The Cusp of Calamity

For about a fortnight I’ve been going through withdrawal. I wake up in cold sweats. My hands shake constantly. Migraines wrack my brainpan. I have no internet. My computer, ancient and overheated, collapsed of exhaustion two weeks back, and the only replacement I have is my fiancé’s old desktop. Her machine won’t connect to the internet. I cannot satisfy my gaming needs. I have clocked over twenty hours of Solitaire and Minesweeper. Some nights, I sleep walk and awake in my computer chair, staring into my beautiful ViewSonic 23 inch. The experience hasn’t been without benefit, though. Biking to campus to check e-mail at least serves as good exercise.

Okay, so most of the above is fabricated. No sleep-walking, no withdrawal symptoms, and not nearly that many hours of Solitaire and Minesweeper (although I’ve still logged an embarrassing amount). But I don’t have internet, and I’m pining for my new machine. The whole ordeal has quite quashed my romantic desire to retreat to a log cabin in the remote north to read and write in solace and comfort, in commune with nature. I’d die or go loony in the first month.

My predicament has enlightened my perspective though. It has given me insight into the inequities of the impoverished. I can empathize with greater compassion their need for networked libraries or community centers; I can appreciate their need to plan days around trips to those places with net-access.

However, the end is in sight. Tomorrow my new computer will arrive, glorious and triumphantly, to rescue me from my squalor. It is a bold, hardy machine, worthy of the cost I paid. When it arrives I shall embrace it lovingly, install my software, and then race to make up for lost time. Pray I don’t die of fatigue.