MacZine in the hospital

Aaaagh! On Valentine's day I toasted one of my loves, my computer MacZine - and she repaid me by breaking down. The panic of this morning - nothing on the screen, just black. What a lost feeling. Off to the Apple store, one of my least favourite places - the 'genius' kids are great, but ye gods, could the place be more crowded and noisy?

Anyway, some filament that lights her screen is missing, the part needs to be ordered, and it may be a WEEK before I get her back. If I do - if there's more wrong, we will have to have a diagnostic consultation. She is five years old, after all - very old, in her world.

What will I do with my fingers for a week? Eat more chocolate. Luckily, I just got two delicious books from the library - "Proust and the squid," which is about how we read, and - I think it's called "On silence," I'm at a neighbour's and can't check, a memoir about a woman's search for quiet. And that is what I will have until MacZine or her replacement returns - mental quiet. Just me and the books.

And the fair trade chocolate. And the wine.

Oh - and I found out on Valentine's day that Marni Jackson, Karen Connelly, Joe Kertes and I are among the 25 writers, out of over 800 who entered, shortlisted for the CBC Literary Award in Creative Non-fiction. There's another round of elimination in 2 weeks. I'm honoured just to be here, with those wonderful writers and all the others. My story is one I've written about here in the blog, about my penpal Barbara who died in 1966, and the on-going story with her sister Penny. As Penny wrote when I told her the news, we've won already.