Just a huge manatee

So, I set myself the target this weekend of trying to sort out the huge messy dump of files that Rubato, my external hard drive, has turned into, mainly so that I can just take my laptop (whose name is Fortissimo, but it seems a little overly faggy to KEEP referring to my technology by name...) with enough music on it to keep me going and not have to worry about leaving important things behind. Unfortunately, I was not counting on two things: the sheer scope and implications of my messiness, and the nostalgia which looking at old computer files brings.

The messiness is probably the bigger problem, to be honest. Whilst I imagine that most people quickly learn that saving all of your documents to the default location with the default save name is not a clever idea, it's never quite sunk in with me. This means that I have 3 separate folders (2 on Rubato and my current hard drive) which are just basically large disorganised time capsules with every single document that passed through all mixed into one. There are *attempts* at organisation (usually by labelling a folder "wank" and throwing everything older than a certain date into it) but they don't stretch very far, and really only amount to labelling a folder "wank" and then throwing a few old things in it. Oh, and there are some schoolwork folders, but yawn.

And as for nostalgia... well. The first folder starts in year 13, and into China, including several frankly painful letters to people written around November when things got Bad, and also the infamous MSN conversation between Jenna MacBitch and her retarded friend. Incidentally, a hint for the future: if you're going to tell outrageous abusive lies about your housemate on their own laptop, *don't* save your chat logs. Second one, after the Great April Crash and subsequent Day of Fun in Chinese Computer Lab, starts with the photos off the back of the trip (I wasn't writing anything by then, too busy living), into the drafts of We'll Meet Again (working title: Alternate Ending), hits my break-up with Alex and the subsequent outpourings of rage, and then has all the Network and Sequel (my kinda rubbish NWF entry) drafts and most my NaNo novel. Then Cadence the wonder-machine breathes her last, and I mature in time to start filling this hard drive with slightly less morose wacked-out crap and significantly more dubiously titled DOS games. That's maturity for you.

Also, my 17-year-old self's Livejournal is saved on the first one. God help us all.

Anyway. My point is this: if I were really to refile all of this, how would I even start? Either I could put EVERYTHING into one big file labelled "wank" and let the 18-year-old relationship drama rub shoulders with the culture shock and the early drafts of apocalyptic Hull without any real regard for filing, or I'd have to devise some sort of epic filing system to ensure that everything is preserved in context for future incarnations of me to periodically look back and wince at- livejournal entries and all. Given that Rubato's not the quickest of machines, and everything is saved either as the first line of the file itself or as something cute like "a letter of wankiness" with no clue as to which aspect of wankiness we are talking about, the latter would take a long time, but the former... well, I'm just not sure that counts as tidying, really. No matter what I may keep telling myself. So, Rubato is staying as is, and I will survive on the music of my 4-gig MP3 player for the duration of my DC stay. Better to preserve history and be musically challenged than the alternative... and besides, I survived on nothing but China pop and High School Musical after the first Cadence crash. All will be well.

(Incidentally, there is no spotify in America, is there? Shit.)

From one sort of nostalgia to another, I have rediscovered my camera after a photographic absence of about a year and have been using it to record deeply exciting stuff like "where I live". Or, more accurately, "where I've lived". Alas for the realities of past tense.

(These pictures are small 'cause that's how they uploaded them. And it's not like you would get much more out of the bigger versions...)

Here is my lair, before I had to take all the posters down in order to bring them home (which I spectacularly failed to do... oops). Looking tidier since the piano left. Also I took all the lightbulbs out of the bed.

And kitchen. Daniel Craig is visiting with his tiger, as you can see.

Next I decide to go for the whole "knock on people's doors and take surprise photos of them" thing. Amyus reacts well...

Alex: Did you really knock on my door and come into my room and photograph me whilst I was sleeping, or did I just dream that?

Adrienne: No, that happened. I'm going to upload it to the internet!

Alex: Great. Thanks.

Adrienne: *True to her word*

Despite appearances, Ben actually prefers me bursting in his room to take pictures to all the other things I burst into his room to do. Like running in, screaming "THE FLOOR IS LAVA" and jumping on his bed. He doesn't like that one much at all.

And of course no album about the Greeks would be complete without a corridor shot.

Back in Offord, on a *proper* river. Because the Great Ouse is a proper river and the Thames is not. That is the truth of the matter.

Dog walking for Father's Day... I love you Cambridgeshire. You and your brown scrubby pancake flat fields.

Keah does not like to be photogenic. In this way we are alike.

Soggy doggy.

Aaand here is where I spent my teen years before I fucked off to Xinjiang. It has been Tidied, which makes me vaguely uncomfortable. And I will not be spending enough time here this summer to sort it out again. I am slowly but surely Moving Out... what an odd feeling. Soon my parents will probably paint it yellow and refer to it as a guest room.

I leave you with this fact: Philip Reeve brought out a new book and it is great so far. I love him. The End.