I think all the e-mail addresses are working now. All I need is to go back to the PC one last time to make a second backup of the mail profile, the address book, and whatever else I think I need. Of course that means unplugging the Mac, which I am, understandably reluctant to do. Then ADZO has given me permission to hand the PC over to whatever charity refurbishes hardware for places that need computers, like other charities and churches and so forth. I want it out of my office by tomorrow. I want the space under my left-hand writing desk reclaimed!

I’m fumbling through the first few days of adjustment quite well. What keyboard combinations do I use to approximate this or that desired function? How do I sync the new Touch and the computer? Why has all the info on my Touch vanished after syncing? (Oh; one can only sync the desktop to the iPod. Well, that’s odd. It would make sense to be able to do it both ways, as the iPod acts like a PDA you carry around, so in my mind one should be able to upload changes from it to the main system.) Some things need to be double-clicked, some don’t. I’ve set up Open Office for now, till I get iWork. The screen resolution seems to have finally settled thanks to determined effort on my part to try every single possible resolution plus tweaking sharpness and interweave and mumblemonitortechspeak. My main problem is that everything is easy. Too easy. There’s a tiny bit of my brain that’s chittering away, saying, “But you don’t know how it works.” To which I say, “Yes, absolutely. Which means that it’s magic!”

I’m going to sound like a broken record: I can’t get over how quiet it is. I can listen to music playing in the next room with no difficulty. I am so relaxed, it’s slightly anxiety-inducing. It boots up incredibly quickly. The boy is very impressed that it makes “the WALL*E sound” when it’s turned on.

Today I went to the license bureau to pay for my next two years’ worth of driver’s license fees (why yes, my birthday was four days ago, why do you ask?), had a very enjoyable breakfast with ADZO, and went to the library to pick up an armful of reference books on Macs and how to understand the inner workings of iTunes (because things I expect it to do or recognise don’t happen), some graphic novels (who knew there was a whole section of English graphic novels in the back corner?), and a new book on writing by Graham Swift called Making an Elephant: Writing From Within. I’m always very excited when an author whose work I analyzed in my thesis comes out with something new. Which reminds me, I think David Lodge released a new novel recently. I’ve already read A.S. Byatt’s latest.

I am trying very hard to not think about how much money I have spent on major purchases in this past month. The new cello and computer have both been a long time coming, of course. I’m just twitchy about that much money going out within that small a timeframe.

Astute readers will have noticed that the monthly post about the boy hasn’t gone up. July’s like that: there’s the concert, then recovery, then my birthday, and the first two weeks just don’t really exist properly. And then this year there was the computer stuff, too. I’ll get to it next week.

To work! Which in this case is reading. And re-ripping the albums iTunes claims don’t exist. And there ought to be some more cello work, too.