Chronically Awkward

[Insert story of me explaining how I definitely can't help because they never did business with us, it's not now, never has been and never will be, our fault - and her having none of it]

Thank you for getting your Tomb Raider skills on point climbing up to my balcony and letting yourself in & not making a mess - so considerate.

Seeing as you took it upon yourself to steal my beloved huffy of a laptop I feel like I should tell you a bit about her. Me and my homegirl have been through a lot together. She was the first laptop I ever bought with my own money when I was 19. And being a Dell she was well into the mature stages of her life when you decided to snatch her up!

If my laptop were a person she would be that 50 something divorcee character in a movie/tv show with no clue trying to get back in the dating game - looks old fashioned, slow on the up take but still good fun with a heart of gold once you get to know them.

À la Blanche Devereaux

Or she would be that kid with a head brace, glasses & asthma, prone to multiple allergies but still DFW when the time came to go hard.

I remember fondly every blue screen when she would crash without warning, every time my DVDs would fail to play, movies and shows would play half-way then buffer for the rest of the night or just fail to load. I also remember how I was still able to play all my games and faithfully watch Netflix with minor - yet still frequent - interruptions.

Also, thank you for teaching me valuable lessons. I would have loved it if my PSHE lessons in school were spent focusing on how insurance works, whether you live with people or not, rather than how to "run a household" (covering the chores & skills I had been taught by my parents by age 13):

Lesson 1 - don't ever assume your landlord has your back. However nice they are - don't mess with that money honey, it's every owner for themselves.

Lesson 2 - Always insure your own. (Lone in the wind tumbleweed) You will get left with nothing while those you live with will claim their things back shortly. 

How you look when you hear the story and you find out they didn't have insurance....

Lesson  3 - A torch - not a bat/knife/hockey stick as I was trained - is your physical insurance aka self defence weapon. (Thank you CSI man for that valuable lesson)

Lesson  4 - Don't expect the police to be able to help you...in winter. Expect them to be late, to tell you all the ways anyone can break in whatever you do or don't do, that it's a shame, and to call them if another crime occurs before moving on.

Steve = how me and my housemates felt when the officer left.


Lesson 5 - It's cold. Thieves wear gloves. No prints people. So other than taking notes and sending you a courteous but pointless letter, there's nothing else eventful in the process.


While I'm so very annoyed that all that antivirus protection that kept her alive & pulled back from the brink of death is now wasted on you, it's better this way. And since you were bright enough to leave the charger behind I hope the most you get for her is a bag of crisps or you end up using it as a door stop this Christmas. I've been assured you are an opportunist, agile, but not very bright so hopefully she won't get you too far in life.

I am not a great candidate to be robbed, we both lost out in this case burglar-man, you just took a shoddy but sentimental machine off my hands. I'm just sad about my iTunes & photos to be honest. I curated those bad boys for years.

Guess I can finally start that MacBook fund. So thanks for that.

Yours,

A nolaptop having-still smiling-still winning-soon to be new laptop owner pending Christmas 2017. With her own home insurance & big fat torch waiting to shine a light on you should you try to hit me up in Old Trafford again.

So keyboard, thou hast been warned, prepare to catch. these. fiery. hands. 

Politics

On a serious note though, as daunting as this reality may seem, it has had a highly significant (not sure if positive is the right word) impact on everybody. People are talking, and mobilising - but they're doing it smart! All across the media - not social, all the celebrities are just posting crying pictures after seeing their sphere of influence fall flat, unable to fill the gap and make people like Hilary (I didn't realise it was that deep!). I digress, all across the media, news anchors, talk shows, radio shows etc are using their platforms to discuss navigating this way of life. Through community, solidarity, organisation, preparation & education. I'm here for it, and I hope it works out, I really do. It's always better to rise up out of despair than settle for and anticipate defeat.

Also. The debates have been going OFF  all over my news feeds! And I love it! One thing's for sure if you press something enough, juice will come out, and people are showing their true selves all over the place. I know a whole bunch of you socio-politially minded individuals where just waiting, for people who have been on your questionable posts/tweets/status/snaps watch lists to come out and say what they really think. 

And now you might  find yourself looking at people, and your un-follow button, a little differently.

Clearly, people got what they wished for. For me, this is almost better than TV, that drama is fake, this is real people & real life, not a reality show  we are off script now boo! All you humanities and sciences students ho had no idea what your next essay, presentation, dissertation was gonna be on, you're welcome. The effects of social media, the Ellen show, celebrity endorsements, feminism, misogyny, racism, sexism, the justice system, ethnic diaspora, community, access to voting, legislation, population, class, you name it. It all played out in front of you, your research is every news item & talk show over the past 6 months, you can even try to forecast the next 4 years. Congrats on that 2:1 babes.

All in all, [perceived] villains are a part of life. And they sometimes rise to power. I highly doubt America will need to go through a revival of the French revolution x3 to get through this. We gotta have more faith than that. Actions speak louder than words so let the final say of the vote be what it will be. 

I believe God can do anything at the end of the day which is more than throwing a complimentary Phaedra Parks "fix it Jesus" on the situation. I have faith in the American people I see in all these inspiring videos of schools, campuses, places of work, communities etc to really get things moving and make sure they're part of the process shaping the nation over these next four years, rather than cry that they couldn't stop it. And when elections come around again, they'll be ready. 2020 bout to be L-I-T. 

Minor Life Update:

All London logic and reason upon deciding to live & work in Manchester:

me & my two faithful readers

Anyone who doesn't know why I called my blog Chronically-Awkward that can only mean one of two things:

 Don't believe me? Well look, this person is my friend, but even typing I get myself into awkward situations. This time for the whole of social media to see.

Here's a comparative analysis (or maybe not, I'm just throwing around words I vaguely understand - practice for when I go back to writing essays at uni) to prove my point:

Me

My Friend

I'm as awkward as a bald headed step-child at a family reunion. 

Oh well. 

It's Friday today, so on to the next.....