Electric Dreams

The T-1 is down in my office right now and I am bored. I’m shocked to realize how much I depend on the internet to do my job. Literally, all work has stopped for pretty much everyone because we all need the internet to do what we have to do today. We can’t send e-mail; we can’t access webpages—nothing. It totally sucks. This is a little disconcerting for me as I have recently gotten into the habit of priding myself on shaking my addiction to the internet which had plagued me for so many years.

You all remember how it started. I was 18 going on 19—a deprived child who grow up with very little TV, no video games, and an obscenely out of date computer which I used only to play Tai-pai. Then (magically) an internet capable computer appeared in our home. It seems my mother finally decided to get us out of the dark ages and buy something that was made after I was born… and so my love affair with computers and web design began. It was a budding romance full of mystery and excitement. I was timid at first, it was my first time, you know. But soon, I pushed my inhibitions aside and opened myself up to it… a Gateway desktop.

You know, now that I think about it. It wasn’t all that romantic. I mean yes, it was exciting to discover something I had heard some much about, but never experienced, but we have to remember—that Gateway was a hand-me-down with a modem connection of about 28kps, a 1.5 gig hard drive and a virus that fucked up my new computer once I upgraded (I had to reinstall windows from scratch). I mean yeah, it did what I asked it to do as far as design was concerned. It put up with the freaking irritating geocities web-builder. It stayed up with me until the wee hours of the morning, and sometimes longer, when I was violent with inspiration and couldn’t sleep, even if I tried. It was there when I immersed myself into the cryptic world of html. It stored all my beginner coding pages, as cheesy as there where… I guess in all fairness, it was a 50/50 split between the good times and the bad.

Well, needless to say, the gateway and I grew apart. We ended things amicably enough. I mean… I kept the monitor, but seriously. I think looking back on my first computer shows how much I have grown as a person. My expectations have proceeded far beyond that 18 year old girl whose first website was about Star Wars and was hosted on geocities. I own my own domain now; I dabble in PHP and CGI… I am a survivor… a knighted warrior of the technology age! Well… that might be over stating things a little bit, but shit, I’ve paid my dues; I was in it for the long haul; I put up with a fucking 1.5 gig hard drive goddamnit! I deserve some mother fucking respect.

Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way, I can stop feeling so guilty about not putting as much time as I used to into this domain. I just don’t have the energy anymore. And, as I’ve stated before in previous posts, been there, done that with a lot of web stuff. I’m not the giddy young adult I used to be, obsessed with webrings and making the perfect Britney Spears layout (I hate her now). I’m just not in that place anymore. I want to be in that place. I miss it. It was very carefree. Then again, I didn’t have a job and rent to pay and bills to pay and a car note for a car that isn’t even worth what my mother paid for it. These things weigh you down. They zap your strength and make you realize how completely stupid you were when you were a kid and daydreamed about being an adult.

Like they say, ignorance is bliss… but only if you are sure that you’ll stay that way.