Anne Marie and I checked the iBook after letting it dry for twenty-four hours. The prognosis is better than we feared, but it is still not entirely good. The screen is no longer fuzzy, and we can access the Internet. Some of the keys aren’t working, though. The delete, Q, W, and 1 keys are all dead. It is as if the iBook had a stroke.

The iBook has been a good machine. We bought it in Rochester soon after I started my first tenure-track job. I wanted a new laptop on which I could finish my dissertation. I took that laptop to many coffee houses and conferences, including the one in Hawaii. It was on the iBook where I sent emails advocating for a different dissertation advisor. I used it to help me search for another job and update my CV, and I took it with me to the job interviews in Kentucky and North Carolina. I used it as my office computer during my first semester at HPU. Anne Marie and I used it to search for a new house. We brought it with us to the hospital when Cooper was born.

In short, practically all of the significant events of my life in the past five years have involved that iBook in one way or another. It represents an important chapter in my adult life. Now a new chapter is starting, one in which I start to lay down roots, raise my son, and produce new research. Some may consider this time the start of middle age. I think I will consider it “the age of the iPad.”