Internet Junkie

I think the stage after internet withdrawals is lovely.

Here's how you get there...

Thanks to somebody who is thoroughly sweet and well-intentioned, but unfortunately rather, though not completely, ignorant (just as one example - the housecleaner who can't remember the house alarm code and completely screws it up, leaving multiple wiring problems in the house), your internet doesn't work and you have no way of fixing it...you must simply wait for the person in charge of your particular network to decide (i.e. realize it's important enough) to fix it himself.

However, in the meantime, you aren't completely lost, because only the downstairs bit of the house doesn't get the internet - it still works upstairs, so you can still check your email at least once a day (even though you can't blog much, talk to people on Skype or IM, check your favorite web comics, use Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, or dictionary.com, or just sit and rapidly click your Stumble button as your eyes glaze over - which, interestingly enough, falls fairly high on your list of favorite things to do).

So immediately after the appalling truth sets in - your internet days are essentially over - you go into dramatic withdrawals...

You break into a cold sweat whenever you think about it...

You repeatedly turn your computer off and back on using various methods including the restart option, the "turn off the computer" option, and even the power button on the computer tower, in a desperate but obviously-futile attempt to make the internet work again...

You unplug the computer and plug it back in (while it's off, of course...though obviously if it had been working before you turned it off...)...

You do the same with the network cord...

You pace the floor, returning to your computer often to see if it has found its connection yet...

You decide that life isn't worth blogging about if you have to do it upstairs in the dead of night and then wait until the next day to go back and tweak everything multiple times, as you are used to doing in the comfort of your own room...and you write down the things you mean to tweak, including the punctuation (over which you've been mulling), so that you won't forget it while you sleep...

You write down your blog posts on paper so that when the time comes, you can type quickly instead of using blogspot the way it was meant to be used...

You decide that reading books has never really been a good way to pass the time, an idea that goes against your very nature...and four days and three James Rollins novels later, you are still thinking the same - though, inexplicably, you also think that possibly a couple thousand thrill-seeking Clive Cussler pages might change your point of view, which you contemplate reading simultaneously with Gone with the Wind...

And you watch hours of back-to-back episodes of the fourth season of Desperate Housewives, but every bit you hit pause to go restart your computer all over again...

You sms friends during the day to ask if you can come over "for thirty seconds" to check your email because you "just know there are loads of important ones piling up"...and when you do check your email, it's mostly spam, but at least it's off of your mind for about half an hour...

But you do think about it all the time, even in town and on the bus...

Using non-bad - yet fairly adequate - explitives, you curse your telephone because the bill for calling your family in America is getting higher and higher, and you long for the days of Skype...

You find it terribly inconvienent to edit your thoughts before you speak, since you can no longer just hit the backspace button...

You try every possible way to repair your internet connection, but to no avail - you click the button over and over, hoping against hope that thirty seconds down the networking road won't again leave your computer screen saying things like, "Cannot connect to network," and "Could not renew your IP address..."

You go upstairs and reset all the network boxes you can find...

And after a few times of that not working, you decide that it's worth trying again...

...and again...

...and then one last time, at least until tomorrow...

And then you basically repeat the entire procedure, switching up the steps, all the while realizing that you're pathetic and that intensive therapy might help you cope.

But after the withdrawals are over, Freedom herself comes to claim you...

You leave the downstairs computer off for days a time, realizing now that your life-source is not somehow tied to your internet connection...

You read whole books and manage to imagine the literary person you will become because of embracing your new freedom...

You talk to your sister again for the first time in a month...

You realize that the friends you talked to on the computer didn't sustain you...and that (previously the unthinkable) you will make it if you go a whole day without discussing your life with people who live thousands of miles away...

You tell all your friends who had been letting you check your email that they were right - that your life is better now as a result of less internet, and that you appreciate them now more than ever...

You start volunteering in local soup kitchens...

You learn to think before you speak...

You sleep better (and more) at night, thereby becoming healthier overall...

Your love for life deepens with each passing day - and as the need for the interent releases its hold, you realize that life has never been so worth living.

Essentially, you begin to blossom...

Unfortunately though, this is not about you...

...it's about me, and that last bit is thoroughly hypothetical...

...I'm still in withdrawals...

...and also unfortunately, I gave up exaggeration for Lent...

Pathetically,
That girl in Switzerland