You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘internet’ tag.
Oh, sweet internet, hold me closer.
I missed you.
Several days ago, I knocked my laptop off the table, leaving it dangling by its mangled adaptor cord while I keened “Ohnoohnoohnoohno” and a random assortment of sounds usually confined to H.P. Lovecraft stories. Of course, ordering a replacement is a simple matter… although less simple if one’s access to online ordering has just been destroyed.
Now that my new adaptor has arrived and I’m reconnected to my usual web haunts, I am curiously aware of how constrained I felt when denied that access. No library catalog? No email? No Dooce or Mimi Smartypants? Indeed, I had to disrupt my schedule and spend several hours one day in the university computer lab to check my email, write several internet-deprivation addled emails in response, do some writing, some research, and generally catch my breath online. Simply being here in this nowhere that is my online neighborhood, I feel like I’m taking a deep breath after a cooling rainfall. It’s good to be back.
Last night, I was showing my friend J. the wonders of the web, including the modest glory that is macbebekin. I clicked the link to Chocolate & Zucchini, we marveled at Clotilde’s eloquence and charm (and in her non-native language, yet!), then I reloaded macbebekin, only to find it blank: title, links, and archives were all up, but the entries we had seen only minutes before were gone.
J. is not a computer user, so this experience reinforced any skittishness she feels about the mysteries of tech. She looked quite stricken, and I plastered on a calm smile while a cold twist of doubt climbed my ribs. Elli, I broke the blog. Do you still love me?
I checked MTs troubleshooting guide, secretly hoping to find a big, brightly colored BLOG ON/BLOG OFF button. After several minutes of head-scratching (and no button), I realized that it had been two weeks since we posted an entry, and the MT program/template/magic elves had probably chosen last night to move the old entries to archives.
I’m sorry, little blog, to have left you alone so long.
BlogFast 2004 is over! Am I done with finals? No. Have I finished my papers and study guides? No. Have I given up? Oh, hell, yes. Can I get an AMEN?
In the interests of full disclosure, I should add that BlogFast ended up being more like BlogRation, which doest have the same pithy sound, but which does conjure up images like WWII domestic propaganda posters, one of my favorite forms of graphic image. I think their main appeal for me is the acknowledgement, at long last, of the many roles that women play: we are shown as mothers, wives, homemakers, defense workers, and citizens. Also, look at all the pretty colors. Oooooh. Vivid.
Ahem. As I was saying, BlogFast would more properly be called BlogDramaticReduction, but that would be a mouthful. I did visit a few select blogs during the past week, but dramatically curtailed the surfing. Did it help? Hard to say — I found myself woefully behind schedule all week, and have only stopped now because my brain is threatening to leap out of my cranial vault if I brandish any more data at it.
Now that it is in recovery, my brain has evidently started a cleansing purge to remove all contaminating knowledge. I studied thoroughly, calmly, and meticulously for an anthropology exam on Tuesday, only to discover that the information vacated my brain Monday night and never did return. This is an experience I’ve not had before, and I didn’t much care for it.
So, it is midnight, I have an exam in the morning, and I have packed my books away and am celebrating my brain’s revolt with Ben & Jerry’s, because nothing says I give up quite like a brimming bowl of butterfat.
I had a dream recently in which I was surrounded by swooping fronds of blue underlined text. I kept tapping these words as they floated past me, convinced that they were hyperlinked and would take me to another, cooler dream. When they didn’t, I assumed that the other dreams were just loading slowly.
Elli
Elsa
