bolted for their food dishes — which had still some dry food in them, mind you — portraying desperate starvation the way only a cat can. I mentioned it when I visited David taking his bath, to say good morning. Oh yes, he said, both cats had been coming in to stare at him accusingly. I wondered why, since they normally don’t get fed until about this time anyway, when we get back from working out.

It’s the wrong pattern of activity, he said; a disruption of their routine.

If you read yesterday’s post, you know this comment hit home for me. The creative gurus are all about ritual and routine. Write every day. Write at the same time every day. Play the same music while you write. All meant to coax the subconscious into performing, like a well-trained pet. They compare the subconscious to an animal. Our unthinking animal side.

What happens when it falls apart? When I can’t access my current novel in progress because I haven’t yet reinstalled Word. When I can’t listen to my writing playlist because I haven’t reinstalled Sonic Stage. When the getting up and getting breakfast isn’t timed the usual way and the yummy canned food doesn’t fall in the bowl as expected. Frantic behavior, is what.

I have a friend whose mother every morning goes for a walk and then has her nonfat, sugar-free latte. I know about this because this woman’s husband, my friend’s stepfather, called my friend for advice. Apparently if she for some reason is made to miss her walk and latte, she becomes nearly hysterical. He wondered how to deal with it. And maybe was asking a slightly deeper question: is she a little crazy?

Maybe insanity isn’t just doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Maybe it’s becoming paralyzed if you can’t do the same thing over and over. Ritual may feed the animal in us, but the higher being in us must remain flexible. Overcome and move on. Whether it’s a computer malfunction, sickness, losing a job, losing everything — the trick is being able to rise above the ritual and cope anyway.

In the end, ritual is a luxury.

Looks Like Disaster

You already know how much it annoys me when the computers don’t behave like they should. It’s shocking to me sometimes what a house of cards my life is, all precisely perched in a trembling tower…on my laptop. When the laptop misbehaves, the shuddering terror of lost files races all through my life.

All the photos. I love the ones from this Christmas in particular. What if the back-up didn’t get them all? It was acting funny too.

My finances. I’d have to reconstruct at least the last few weeks to figure out where we’re at. Oh God — I’d have to reconstruct all of 2008 for my taxes. When will I do that?

My novel. Does Liz have the most recent version? If the back-up won’t work (it still won’t run), when did I last throw the novel on the jump drive?

The emails. Ohhh…all the emails I’ve saved but haven’t quite dealt with yet. Our house sale, the move, correspondence with editors, agents, friends. The hundreds of little tasks predicated on information in those emails.

See, I ended up reinstalling Windows Vista, because I had corrupted files and it was getting worse and worse and … that’s what the online stuff said to do and that I wouldn’t lose my files. But I did lose my files. Nowhere to be seen last night. And I couldn’t restore without reinstalling my backup software, which took time.

Finally, exerting heroic self-control, I went to bed, to deal another day. And in the night it came to me. A folder called “Old Windows” was promised at some point. I looked this morning and there it is. There is everything. My world is restored, the light pours through the clouds, the birds spiral in wheeling delight.

Now I just have to figure out how to get the programs to run again…

Better To Reign in Hell

So, I couldn’t get on my blogger account this morning. I went to my login page and it wanted me to re-enter all of my information and I didn’t remember which of my plethora of passwords I was using for it. So I did the “forgot my password” routine, received the email, had to enter the warped letters for security, received the next email, link took me to a page to enter my new password. But nothing happened. Spin spin spin.

I tried it again. Nothing. Went back to blogger page, tried a few potential passwords. Nope. Tried my “forgot my password” routine again. Spin spin spin. Only this time the page won’t load at all – I can’t try to enter new passwords because the spaces won’t even come up.

With my amazing reasoning abilities, I deduce that Something Is Wrong with Blogspot.

The logical thing to do is wait, come back later and see if they’ve sorted it out. After all, nothing on my end has changed since I logged on last night. But. I. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

I have to keep rechecking the pages, reclicking the links, to once again discover that nothing is working. Spin spin spin.

There’s an old saw that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, variously attributed to Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin or whoever else seems a likely source of pithy remarks. (Wikiquote says it’s actually from Rita Mae Brown – but that doesn’t give the same caché.) It’s one of those bits of common wisdom that gets circulated and recirculated like a salient bit of gossip at a cocktail party. It arouses our interest because we recognize our own behavior in it. In fact, if you Google that exact phrase, you’ll get in the neighborhood of 17,000 hits.

The prospect of insanity worries us all. And somehow, the user/computer relationship exacerbates the fear. Perhaps because, often, on the computer if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you DO get different results. Perhaps this indicates that the universe is not a fundamentally rational place at all.

So, I broke my little spin spin spin cycle and opened Word to write this out. Akin to working on paper – heaven forfend – should the power go out.

At least I feel good about having a different result.