The Lost Manuscript

So I was working hard on another creation, surrounded at my desk by a host of empties, evidence of a life lived through the amber haze of a light ale. Confined, now, to the cryptomaniac I’ve become, my attention centred onto a small screen, reflecting back all the sunshine I will ever see. Days roll by, interrupted by the obligatory drive to town to extract real fiat from the box in the wall to pay the cleaner, stock up on frozen food wrapped in microwavable meal-sized plastic containers, and visit the laundromat. An unexpected phone call splits the silence. I’m momentarily disoriented by the unheralded interruption to the splendour of my self-imposed isolation. A voice asks, “Is that Catherine?” I dribble a response. Realising it’s my bank manager, I struggle to adopt a suitable state of mind from which to deliver reasonable responses to avoid ringing alarm bells that might trigger the men in white coats racing to my rainforest retreat.

When you’re buried deep in the minutiae of blockchain technology, being an avid devotee is not quite the same as being an expert. My minutiae of blockchain technology is wont to have tragic consequences and deliver results quite unlike that of a tech guru. I have spent hours, no days, trying to run a PIVX wallet. It has cost me more in lost work time (though Steemit readers might be grateful for this neglect) than the income I might receive from proof-staking it. The earnings I might have captured on Steemit, though negligible now, will not be inconsiderable in the future, allowing for mass adoption arriving before mass ennui. (Channelling Shakespeare here, I am driven to invent words to describe a condition that predates dictionary inclusion created by the necessity of innovation, or is it the innovation of necessity? Whatever - words like cryptomaniac, proof-staking, etc. They are being patented and their use will require the payment of a small fee. Just send it to @katyclark. I’ll use it to buy beer for @haejin – or cut out the middle man, and just pay it direct if you like, but memo to say it’s from me, LOL.)

So a whole day has been eclipsed and still no operating V3.0.0 PIVX wallet. Hmm. I’m sure it’s a conspiracy. Nothing has gone right since the day I upgraded to Windows 10. I loathe it so much I’m tempted to buy an Apple. My first computer was an Apple iMac which came with a matching printer. Remember them? It was a pretty combo, with a bewitching little game called Bugdom. I think, from memory, I made it to the sixth level, effortlessly outranked by my children, mere toddlers at the time.

A few days after the incoherent conversation with my bank manager as I tried to switch seamlessly from computer issues to sensible conversation with resoundingly unspectacular results, I got an email to say my credit rating had changed. As I’ve never received such an email before, I went online to check. Sure enough, it had dropped 50 basis points. Serves me right for answering the phone in my pyjamas, not to mention, cryptomanic haze.

Which brings me full circle back to now. I was writing an in-depth, beautifully phrased article, with just the right amount of humour and gravity about an amazing new ICO I’d bought into. Between the self-indulgent delectation of admiring its perfection and the haste of racing it to my Steemit blog, for my grateful hoard of followers to devour greedily and act upon, I uploaded it straight to the website, neglecting to first save it as a draft to my hard drive. I clicked POST. The website went into a spasm …. and the article in its perfection disappeared. When the site reloaded, it was without the precious piece of work I’d slaved over and cajoled from the darkest recesses of my soul. That masterpiece has been lost forever. It’s gone to the same place as the 50 basis points of my credit rating, with just as much likelihood of returning.

.”

When I arrive at the pearly gates - I’ve only done two really bad things in my life, neither indictable, one being an act of omission which benefited another; and the second, a crime of passion, LOL, I recall the crime but not the passion and as I’ve endeavoured to make atonement for both, I’m reasonably confident of my eventual ascension up that ladder to the aforementioned pearly gates - once at the top, when they ask me, “Do you have anything to declare?” unlike poor Oscar Wilde, (gaoled when he should have been knighted and whose acquaintance I hope to make), who had only his genius, I will say, “Yes, I lost 50 basis points on my credit rating just last week because I answered the phone in the middle of a cryptomanic episode and was affronted by my bank manager wanting to know how I was going.”

Could I have answered my bank manager, “Yes, I’m working on my life’s great opus right now.”
Bank Manager: “Oh, and that is?”
Me: “Well, it’s a collection of writings on my Steemit blog which one day will make me very, very rich and easily able to meet all of my obligations in full."

Just give me back the points already. I'm sure even Vincent van Gogh had days like these.