Which came first, the Karma or the Egg?

I am half-way through working on a manuscript, and I am literally nodding off, drooping over my computer. I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night. I got up around 7 a.m. because Christian spent the night with his father last night-- so no insulin or finger pricks this morning. However, I am dismally tired. I've been a little headachy the past couple of days (and today) and sluggish, very tired, so I haven't been running. I would really like to run today, but I think I am going to have to take a nap this morning just to get through the rest of my day. I think I am fighting off a little bug. I know there is one going around (when isn't there?). It could also just be exhaustion from an emotionally draining weekend. Even though I run and I'm feeling a lot better these days, I am still not very resilient. Don't have what my ex used to call that "hearty peasant stock" constitution. I am a delicate flower. (That is an inside joke: My father always used to tell me that I am no delicate flower, nor am I docile.)

Yesterday was sort of exciting: My MacBook Pro had a seizure and started making a clicking noise while flashing scary screens at me.

I manually shut it down and turned it off, and then it did this: 

Then it wouldn't even show me that much: Just blue screen of death with multiple vertical lines doing down the screen. I tried several times to restore it, after turning my house and studio both upside down looking for my external hard drive so I could back up new music and the most recent documents I hadn't had a chance to save yet. Of course, the stupid hard drive was in my laptop bag, right where a good little external hard drive should be. I didn't remember it being in there from my trip, though-- I usually try to take out everything except what I will really need, to save my back. (Funny, I never had to do this in my twenties...)

So, after hours and hours of dead computer, I decided that I better just order a replacement. This time, a Dell. No more Macs for this girl. Not intuitively a Mac person. I am a Windows, and I am OK with that. 

So, I ordered the Dell, nothing fancy, got the really, really, really super awesome advanced warranty program so if Aliens come down from space and shoot my computer with water guns, Dell will replace it. 

After we picked up the other two boys from their dad's, they wanted to see what my computer was doing, so I pressed the power button (without it being plugged in). It made a horrible noise and wouldn't turn on. So, I plugged it in and tried it... And I'm using it right now... It works again. 

I immediately backed up EVERYTHING. So, now I am wondering: Do I cancel the Dell order? What is wrong with my computer? I got this screen once on Monday morning when I was still in Utah, but I didn't have time to think about it then. Is this going to happen today? Tomorrow? Is this a video card, a RAM, a hard drive problem, or just a loose cable? How do I know? And oh yeah, Apple won't make their people work on the computers of people who SMOKE anymore, so what if I take it in and they say, Oh nonononono, we are not going to look at this. We might die of cancer if we look at this. You know. In 50 years. 

There are two competing truths here: 

1) I have been wanting this computer to die so I could replace it since, oh, um, I got it. 

2) It is really, really, really inconvenient to buy a new computer right now during Tax season. April truly is the cruelest month for the self-employed. I got a huge whopping check in the mail today, and every penny has to go for taxes. That is brutal and heartbreaking. Especially because our ROOF is FAILING. The new roof we got last year with money from the grant from hell. 

In a moment of schadenfrade, I actually laughed the other day when I was grousing about the guy who did our roof, and Dereck told me, "Well, his house burned down, if it makes you feel any better."

I mean, of COURSE it doesn't. But I did laugh.