2024-04-14: new (work) computer

my work computer has been acting up. we check: no updates in months. we try: a spectacular cascade of errors. i'm told it's probably time. we find me a new machine. it's, uhh, not underpowered. it feels like a brick. when it's powered up, the fan is a jet engine.

i guess my days'll be louder. i went in a couple days ago to swap machines and have lunch with my colleagues. this time, thai, all of us sweating by the end. watching our agony, a few fish from an aquarium behind the till, and a little girl (an employee's daughter?) colouring at a nearby table, glancing over occasionally.

on the drive in to the office, for whatever reason, we're talking high school. the three of us in our carpool from very differently-sized collegiates: graduating classes of 26, 200, 400.

and the talk of anniversaries, reunions. this year a major milestone for my class. i haven't heard anything about a reunion, though if there were one, i doubt i'd go. those years too unhappy, too tied-up in the worst month of my life, which was at the start, and which informed the rest of my time there. my colleague of the class of 26 people says they meet regularly, that everyone knows what everyone else is up to (as is the way of small towns). that prior to one of their reunions, one of the organizers tried to invite someone, only to find out, from his father, that it'd be unlikely he'd be able to attend, owing to being in jail for a triple homicide. i talk about the murderer in my own graduating class.

we talk about the sad similarities. how with enough people, statistics takes over.

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