In which Perez Hilton becomes more important than bank overdrafts

I have not died, but I have witnessed myself narrowly avoid complete emotional devastation. Or whatever happens to a person when her computer decides to misbehave coincidentally on the very same day she sneaked over to Apple to get a new iPod. So I guess I just about died. But toDAY, I'm alright. Who knows what will happen tomorrow. This crappy old thing will most likely wait until I REALLY need it. It's no fun to break down if your human companion doesn't need you, right? Just like my car. The only consistent force in my life is my cat, and she'll probably outlive me.

It all started like I said; when I couldn't STAND living without an iPod, and thus, without my run. I need to run. But I can't run anymore without my favorite music to drown out all of the insulting dumbass catcalls by the most undesirable assholes. I'd rather it never happen in the first place, but can somebody PLEASE explain WHY the most disgusting idiots in their '78 Trans-Ams have to assess the deliciousness of my buns LOUDLY and OBNOXIOUSLY, but the good-looking successful guys with their friendly golden retrievers galloping giddily by their side don't say one fucking word about me or my ass? No interest whatsoever. I have mostly succeeded in convincing myself that they are all gay. But I know gay men. They don't like animals with long hair because it's not conducive to their OCD identities. I still don't appreciate the Trans-Am guys. Never ever! I'd sooner try out being gay myself, before I'd slide into the vinyl and rusted splendor of my current admirers.

But anyway, so I got the friggin iPod already. I zoomed home, and went on a nice run without being bothered in the least. Later, I decided that I better check my bank account since I couldn't really AFFORD an iPod. But I didn't check it right away; rather, I dinked around at CNN, MSNBC, and Perez Hilton. Just when I navigated to the bank page, bam. My monitor blacked out.

Now, I know how to treat a crabby monitor. You give it the old one-two, and it shapes back up. This time, however, it did not acquiesce. It stubbornly stayed black, save for the .5 second-long flash every ten or so blows. It teased me for close to an hour before I gave up. For an hour. Tried again for another hour. After realizing that my hand was swollen and my big toe might just be broken, I went out for a drink with a friend of mine who actually has a life. She found it hilarious that I was so distraught. Well, I still hadn't checked my bank account! I did still more damage by bellying up to the bar and wasting 30 bucks on however many neat Johnny Walker Blacks you get for that much. I forgot just how many I drank.

But, as any alcoholic who is any alcoholic at all can tell you, my drunken escape did little to improve my situation, and there that fucking monitor was when I got home, eying me triumphantly, as if to say, "Yeah, here I am, why don't you come over here and try me out, see what I have in store for you?" I took the bait. At midnight, I was still beating it mercilessly when I heard the guy downstairs beat something on his ceiling/my floor and scream, "Shut that shit up, FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

Next morning, the only difference between my head and my hand was the fact that my hand was bruised. My pinkie has still not yet fully recovered.

Somebody told me to go to Goodwill and get a monitor for 10 bucks. I had to wait until I could squeeze out twenty of the thousands of bucks my brother owes me, and I did go to Goodwill and found one for 15 bucks! I hooked that baby up and abracadabra, I had my computer back. I immediately hopped online, and almost as immediately, the pages stopped loading. I was booted off, somehow. Sigh. I was a bit annoyed, but tried to get on again. And again. Tried unplugging every fucking electric thing in the damn house; tried kicking my old monitor, just because I didn't like the look on its face; restarted the computer 50 million times. Nothing worked.

Me and Kitty spent no less than five hours on the phone with my cable service and the firewall company and then the cable service again and then the cable service AGAIN. Nothing worked. "You have a bad gamma-interface-blickety-blick card," the cable "tech" said, doing his best to sound sympathetic yet importantly busy and Bill-Gatesish. "Ohhhhhh," I said. "Sounds like I'm fucked, huh?" He hummed and hawed, but wasted no time before agreeing with my assessment of the situation. Good thing I had THOSE assholes around to tell me it's not THEIR equipment causing a problem.

Borrowed a laptop from my brother. Of course it didn't work either.

Finally, yesterday, I tried the internet on my computer again. It fucking WORKED. It worked! WTF?? Oh well, I'm not even going to ask.