Around the end of December, my phone, which was at that point closing in on 4 years old, finally died. It took me until mid-January to get it replaced because apparently Verizon is stricter than the people who sell cigarettes about whether you actually have a valid, unexpired ID. (Longtime readers will know that I don't drive, so it hadn't been a huge priority to get it replaced). On the day I finally managed to get a new phone, I didn't have the cash on hand for a good case, and I managed to drop it and shatter the screen within 6 hours of bringing it home. There isn't a Verizon store that does on-site repair anywhere in my area, and I determined that taking it to a local repair place would be faster and easier than purchasing a protection plan and replacing the whole phone. The repair shop quoted me a rather alarming place, but told me that I could almost certainly find a screen myself cheaper, at which point they would only need to charge me $40 for labor. I made two attempts to order a new screen online, neither of which was correct for the phone - the first was basically a piece of glass and they needed to replace the whole LCD setup, the second was ever-so-slightly too large, being designed for a different model. At this point, I returned the second screen, waited for it to be refunded so I had enough money, and took the phone back to the repair place, where I paid a mildly alarming sum of money for them to order the new screen themselves and install it. By this time, between online orders, waiting for refunds to go through, and a few days of research and indecision between each step in the process, it was almost March, and I'm sure you can see where this is going. The repair shop ordered the new screen, but like so much of what we buy and use in the US, those screens are made in China, so there were delays. When it got to them, it turned out to be slightly the wrong model (the same one, in fact, that I had ordered myself a few weeks prior). They tried again to order to correct part, but before it could arrive, they were closed as a nonessential business in Delaware. Now, a little more than three months later, they ought to have reopened. I will be checking in soon to find out how much longer I will be waiting for a working phone. This story has not quite reached its conclusion, but now that we are entering its final chapter I felt it appropriate to tell it, to offer some explanation for why I haven't posted anything in six months, and to give some updates on how my extended phonelessness will affect things here at Mint and Brambles.
First and most significantly, the old-model iPhone, which does not have a phone plan, that I've been using for email, web browsing, and FB Messenger since May cannot run 10,000+, Audible, or the Blogger app. Sitting at the actual computer to work, especially in the winter, is difficult and often painful for me, and this is the largest single reason that I haven't been posting at all.
Without 10,000+, I have not been able to reliably track my reading or writing time, so the time goals for this year have been cancelled. I might meet them or not, but with a 6 month gap in tracking, there is no way to know for sure how much time I have put in. Similarly, writing time from the past 6 months, and until I have a real phone again, will not be counted towards the 20,000 Hours Project. The writing itself still exists, and that will have to be enough.
Without Audible on my phone, my ability to listen to audiobooks has been similarly curtailed. That's why the Dresden Files full series reread hasn't started yet.
That project is absolutely still on, and it is my hope and expectation that the first installment will be up before Peace Talks comes out.
Also yes, obviously yes, the fact that this technological disruption coincided so closely with COVID has been a factor in why I haven't been able to work around it more effectively. If you get anything from this other than "So
that's where he went!" please let it be that
this is okay. It's okay if you weren't as creative or productive as you wanted to be during the shutdown. It's okay if you
still can't be as creative or productive as you'd like now that we're all supposed to resume business as usual when the threat level hasn't actually decreased. It's okay if your productivity or creative process is dependent on your tech, and a broken laptop or a lost phone can completely throw you off your game until it's dealt with. We're all doing our best here.
Be gay, do crimes, and read ALL the things.
