Cleaning House
What is it about an empty house and rainy weather that brings out the cleaning bug? You should see the house now. Boxes are everywhere, that musty dusty smell in the air. I’m throwing shit out from college. Amazing how long some of it has followed me around.
One of those long-following things is the Mac I bought in college. I saved up for that thing for years, and my parents finally pitched in to help me buy it. The Power Macintosh 7200. It came with 600MB on the hard drive, 2MB of RAM, System 7.5, and a beige case. And I loved it. For years.
This is the machine I started Fray on. The machine I dragged into Cellspace in 1998 for Fray Day 2, dialed into the net via 56k modem, so that people could post. (There it is in the corner!)
And now it’s on Craig’s List, saying “make me an offer.” So valueless, it doesn’t even merit a minimum price. If no one emails, I’m gonna look for a charity to give it to. If that doesn’t work, it’s bound for a street corner, in the hope that serendipity will find it a home.
And it pains me. I know it’s silly to be so attached to a beige box full of outdated technology. But it’s not the box, it’s the memories. This machine has been with me in every house I’ve lived in since college. It’s been with me longer than any girlfriend, and almost any friend. It was there to see me weep from loneliness when the calendar flipped to 1996, there to capture my early journalistic endeavors, there when I had an idea for a site full of stories.
I can’t help wanting to add “Free to a good home” to the Craig’s List post.