Pixie Wasn't Well

Today was a bit terrifying.

Around two years ago, whilst in San Francisco for The Night of Writing Dangerously, I invested in the second most expensive piece of computer kit I have ever bought myself, otherwise known as buying myself a new laptop. It was a Pixelbook and I named it Pixie, because everything in my life gets a name. I name dresses pretentious things, name typewriters after Greek gods and goddesses and I name my computers after their models - except the Toshibas I've had. They've been Craptop one and Craptop 2: Return of the Craptop. So, I have Pixie, Prodigy and Pie (iPad). 

Pixie is a bit of an extension of myself by this point, because I'm either watching films or TV series, scrolling through Twitter or writing with her, or a mixture of all three. Pie occasionally steps in, but the external keyboard of the iPad feels much the same as Pixie's keyboard so it's not even like I can switch between them to change things up. Prodigy has been in London for the last few months, so I haven't really used it, but that's going to change in the next few days because it's moving to Manchester and I'm going to have to organise the office and sewing room a little bit better. Thankfully I'm not expecting to keep Kronus (20th Century Imperial called The Empire), Hermes (my first typewrite - a 1960s Olympia which inspired the Greek name), Aphrodite (Sharps Font Writer and the Sister of Hermes), Apollo (Brother Electric Typewriter) and Hephaestus (Brother Electric Typewriter) in the office as well, because otherwise it might all get a bit cramped... Yes, I'm really weird, and I know it. 

Anyway, weird names for things aside, when I woke up this morning I tried to turn Pixie's screen on to look at Facebook marketplace since I listed a bunch of furniture, and she wouldn't come on. I was watching Lucifer last night and then she wasn't charging overnight, so I figured she was just out of juice. Twelve hours later and I'm reading every instruction on the Google Help Page just to try and figure out what's wrong with her and, most importantly, how I fix her. There were a lot of suggestions of press this for 60 seconds and then unplug and plug back in laptop first then into the wall and wait thirty minutes and honestly, it started to feel like the sort of old wives tales your nana tells (or that might just have been my nana. And my grandma thinking about it...) because surely there wasn't something timing how long I was clicking different buttons and because I waited twenty nine minutes not thirty it was having a grump and saying no. Thankfully I realised that in my distracted state of thinking my most used and very much loved piece of computer kit was done, finito, bye bye, I wasn't reading one of the instructions properly. It was press and hold one button whilst tapping the power button. Did that, and the little colourful G popped onto the screen and was thanking God. I've had to use my phone to Google everything today and it's annoying. 

I realise that it's a very 'first world problems' kind of problem and I know I'm extremely privileged/ spoilt to have access to the computers that I do, the space to keep them and ability to run them etc. I appreciate that I'm a certified (or certifiable) member of the geek squad because I am obsessed with them, but today did scare the hell out of me thinking I might have lost Pixie. I'm so used to writing with her and 4thewords and I'm not a big fan of change, so I was kind of worried that not having her would make writing really difficult, or impossible until I got home to Manchester where Craptop 2 is being used as a TV. 

Anyway, that's my self indulgent moan of the day out there and over with, particularly because the fear has passed and I think it was actually more to do with an update that I should have downloaded than any real hardwear problems or anything like that, so I'll just have to remind myself to keep an eye on that and not keep letting her battery die completely, which also means I probably need to order another new charger, though that's, thankfully, cheaper than buying a whole new laptop.