Monday, January 12, 2009

Whiny Princess McWhinypants

Not once but TWICE! I have written big things in the last few days and then deleted them by accident. This working crap is not good for my constitution, not in the least. See? I said I would faint.

First this nice young man who is in love with my cat asks me to write down my STORY, because he is thinking of going to PhD school himself. And I'm flattered to pieces so I take all this time writing down my JOURNEY to graduate school and how it FELT and how I had so much ANGST and wanted the whole job thing to be so RIGHT and the answer to EVERYTHING like inner peace, loneliness, sexism, you name it. Then I LET IT ALL GO and decided I would have a GOOD LIFE no matter what even (especially) as a spinster cat lady and it was all COOL and then oop there came a fellowship so I went for it because who wouldn't want to live in Seattle for awhile? Kind of like an ADVENTURE and less like a CAREER move, which is biting me in the *ss a little bit now since apparently research PhD's are like some kind of national resource and the Federal gubmint actually tracks us like for LIFE and oh hai taxpayerz thnx fer payin fer mah skool. Obligation, giving back, blah blah. How about I give back in the form of the awesomest kid on EARTH? And make those taxpayers (or maybe a small table of their representatives? Like the Obama family?) some SOUP?

So I wrote the tome, my MEMOIR, which I'm sure he would have recieved uncomfortably with the too much information effect I seem to have on men as though I had offered to show my stretch marks or something--but I WROTE IT--and then in some fit of rushing away from my computer to soothe a waking baby hit "DISCARD" instead of "SAVE" and now it is gone forever into gmail heaven with all the other deleted emails. Prolly did him a favor but still. Crap.

And THEN I wrote this other thing, for bah bah WORK, all these thoughtful edits and deletions of the word utilize--THAT is a public service indeed-- and spent the whole afternoon on it--and let me just say that there is no evidence that my workplace is of the slacking off variety! Wha..?--and then I saved it and closed it and was about to email it back to the sender then uh oh I realized that I had been editing the thing right from the email and not from the properly saveable location so it was (as Hugo says) all gone! Bye bye!

And this is all not to be (too) whiny but mostly to say that I think all these deleted works are a SIGN that I am not meant to be doing any writing except in my blog and for that I should receive lots of money, adoration, and grapes.

15 comments:

Misty said...

if I could fit those three things into my comment I would... I hate it when i lose work...

Unknown said...

Your work file can still be retrieved if your computer hasn't been turned off. And maybe even then. When you opened the file from your email and saved it, it saved to a folder called TEMP. You can find the folder by starting to save an email attachment. Then go to that folder and look for files that were saved today (or whenever). It'll have a crazy file name, but it'll be there somewhere as long as you haven't rebooted. If you have rebooted, it's worth checking anyway.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

nice young man:
step away from the ph.d. trust me.
yours,
woman who uses her ph.d. to change poopy diapers

Jenn @ Juggling Life said...

Possible retrieval of brilliant work? I would definitely give it a shot.

smalltownme said...

I hope you can recover it.

Way back when I worked, I had an ancient computer that would randomly lose my files -- long detailed instructions on how to do things. Aaargh. And then I discovered the TEMP folder. Good luck with it.

Tania said...

Would you like those grapes peeled?

Mrs. G. said...

No doubt those grapes should be peeled.

Heidi said...

Ah I am just high from the buzz generated by my second offical day back at work, but it think it may be a sign to just (inhale) breathe (exhale) (maybe drink some wine)...then get back on the train.

Heidi said...

ps. I should have also comiserated (because I have done the same thing too many times) said that it SUCKS SUCKY SUCK to accidently delete stuff.

shrink on the couch said...

Um, stick to raising awesome kids?

Seriously, sorry for your bummer type written losses! you've earned a big, fat, chocolate chip cookie, I'd say.

Anonymous said...

I've written a gmail plugin called Seyonce that, if you close your eyes tightly and press Ctl-Alt-Delete, will retrieve your discarded emails from beyond the "discard" membrane.

Just post your credit card number and your ATM pin on your blog, and I'll send it to you.

JCK said...

Sending love, adoration and grapes - if not money. But, yes, you deserve buckets!

Oh...that is a ROUGH time of it. Happening twice!! I would be going nutso. You seem relatively calm.... So aggravating. I'm so sorry.

Angie McCullagh said...

Argh!! So frustrating. I'm sorry.

Katie said...

I have lost great works to the abyss of email and blog land. It sucketh to no end...

I would send you "peeled" grapes if I had them...

Minnesota Matron said...

Oh honey. The Matron has done this, too.