Well, maybe not love exactly, but I am pretty darn pleased.

Last month I splurged and bought myself a laptop. One of those teeny tiny ones. It has a 9″ screen and weighs less than 2 pounds. It fit’s quite comfortably in my cargo bag along with a sketch pad and a box of pencils and erasures.

It’s a PC, not a MAC which is weird for me. I have been using a MAC since the late 80s, almost as long as the personal computer has been around. But I had to purchase a particular piece of software and wouldn’t you know it, they only make it to run on a Windows machine. So I took the plunge. I bought the software in June and the PC in November so it wasn’t a very hasty plunge, but for me that is moving at lightening speed.

Last night I took my tiny little lap top and a WIP that needed editing and went upstairs and stretched out in my bed! To work on edits! In complete comfort in my PJs. Yup, I’m in love.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The PC came with some bundled games — one of which is pinball. I’ve loved pinball ever since I was a little kid. Some of my fondest memories are of the time I spent on the New Jersey shore. When I was a young kid my grandfather worked on the Lakewood boardwalk. He had a candy shop there. And not just any candy shop mind you, but one that people came from around the country to just to buy up his handmade chocolates. Anyway, once a week, I would get to take a little red wagon filled with soda syrups around the boardwalk making deliveries to all the shops with soda fountains. I’d get a nickle for each delivery. When the wagon was empty and my pocket full of jingling change, I was allowed to venture into the arcade and play any of the games there I wanted until the nickles ran out. My favorite two were skeet ball and pinball. I would hit the pinball machines first. I got really good at them by summer’s end and managed to keep my ball in play for a long time making my nickles last. After half the nickles were gone, I’d head over to the skeet ball area. If I was really careful and scored high enough, I’d end up with a huge handful of tickets. If I had enough tickets, I could pick a prize from the coveted top shelf toys. Funny thing that. I don’t remember a single toy I picked but I do remember the joy of being able to say I had enough tickets for them!

Anyway, pinball on a lap top isn’t quite the same as the old arcade, but it sure beats a stick in the eye any day!