I went to Fry's Electronics today for the first time ever. My boyfriend didn't want to take me there until after we'd inherited a fortune from some little-known wealthy relative, not before, because he knew I'd go berserk in there and would want to buy every damn thing in the store; but he took me there anyway because I needed to buy a few Zip disks and a mouse pad with a gel wrist rest (I had to have one, damn it; my wrist was sore from playing Minesweeper for so long).

And, Oh... My... God.

That place is like Disneyland. You've got your appliances, refrigerators, washers and driers, stereo equipment, television sets, video cameras, telephones, components, music, office supplies, software, telescopes, computer equipment, and so much more! I tell you, it's like a huge underground cave of treasure in that store.

It's grand. So grand.

Grandeur: n. 1, grandness; illustriousness. 2, conspicuous splendor.

As for the Disneyland analogy, it's like going through Main Street, Frontierland, Tomorrowland--you name it; they even have the convoluted maze for the long line to the registers. It's amazing. I'll probably treasure that experience for weeks and weeks, until my next visit there. Thank God I bought a souvenir.

Oh! To be rich enough to buy all that luxury... *sigh*

Anyway, the entire time that we were there, I kept thinking about a new computer for myself. Their cheapest one there is more than five times faster than mine; I have a 100 mhz dinosaur with 16 MB ram, and for a mere $600 I could actually work on a computer that can keep up with me and my fingers. Joy!

Now, if only I had that $600 to spare... *sigh*

I have this insane idea that a new computer will solve all of my problems. I'm on a Mac G4 at work, and I have access to a scanner and the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, and QuarkXPress; it's so unbelievably frustrating to go home to my aging PC with software I could definitely live without and with hardware that's close to useless.

I often find myself wishing that my boyfriend was actually a sugar daddy with pockets deep enough to buy me a couple of servers, endless disk space and ram, processor speed up the yin-yang, and all the software I could ever want in the world. Whenever I hint at it, he says, "A screamer of a computer isn't going to solve all of your problems, you know."

Hogwash. "Sure it will!" I tell him, but he'll tell you I'm clearly insane; I'll believe anything that suits me because I'm that delusional.

Delusion: n. 1, a false belief. 2, a persistent and false mental conception of facts as they relate to oneself.

But I can't stress enough my frustration working with primitive tools. My desire to create is sometimes so strong, yet sometimes so thwarted by the lack of what is considered in the industry as standard resources, it's unnerving. I find myself browsing through computer catalogs and gazing longingly at the hardware and software packages, the prices of which are so ridiculous that my boyfriend merely rolls his eyes at them when I deign to show him the product photos.

Yes, I long for a new computer. I obsess over one.

Obsession: n. 1, excessive preoccupation with an idea or delusion. 2, the idea or delusion.

Would a new computer solve all my problems? I'm still a little delusional, so I'll tell you yes; but I'm also capable of being objective about myself, so I'll tell you, too, that I may be wrong. It would certainly solve the problem of my computer slows and my frustration with the lack of certain tools on PaintShopPro. It would also allow me to load up certain software programs that are currently sitting untouched on my bookshelf because they require twice the MB ram that I now have.

But I simply can't afford a new computer yet.

So in the meantime, here I sit, flipping through the pages of a computer catalog, daydreaming about my trip to Fry's, and longing--oh, longing--for a computer and software, all probably amounting to an obscene value of at least ten grand... and that would just be the beginning... But so what if I can't afford it? I'm sure it's worth any price.

...

Yep, I'm clearly obsessed.