I am awake at an ungodly hour — no coffee, just a crazy work ethic — to beat a deadline, which is roughly around dawn. Actually last night, but I told the editor I wasn’t going to sleep until this was done. Two computers decided to expire on me today (the third computer, on which I’m typing these words, remains robust, which I am thankful for, because this is somebody else’s). This has never happened to me before. In fact, I haven’t seen it happen to anybody. And I once worked at a computer magazine. Do you know anybody who saw all of their computers putz out on them in one day? I don’t. I mean, these are, for the most part, durable little machines.

I’ve told people not to give me their computers, because I am apparently the Grim Reaper of Technology. Touch me and machine will die. (As to the machines’s collective resuscitation, the problems were troubleshooted after pleas and profanity, both directed to the machines. It was bad DDR2 and a bad drive, respectively. Alas, deadlines being what they are, I can do nothing but write. I remain convinced that I’ll still be writing twelve hours from now.)

But seeing as how I’m working on a literary essay right now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t observe the passing of Ms. Elizabeth Hardwick, who I sadly never got the chance to meet.