A blanket fort filled with forgotten totems

The massive computer that normally sits under the desk in the junk room and helps to heat the entire street was picked up by a courier this morning. We won’t talk about how much it cost me to insure it - I’m glad I did though, given the way the driver threw it first at his own feet, and then into the back of the van. I wonder if he knew quite how valuable its contents were? Or if he would care that his actions could cost his job if the insurance has to be activated?

It’s quite depressing really - that posting a computer requires not only backing up it’s entire contents, but also insuring it against the very people that you are already paying through the nose to safely deliver to a destination.

Madness.

Anyway.

Given that I have no pretend aeroplanes to occupy myself for the next few days, my attention has turned back to the re-invention of youth and the Commodore 64 I talked myself into ordering.

I imagined the Commodore would take a month or two to arrive on my doorstep - given the breathless experiences of others. You can imagine my surprise then, when my phone pinged this morning informing me that said computer would arrive tomorrow.

Tomorrow! (cue coat hanger smile)

This is where I admit to perhaps pre-empting its arrival - such is my idiotic excitement - with a series of purchases that lean ever further into bashing the same dent in the universe. I’m not entirely sure if I’m running away from the world, or building a blanket fort filled with long forgotten totems.

Is it nostalgia? Perhaps. In the same way that pot-bellied middle-aged men drive the sports cars they pined over during their youth, and women of a certain age fixate on a particular “look”, I’m returning to the foundations of my involvement with the digital firmament that now surrounds us.

I don’t really have a reason, other than perhaps a strange siren song of sorts. Can an inanimate piece of hardware call out? Maybe it’s the idea that calls out. Or the memory. I don’t know.

Maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe I don’t need a reason either.