I am a fucking idiot
I am a fucking idiot.
I'm OCD. I joke about it, but I'm serious. My OCD doesn't show up as repetitive motions or actions. It shows up as a precise orderliness and organization that only makes sense to me. One of the ways this shows is in how I read fic. Years ago, I got tired of not remembering if I'd read a WiP or not. So, I created a list. The first lists were very basic. Title, author, addy, rating, very brief comments to remind me of the fic. Then I gradually added details. Things like fic summaries (the original summaries given by the author, or my own very general fic summaries when the author didn't provide one), more detailed comments (the comments now are basically summaries themselves of the fic to date), date fic was last checked, chapter I left the fic on (this was one of the first additions I made to the old lists, for obvious reasons), fandom, and list of characters in the fic, usually done in pairing format.
It looks something like this.
Title:
Author:
Addy:
Fandom:
Rating:
Characters:
Summary:
Comments:
Date last checked:
Last Chapter:
That is now the bare bones format for my WiP lists. And even still it sometimes isn't enough info to jog my memory of a fic. But most of the time, it is.
I have a WiP list for most of the fandoms I've read from Buffy on up. To give you an idea of how long I've been doing this and how many lists I have, I was in the Buffy/Angel fandoms just before, during and several months after Angel Season 5. Which, if memory serves, was the 2002-2003 season. I've been in roughly half a dozen fandoms since then, seriously enough to read the fic and keep lists on them. Occasionally I'll wander into a fandom I like, read a fic and if I like the fic enough, I'll make a list just for that fic. It all starts with one fic.
If I am bored, and there are no current fics I'm reading, I'll skim the list and check up on whatever fic strikes my fancy. If it's been updated, I'll update it's entry. If not, I mark the date I checked it and move on.
I slacked on my lists while in the SGA fandom because everyone updated fairly quickly and the WiPs were very few and very memorable. With the SPN fandom, I started back up on diligently keeping the list. I have one file for each fandom. The SPN WiP list was a 47 page document with about 36 of those pages actively holding entries. The other 11 pages were just blank entry forms. I had over 180,000 words making up just over 2500 lines. This translates to roughly two or three entries per page. Making the number of entries no fewer than 72 and as many as 108, give or take. I shit you not. Fic that finished, I changed the font from black to red, but they remained on the list. I was gonna move them to their own list someday, when I got motivated enough to do it.
Oh, you've noticed my use of past tense with regards to the SPN list, have you? Allow me to explain why.
Victor, my laptop, is in his death throws. For the last month, at least, he's been randomly going into Blue Screen of Death. Sometimes as often as three times in half an hour. Once, he did it three times in ten minutes. He is dying. I realize this, but I want to use him as long as possible before switching to a desktop.
He gave me the BSoD roughly two hours ago. I was in the middle of updating my SPN WiP list. There's a fic I've kept in tabs that I've been procrastinating adding to the list and I was finally doing it. When it brought up the option to recover the file, after the reboot, I clicked it. Except, it brought up a blank doc.
Here is where my brain temporarily went offline and I was possessed by a brain dead technophobic amoeba.
I saw that it was giving me a blank doc instead of my SPN list. I'm a lazy creature on the best of days and I didn't want to redo one entry. ONE. FUCKING. ENTRY.
So I saved it and closed it.
*waits for everyone to stop facepalming and headdesking and otherwise expressing their disbelief for how monumentally retarted Toni was*
I tried to recover the old file. I searched through the .tmp files. I searched through the recent files. I looked in my external HD to see if I saved a copy there. I looked in a USB I have recently acquired to make sure I hadn't saved it there. I have never emailed the file because I'm the only one who is interested in it. I do not use GoogleDocs. I discovered that the AutoRecovery setting in Word 2007 was not activated. There IS no way to recover the file.
I did notice something odd. When I went to Save As, it said the doc was now Plain Text, when I'd been saving it RTF. Once, when I very first did Save As, then asked to open the original file, it asked how I wanted to open it and gave the coding options. It hasn't since and I have a vague suspicion that it might fix the file if I could do that, and knew what to change it to. Because now it gives a blank doc that is still 47 pages long and still has all of the stats for the original file. When I highlight the doc, I get blank blue highlighted blocks of nothing. Yet the cursor moves each character, as if there IS something there.
I fucking sobbed my eyes out for an hour straight when I realized what I'd done. Devastated doesn't even begin to cover it. I know it seems trivial, but to me, order is everything. Everything in it's place and all that. I lived by that fic list. With that list of fics, how the fuck am I supposed to know what I'm reading, where I am in what fic, or what's happened in what fic at what point? There's gonna be dozens of fics I'll drop now, not because I'm not interested, but because I either forgot I was reading them, or I forgot where I was and don't feel like rereading the whole epic thing. I am literally lost without that list. I can't even bear to look at the fic tabs I have up in firefox. I tried to read a one off but I can't. I had to stop and go play a java game because I started crying again. I have a crying headache, and folk know that only happens with intense, extended crying. I...I have no words for how much this has...."upset" me. There isn't a word in the English language for my emotional state right now.
I know some of you are wondering why I'm so torn up over a document, and that I'm over-reacting but...to me, this is like losing a 1000 page thesis and having to start from scratch. 180,000 WORDS, lost. It was longer than most of the fics on it.
I have to go because thinking about it is starting up the waterworks again. Right now I wish I fucking drank. If I didn't have work tomorrow, I'd be sorely tempted. I'm sorely tempted now.
I am a fucking idiot.
I'm OCD. I joke about it, but I'm serious. My OCD doesn't show up as repetitive motions or actions. It shows up as a precise orderliness and organization that only makes sense to me. One of the ways this shows is in how I read fic. Years ago, I got tired of not remembering if I'd read a WiP or not. So, I created a list. The first lists were very basic. Title, author, addy, rating, very brief comments to remind me of the fic. Then I gradually added details. Things like fic summaries (the original summaries given by the author, or my own very general fic summaries when the author didn't provide one), more detailed comments (the comments now are basically summaries themselves of the fic to date), date fic was last checked, chapter I left the fic on (this was one of the first additions I made to the old lists, for obvious reasons), fandom, and list of characters in the fic, usually done in pairing format.
It looks something like this.
Title:
Author:
Addy:
Fandom:
Rating:
Characters:
Summary:
Comments:
Date last checked:
Last Chapter:
That is now the bare bones format for my WiP lists. And even still it sometimes isn't enough info to jog my memory of a fic. But most of the time, it is.
I have a WiP list for most of the fandoms I've read from Buffy on up. To give you an idea of how long I've been doing this and how many lists I have, I was in the Buffy/Angel fandoms just before, during and several months after Angel Season 5. Which, if memory serves, was the 2002-2003 season. I've been in roughly half a dozen fandoms since then, seriously enough to read the fic and keep lists on them. Occasionally I'll wander into a fandom I like, read a fic and if I like the fic enough, I'll make a list just for that fic. It all starts with one fic.
If I am bored, and there are no current fics I'm reading, I'll skim the list and check up on whatever fic strikes my fancy. If it's been updated, I'll update it's entry. If not, I mark the date I checked it and move on.
I slacked on my lists while in the SGA fandom because everyone updated fairly quickly and the WiPs were very few and very memorable. With the SPN fandom, I started back up on diligently keeping the list. I have one file for each fandom. The SPN WiP list was a 47 page document with about 36 of those pages actively holding entries. The other 11 pages were just blank entry forms. I had over 180,000 words making up just over 2500 lines. This translates to roughly two or three entries per page. Making the number of entries no fewer than 72 and as many as 108, give or take. I shit you not. Fic that finished, I changed the font from black to red, but they remained on the list. I was gonna move them to their own list someday, when I got motivated enough to do it.
Oh, you've noticed my use of past tense with regards to the SPN list, have you? Allow me to explain why.
Victor, my laptop, is in his death throws. For the last month, at least, he's been randomly going into Blue Screen of Death. Sometimes as often as three times in half an hour. Once, he did it three times in ten minutes. He is dying. I realize this, but I want to use him as long as possible before switching to a desktop.
He gave me the BSoD roughly two hours ago. I was in the middle of updating my SPN WiP list. There's a fic I've kept in tabs that I've been procrastinating adding to the list and I was finally doing it. When it brought up the option to recover the file, after the reboot, I clicked it. Except, it brought up a blank doc.
Here is where my brain temporarily went offline and I was possessed by a brain dead technophobic amoeba.
I saw that it was giving me a blank doc instead of my SPN list. I'm a lazy creature on the best of days and I didn't want to redo one entry. ONE. FUCKING. ENTRY.
So I saved it and closed it.
*waits for everyone to stop facepalming and headdesking and otherwise expressing their disbelief for how monumentally retarted Toni was*
I tried to recover the old file. I searched through the .tmp files. I searched through the recent files. I looked in my external HD to see if I saved a copy there. I looked in a USB I have recently acquired to make sure I hadn't saved it there. I have never emailed the file because I'm the only one who is interested in it. I do not use GoogleDocs. I discovered that the AutoRecovery setting in Word 2007 was not activated. There IS no way to recover the file.
I did notice something odd. When I went to Save As, it said the doc was now Plain Text, when I'd been saving it RTF. Once, when I very first did Save As, then asked to open the original file, it asked how I wanted to open it and gave the coding options. It hasn't since and I have a vague suspicion that it might fix the file if I could do that, and knew what to change it to. Because now it gives a blank doc that is still 47 pages long and still has all of the stats for the original file. When I highlight the doc, I get blank blue highlighted blocks of nothing. Yet the cursor moves each character, as if there IS something there.
I fucking sobbed my eyes out for an hour straight when I realized what I'd done. Devastated doesn't even begin to cover it. I know it seems trivial, but to me, order is everything. Everything in it's place and all that. I lived by that fic list. With that list of fics, how the fuck am I supposed to know what I'm reading, where I am in what fic, or what's happened in what fic at what point? There's gonna be dozens of fics I'll drop now, not because I'm not interested, but because I either forgot I was reading them, or I forgot where I was and don't feel like rereading the whole epic thing. I am literally lost without that list. I can't even bear to look at the fic tabs I have up in firefox. I tried to read a one off but I can't. I had to stop and go play a java game because I started crying again. I have a crying headache, and folk know that only happens with intense, extended crying. I...I have no words for how much this has...."upset" me. There isn't a word in the English language for my emotional state right now.
I know some of you are wondering why I'm so torn up over a document, and that I'm over-reacting but...to me, this is like losing a 1000 page thesis and having to start from scratch. 180,000 WORDS, lost. It was longer than most of the fics on it.
I have to go because thinking about it is starting up the waterworks again. Right now I wish I fucking drank. If I didn't have work tomorrow, I'd be sorely tempted. I'm sorely tempted now.
I am a fucking idiot.