Steve Jobs is Haunting My Laptop

I write in bed with exactly 3 pillows; two for my lower back and one for my upper back so that there’s a slight recline to the set up. I stick my feet out on the bed and rest my laptop on my lap and type until one of three things happen. 

First, the noise from the other room becomes unbearable. My son has taken to tormenting the dog with his interpretation of what Godzilla sounds like. A metallic shriek. My husband attempts to correct the sound, to which I smile. I only taught Gavin how to do this horribly inaccurate sound because I knew it would drive my Godzilla-fanatic husband crazy that Gavin is “doing it wrong!” Now, I’m paying for it, as I cannot concentrate with the sounds of gargling gravel, which is what my husband’s corrective version of Godzilla sounds like. I put in headphones. 

I pound out another 200ish words before my laptop, a 4-year old dinosaur (and might as well be a typewriter for technology’s sake) burns a hole through my yoga pants. I cover up the scalding patch with pillow number 4, which I keep next to me for this anticipated reason. Sometimes my archaic school-provided laptop blacks out entirely, succumbing to heat exhaustion. Meanwhile Steve Jobs rolls over in his high-tech grave.

I restart the damn thing and go again. Gotta meet that thousand word goal or the writing gods or muses with abandon me for Stephenie Meyer. Again. 

Then, when I’m at a word count of 891, my daughter bounds in onto the bed declares something inaudible, b/c all I can hear is Weezer’s serenades and the muted tap tap tap of the keyboard. I can guess what’s she’s saying though. “I’m hungry, Mom.” Because even though we already fed her dinner, and she ate 2 full helpings and dessert, Elayna always expects Dinner 2.0.

And that’s it. Session over, whether I like it not. Because Hungry Elayna is worse than if Godzilla had shown up at the back door.