It was a tough weekend for me and my dendrites.You know, dendrites? The pieces of your brain that get a workout when you do things that are difficult and boring and tedious - things you don’t like to do? You’re supposed to exercise your dendrites a little bit, especially as you get older, to ward off Alzheimer’s. But that means you’re to do math puzzles if you hate math, and do crossword puzzles if you hate words. Every time you do something that’s slightly uncomfortable mentally, your dendrites are doing some crunches or jumping jacks.
Last weekend, my dendrites went to boot camp. They’ve been holed up in their rooms for two days, nursing their wounds. They think we joined Fight Club. (But we can’t talk about it, because, well, you know.) They’re not speaking to me. Because I put them through the wringer by getting Lion, a new operating system for my computer.
You wouldn’t think that would be a bad thing. After all, getting a new operating system is like trading in your old, banged-up, crumbling-down, 2-year-old condo and getting a brand-new condo. After you get done moving all of your stuff into all the shiny new drawers and cabinets, it’s fun and exciting.
But nothing worked like it used to. Some things, like the cursor direction, was actually backwards. Where I used to move my finger down to move down the page, Lion wanted me to move my finger up. Apple said it’s better this way. Okay. You’re smart people over there, so I’m sure you’re right, but please tell that to my dendrites. Because they’re crying in their pillows. They want to go back to the old condo. We knew our way around there. We could walk through Snow Leopard in our sleep.
To make it worse, I switched Internet browsers on the very same day I moved into the new Lion. Firefox and I had been together for something like six years. But this past weekend we got into a huge fight, I said some things I shouldn’t have, and there was some irreparable harm done to our relationship. He gave me the cold shoulder (froze, actually), I lashed out, and, well, Chrome just happened to be right there. And my goodness, he was looking fine.
Before I knew what was happening, I had moved all my bookmarks out of Firefox and in with Chrome. Like any new relationship, it was so exciting. Chrome was so fast, so slick, so young. I felt like a teenager. I picked the colorful, cartoonish “Tema Inventivo” theme, and I smiled every time I looked down and saw my downloads conveniently at the bottom of my screen.
“Where’s the Google search bar?” I asked him coquettishly. He just winked. And then we laughed and laughed.
Meanwhile, my dendrites were struggling in wheelchairs. They start occupational therapy on Wednesday. They’re not happy about the move or about the new boyfriend, and are threatening instant Alzheimer’s.
I was telling my tale to a friend, who said, “Maybe you should try Opera.”
What do think I am, a slut?
