aadler | (no subject)

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Today I’ll be focusing on various matters that pertain to my family.

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As soon as I found out that we’d been extended here at Guantanamo, I went to the PX and bought a new laptop. I’d been planning on something like that, but had thought I would wait till I was back in the States, to avoid the necessity of either transporting both or mailing one; knowing I was still going to be here awhile, however, I wasn’t willing to defer gratification any longer. I like the new system, but not all is rosy: I was going to pass the old laptop on to my son, but lately I’ve been having trouble getting it to boot up properly. I had filled him in on my plans, and he wasn’t offended at the prospect of me getting a new system and giving him my castoff — his attitude was, “I’m getting a laptop? Cool!” — but I hate the thought of handing over something that works only sporadically. Somewhere along the line, then, I need to find someone who can do a proper diagnostic.

My ex-wife (soon to no longer be so) is making a trip to Medjugorje, beginning weekend after next. She’s looking forward to it — regretting only that I can’t be there with her — and has promised she’ll keep a journal so I can get at least some sense of what it’s like. Meanwhile, she has an opportunity to move into an exciting new job: different city, but within the same system that has employed her for years now, meaning she’ll maintain seniority and continue to contribute to the same pension plan. Her job has been a severe stress on her lately, so this newest development is a welcome change.

Finally, my daughter mentioned last week that she had finished an original story, and was almost done keying it in. When she told me the approximate word count, I said, “Sweetheart, that’s not a story. It’s a novel.” Seriously; I have a paperback by Joe Haldeman on my shelf right now, and at the average words-per-page times number of pages, it’s almost precisely the same word count she named to me. It’s unlikely that she’ll have written at Haldeman’s level of quality, but it’s still an achievement to be marked.

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And that’s the state of things at the moment.