White Blank Page

I am suffering from a rather severe form of blank page syndrome right now. My laptop (the lamented Pan Narrans) is falling apart again. Gracefully, but dramatically. So I’m using my backup laptop, which, after the last Pan debacle is at least installed with a relatively current OS and the most important programs. But otherwise, it’s a total blank page. It is, I have to say, kinda eerie.

There was a moment when I sat here with my fingers on the keyboard and just stared at the white blank page. And it stared back. It was downright disturbing. Like looking at someone you know who has amnesia and can’t remember you. I was about an inch away from typing: Hello, Space Turtle, my name is Kandace. Let’s be friends. But I’m sure I did that back when he was new and I don’t like to think he’s forgotten, even if he has been reinstalled several times since then. Perhaps I can coax him to say hi.

I think the first thing I ever did with Sky Pony (my first laptop) was get him to sing to me: Hello, my name is Sky Pony. I have no idea why. Perhaps it’s because I think it’s weird to play with someone if you haven’t introduced yourself first. (And yes, okay, I recognise that a laptop isn’t technically a someone, but I anthropomorphise food, I have very personal relationships with my laptops. After all, I spend more time with them than I do with people. We’ll pass right over the discussion of whether or not that’s weird.)

I feel so much better about things now that there’s a couple of paragraphs of text here. Maybe I should copy over some random files to throw around the desktop, make things look homey. That’s how you make something look lived in right? Throw pillows around and scuff up the walls a bit?

And it’ll be… fine. It’s fine. I’ll just hide out for a while. Can’t go home. Home is kernel panic and disk errors. It’s okay here. We can hide out here. Safe. Comfy. Not much elbow room, but still good. Not blank, don’t worry, I drew on the walls…

And maybe tomorrow I will have stopped talking to myself.