I couldn't do it. I couldn't leave the Internet.
More importantly, I decided that I would be better off not doing it. Not this week, anyway.
I am terribly isolated, in many ways, and Live Journal and Blogger, not to mention other weblogs, provide links to the world of adults.
The isolation is a result of a combination of factors, some cultural (nobody around here knows their neighbors very well, me included), some health-related (I suffer from fibromyalgia which this summer has at times made it painful to even move), but mostly this week logistical: my husband was called away to Cleveland unexpectedly on business, and the live-in babysitter (a.ka., the angsty teenager; a.k.a., the not-so-little Drummer Boy) is at Band Camp. (No, I haven't seen American Pie, but I've heard about it.) It's just me and two pre-teen boys. I am not, for example, able to go do my weekly volunteer stint at a local arts agency, nor am I able to join my friend Carol for coffee. I love my sons, but I need to converse with adults sometimes -- even if it is electronically.
The pre-teen boys decided as well that twenty dollars was not enough of an incentive for them to give up all electronics for a week. We all agreed we would talk about this again after school starts, when there are more stringent restrictions on television and video game usage anyway.
I feel rather sheepish. I do not feel particularly ashamed, however.
It was interesting to me too, how much I need the Internet for mundane things: I originally broke my "no Internet" pledge because I had to go online to get information about the high school band. I also had to go online to check my calendar, and to find benefit information for my health insurance policy. Once online, the siren call of the weblogs was simply irresistible:
It will only take a second...I won't read any of the comments! Just Adventus, and the Mad Monk, and Fred over at Slacktivist, and of course, check out the big political dogs, Atrios and Digby....
Erm. Yeah. And then once I read, it was... I need to write about this...
Well, it's true. I don't know how to quit you.
What you need pat is a good conspiracy theory to help you out. Try this one:
ReplyDelete"Bogger Guilt" is a virus downloaded onto the net by multi-nationals and their lackey governments.
Multi-nationals - because "if you're blogging, you're not shopping."
Governments - because the accumulation of random information by individuals - information over which governments have no control, is incredibly dangerous for any government that wishes to control the minds of people (for example - every government).
Of course, pat, this is a load of garbage. But it's high quality garbage, and as good a reason to keep you online as any.
So please, no more talk of going back to the real world.
Ooohh, I like it.
ReplyDeleteAnd actually, governments should tremble at the rise of blogging --- there is a reason Pakistan blocks Blogspot. When you have people reading firsthand accounts of what is happening in Baghdad, they are less likely to swallow the bilge handed out by the American government.
Welcome back. It's as if you never left.
ReplyDeleteActually, I only left for... um, 72 hours. : )
ReplyDelete