Last night I crawled into bed, all ready for sleep, with my computer.  It was midnight and I was tired, but I needed to do a little more work before I could rest.  I worked for about an hour, writing posts for Slashfood and Green Daily before turning my mind to some school work.  Just as I was about to settle down and read my class’s discussion board, my computer went black.  There was no warning, no messages asking if it was okay to shut down.  It was just gone.

I plugged in the charger, thinking that maybe it was a power issue, but that didn’t remedy it.  So I put it down on my dresser and went to sleep, hoping that it would magically fix itself overnight.

I woke up with a start at 7:25 this morning, far earlier than I normally rise and instantly remembered that I was having computer issues.  Staggering out of bed, I approached the computer and pressed the power button.  Nothing.

Getting back into bed, I spent the next half hour sending good thoughts to my computer.  I imagined a beam of light pouring over its pearly white case.  I told it how much I appreciated it and how I just needed it to work for a few more weeks.  I reminded it that its purpose in life was to compute and by not turning on, it was denying that which it had been born to do (I have never claimed to be normal).

However, when I checked it again at 8 am, it was still stubbornly resisted booting up.  I can’t get through the day without a computer, what with needing to stay on top of things at Slashfood and really needing to finish my thesis (which was all happily saved in my gmail account).  I made arrangements to borrow Scott’s MacBook and hopped into the shower.

When I was all dressed and ready to go, I tried one last time to turn it on.  This time, when I depressed the power button the fan whirred to life and the machine started.  I quickly texted Scott and told him it was working and that I didn’t need to bug him after all (and thanked him profusely for being willing to come to my computer rescue once again).

So my three year old iBook is working once again and I am breathing a sigh of relief that I’ll (hopefully) be able to finish out grad school on this mostly reliable computer before moving on to the refurbed MacBook I bought last Friday that is now waiting for at my parents’ house in Oregon.