R.I.P. IPOD

Oh my god.

I decided, this week, after circumstances unfortunately led to my missing a couple of days of my caffeine regiment, that I'd quit caffeine. I'm not a big caffeine drinker - a coke a day, maybe two. When I don't have a coke at lunch, I get a headache. I used to have three cokes a day, and I decreased it to one after I went to a dentist appointment. In the dentist's building was a sleep clinic. At the time, I was having difficulty sleeping so I grabbed a pamphlet while I was there, which stated that any caffeine after 6pm can contribute to poor sleep. So no more coke with dinner.

Anyway.

I got a Minute Maid cranberry-apple juice for lunch yesterday that I didn't finish. I brought it back to work, took it out of my bag, and put it in my desk drawer. Upside down.

I was talking to Mother on the phone yesterday when D appeared and said "Are you ready to go?" I was confused, as D was supposed to call me from his apartment and I was supposed to meet him there before departing for the party. He explained that the phones weren't working. He was newly showered and cute and wanting to leave, so I quickly finished with Mother, grabbed my juice, put it in my bag, and we were off!

About two blocks away from work I said "Weird... my pants feel wet...."

It occurred to me, instantly, that the juice had spilled.

I frantically, without even telling D what was going on, started going through my bag and grabbed my IPod and put it on the ground. I then looked for my phone and put that on the ground. I made little piles on the sidewalk of things in priority of tragic loss - wallet (dyed red - I love this wallet), makeup, vicodins (shit! dissolved!), phone, IPod. There was a pool of cranberry juice in the bag. "I don't know what to do," I said in a panic.

I just didn't know what to do. My bag had a pool of cranberry juice in it that I didn't want to dump on the ground, and everything I owned was red. The damage didn't seem too bad. D, ever calm, said "Should we go to my apartment?" "YES!" I declared. D said that he would be doing laundry on Saturday, and that he would wash the bag and the wallet. He called N to tell her we would be late to the party. While he wiped down credit cards and Yoda, I tended to my cell phone and IPod.

I turned both on to make sure that they still worked. They did!

I carefully wiped IPod and went to turn it off. It wouldn't.

It didn't turn off.

In fact, it didn't do anything.

It was stuck on Most Serene Republic. I just stared it. The I pressed more buttons. Then the screen started to go.

"D, I am going to go to the Apple Store right now. I have to go. Just go to N's. I'll see you tomorrow."

"No, I'm going with you!" he declared.

I grabbed one credit card and IPod, and ran. Of course it started to rain. Neither of us thought to bring an umbrella. I wrapped IPod in my hoodie and wanted D to scream "Woman in labor!" so we could get to the Apple Store sooner.

When we arrived, I was nearly in tears as I looked for someone to help me. The first employee I encountered was of no use, and said "You have to bring this to the Genius Bar, which is closed right now because Spike Lee is here tonight."

"I don't give a rat's ass about Spike Lee! Aren't any of these genuises around somewhere? Can't they just tell me if IPod is going to survive!?" He wouldn't help. He said "You'll just have to bring it here tomorrow."

"No, you don't understand," I said. "I need to figure this out NOW."

A female employee saw my being hysterical and offered to help. She said the situation was bleak, and decided to plug in IPod at one of the docking stations to see what would happen. When she plugged it in, it shut off (forever) and actually got the plug in. She said "I can actually see the water in the screen." You can see the water in the screen.

She said "Let's bring this up to the Genuis Bar and see what they can do."

The Genius Bar, of course, was open, and a bunch of people looked at it and basically there is no hope. None.

Now.

What am I upset about?

1. The money. The MONEY. If I was in Boston, no problem. I'd have a spare $400 and I'd just buy another one. $400 here is another story. There is not $400. I was saving (saving, ha!) money to buy a nice SLR after Christmas with special lenses etc. But no! Now I have to decide between an IPod and a camera and last night D asked me if I wanted to go to London and I guess the answer has been decided for me.

2. Fucking New York. Seriously. This wouldn't be a travesty anywhere else.

3. The music. No, folks, I don't have my 40 gig of music on my computer because its 40 gig! I need all of the memory I can salvage to record millions of tracks for the songs on this blog. So no, I don't have a backup. The loss of the IPod is not only a loss of $500 (it was $500 at the time) but a loss of over a year of man hours of ripping CD's and then putting them on the IPod. I have no time to do anything. When am I going to put all of those CD's back on the IPod, especially when I have unreliable stolen internet? I can't type in the track names for all of these CD's! I just can't do it!!!!

4. Right now, I am freaking out because during my spring cleaning I threw away my ancient discman because I was like "I'll never need YOU again! Mwa ha ha!" so now I have no way to listen to music at all. And its the weekend. And my projects involved running around the city taking photos while listening to music. It's going to be a silent weekend, and that breaks my heart.

The female employee suggested that I take the IPod home and dry it with a fan and then try to hook it up later.

We hurried back to D's. On our way, D said "Hey - I think your phone is ringing. It's vibrating..." He was holding it because I was cradling IPod in its hoodie bed. He handed it to me, but it wasn't actually ringing. It was vibrating as part of its death dance.

"Fuck," we both said.

The phone got steadily worse over time. Every time I dried it and then turned it on again, there would be a different problem. One time none of the buttons worked. Another time the buttons worked but all of them led to Text Messaging. Sometimes it worked but I couldn't access the phone numbers.

Now it has nothing. When I got back here late last night, it worked fine technically but couldn't get reception. Then, at some point in the night, it just gave up. Did I write down phone numbers before this happened? Nope.

I am supposed to go to a party tonight with D and he didn't tell me where or when it is because he doesn't make plans, so I guess that's not happening unless I can get a new phone today.

Which I will, and hopefully it will take the card from my old phone, which hopefully isn't totally destroyed.

Because I haven't made a list of phone numbers in two years, which means all of my New York plans are a wash this weekend if I can't get the phone to work with the old card.

Shit.

So fucking irresponsible. This is what New York does to me! This never would have happened in Boston. Never. I am always so frazzled and insane here and have no idea what's going on.

OK. I must go and continue to upload CD's onto my harddrive in the event that I do get another IPod.

Sniff.

I miss you, dear IPod. We had a good run. I'm sorry.