The Important Things

Just back from a visit to my family, where it was freezing and snowy.  Now here at home, it's warm and sunny, and I wish I could leave the damn office.  My stoneage family is without a computer, and I haven't replaced my laptop since the hard-drive died in November.  So I was without electronic access for ten days.  If this were a sentimental, touchy-feely, Hallmark-card sort of world (or, more precisely, if I were that sort of person), you might expect me to say something about how liberating it was to be freed from electronic tethers or how wonderful it was to be able to turn my back on the virtual world and renew my ties with the real one.  But I won't.  I missed my computer and internet -- not in any desperate, rant-and-gnash, how-can-I-go-on sort of way, no.  But I missed it all the same.  I should just go ahead and buy the laptop.  But not tonight; tonight I have a date with a box of thin-mint Girl Scout cookies and Jane Austen's Persuasion.