Sarah’s been having problems with her computer, so at my insistence that it would fix all her problems, I tried to guide her through formatting her computer and reinstalling Windows XP. She didn’t get far, but far enough to completely erase her hard drive and find herself unable to install Windows. The setup kept throwing an error about being not having enough memory to verify the format, but it would continue, but then it would throw an error every time it tried to copy the initial files for Windows setup. I’ve seen this sort of thing before, as a fucked up burn of a Windows CD will cause it, or a slightly wonky CD-ROM drive will cause it, but the point is: it’s not something I can fix from 400 miles away.

Now I just feel like crap. I destroyed our most consistent and reliable form of communication, and something she relies on to get through her daily life, and there is no way for me to fix it. I have school the next three days, and then work on Friday, so I can’t even pull an emergency drive up North to try to fix her computer for her. The next planned trip isn’t for another three and a half weeks. I can sit here and burn setup discs and copies of software and collect spare CD-ROM drives all I want but it doesn’t do any good.

I feel like a piece of crap. I am a lousy boyfriend.