It's funny (odd), reading yesterday's entry, it looks like all I use the computer for is internet activity. I wonder why I didn't mention the games I play. I'm just a little concerned that after a couple of months getting through Half Life, and not knowing how close I am to the end, that I may have to go back to the beginning. I may lose the characters I've created in Diablo II if the solution to our current computer problem is a complete re-install.

Phillip and I both got an hour's worth of computer time at the Capitol Hill library yesterday evening. We also checked out some books. I selected a collection of short stories by Ralph Ellison. I was actually looking for Invisible Man. That's more in line with my current reading state of mind, although I am enjoying Doctor No.

"The good news," Kurt said last night, "is that your computer is just fine. It's only a software problem."

The bad news is that the software problem is keeping Windows from launching. The other bad news is that Kurt, after over an hour of working, couldn't pinpoint the specific cause of the problem. (If Kurt couldn't find it, I trust that very few people could.) He has several possible solutions, but he won't be able to get to it for at least a week.

I'm not suffering from computer withdrawal as badly as I thought I would be. I'm not into the internet as much as I once was - I read and write email, and read my favorite blogs, but that's about it. There are computers here at work that I can use on a limited basis, and there are the library computers. I can access my email from the web. I'll get by.

Still, I'm thinking about installing a firewall, and replacing the virus scan, on the laptop.

Our computer has been down since Sunday evening, and I don't dare use the laptop for internet activity, since the virus scanner isn't updated. (All I ever use it for anymore is Word and SimCity 3000.) Kurt is coming over tonight to have a look.

I had a dream this morning that our alarm clock was far away - so far away that I was worried that I wouldn't hear it when it went on. Then I woke up. It was 6:30, and I discovered that we'd forgotten to turn the alarms on last night.

On the 9 bus this morning was a girl named Lela, who I'd met at orientation class. She invited me to sit next to her. We talked about our jobs all the way to the Patricia Steele Building, where Lela works. We exited the bus, took a couple of steps, and Lela said, "All of a sudden, I don't feel well." I didn't think too much of the comment, at first. Then she stopped. She did not look well at all. Then she sat down - almost falling - on the sidewalk. I went into the building and found a security guard right away. I left, with Lila still sitting on the sidewalk, and with the guard calling for assistance on his radio.

I got to work ten minutes before the clinic opened. Our first patient had been waiting since 7:30 for his 8:30 appointment and upset that no one was at the front desk to check him in. He was a graduate student in Ethnomusicology - I know, because he left his business card with one of the night technologists. I work in a society that expects everything to be open 24 hours per day.

I've had a strange morning.