Tag Archives: internet

Aug 23 2012
12 Comments
Humorous, Modern Life, San Francisco

The Internet Doesn’t Need Me

Please?

A couple of days ago I moved into a less horrifyingly-dirty apartment, which is great. Unfortunately, there is no internet due to a freak accident. The good news is that we’re having a dude or ma’am come pour us some more on Saturday, but the bad news is that they’re coming on Saturday, not now.

I’ve been hooked on the internet ever since Mom took the sisters and me to the library so we could play Neopets for hours on end, pissing off people who were trying to look for jobs and/or porn. Just like many others from the I-Can’t-Complain-But-I-Still-Do generation, attachment to the internet characterizes my hyper-socialized existence. Smart phones are whipped out at every chance, email and facebook checked as routinely as blinking, and barrages of tweets barrel down our throats every other second. Much of what I call “work,” I do from my computer, and using the internet is my only hobby.

Living without the internet, albeit for only a couple of days, has forced me to adapt to what I used to believe was an untenable situation, and I’ve come to a startling conclusion, one that has rocked me to the core and that I can’t wait to forget.

The internet doesn’t need me.

Through my forced detachment, I found that because of the massive amounts of time I spend communicating and throwing tweets out there and cultivating facebook for notifications, I came to believe that people needed me to be out there talking to them, that things would go horribly awry if I weren’t there, that #searchingforemily would start trending if I hadn’t tweeted in x amount of hours, that my emails would pile up and every employer I ever contacted would get back to me and demand a response within an hour and then give up when I was incommunicado.

What I did find was a different situation altogether. When I made it to a café yesterday at 8:15 AM, eager to see what kinds of crucial communication I had missed, I found that not much had happened.  I had one personal email to respond to. Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t need the internet attached at the bellybutton in order to maintain relationships with people I loved, and that for the most part, things go on without me pretty well out there on the web. Most importantly, I learned that more internet does not mean better internet. It means more aimless wandering, the endless searching for the next shock or haha.

Will I take these lessons and make them a part of my life when internet does come home roost forever, or will I greet it and kiss it on both cheeks and say welcome dear one  I have missed you let us never be parted again? I think we all know the answer to that question. Things will probably go back to normal and I will waste time and not get enough done. But at least I know that I’m the only one that really cares.

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Jan 29 2012
4 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read

Captain’s Log: Return to Cairo

A fire roars in the captain’s quarters

I could do an obligatory post about returning to Egypt and re-falling in love with Cairo, but I saw a bare-assed man taking a dump this morning while walking back to my apartment, so I decided to delete that chapter of my return story.

Instead, I will tell a dark tale of hardware and how the fates conspired to make an Arabic student computer-less for an entire four days. This is my story. Some details have been altered to make it more interesting.

The Captain’s Log

“I’m pretty sure I left my converter at my apartment in Cairo.” I thought to myself while steering the Seamstress down a canal in Amsterdam. “Why would I take it to America? I don’t need it there.”

“Drevets!” the skipper yelled, “Let’s rope it up! Them tourists gettin’ more annoying by the second. I cain’t stand them much longer.”

“Right-O, skipper.” I said, “We’re here anyways. The pancake girls will be down soon with our snacks and then we can eat and get out of here. You know, I’ve got a lot on my mind nowadays, what with the winds and the endless darkness. Say, do ever remember me mentioning a converter, like for electronics?”

“No ma’am, captain. I ain’t never seen nothin’ of the sort.”

“Okay. Thanks, skipper. Well I guess we should get a move on, shouldn’t we.”

Later that evening, as I rested in the captain’s quarters at the Hilton Hotel Amsterdam, nursing a glass of whiskey with the hotel dog curled at my feet, the converter still occupied my mind. What had I done with it? Could I have left it in America?

My computer’s battery was not going to last long. I had already used it to help navigate the canals, since the last time I sailed those waterways was thirty years and a universe ago. Those were different times back then, different dreams. I sighed and took a sip of whisky. It was a long time ago.

I boarded the captain’s plane the next day feeling hopeful. I was, after all, a rational person. I was a ship captain, for God’s sake! They don’t just give anyone these puffy captain’s bloomers and special caps. The converter was in my captain’s apartment back in Cairo. It had to be. I was sure of it. My computer was functionally dead by now, and the prospect of a delayed revival chilled me to the bone, more threatening than the winter winds of Amsterdam.

I arrived in Cairo, was enveloped by its cloud and dusty musk. Taxi-ing across the city towards my captain’s apartment, I waited and hoped.

The taxi stopped. Five flights of stairs were climbed. A door was opened. Another door was opened. A light switch was turned on. A converter was not found.

It is not here.

It is not here.

It is not here.

The words echoed in my mind’s blackness.

I saw but did not see. I heard but did not hear. My computer stared at me, mute, a dumb beast. A light flashed on the router, the internet’s waves flowing through me. Yet I was cut off from the life blood. I exhaled slowly. “ ‘Captain’s Log: Return to Cairo’ will have to wait,” I said to myself, and I was completely alone.

End

Postscript: I bought a converter a few days later and it cost less than one dollar so I fully expect it to blow up and/or melt but, on the other hand, I have internet. Sweet, sweet internet.

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