Took out my HP mainframe by simply clicking a link to instructions for my old treadmill. Evil afoot on the internet in the most innocuous of places. Wiped out all, breathlessly, everything.
But my fantastic IT guy has already started the rebuilding process. I do have 7 USBs of saved files over the years. My new poetry book is already printed. I have all my writing (all poems, etc.) saved including from 9 years of the main blog (though he put the blogs up and can restore them). In any cases, I have hard copies of my entries. I can still email and have all the addresses. None of the credit-card passwords were ever saved.
So, overall? Death certainly, palpably, momentarily, virtually, but the computer can be restored to functionality. None of my daily writing is lost.
(I did lose my saved audio recording, but fortunately, had committed all of these to CD, so these can be copied as need be: all my poem readings, readings with music, band work, live performances, etc.)
There is something to be said for NOT saving commercial passwords, to having copies of stuff saved elsewhere, and on hard copies that can be duplicated. And for having a reliable, wise, experienced IT guy in the family who can save whatever temporarily dead machine.
(written on an older HP Pavillion laptop; Ob-la-di….)
Update/next day: computer restored and up and running again. I’m lucky to have such a wise IT guy.