Severed Cable

12:45pm Wednesday July 27, 2005

The internet has been down at work for a day and a half. I am composing this post in a word document, to be pasted into blogger’s window whenever the system is back in working order. I am discovering a few key things with this sudden removal of web access. I enumerate a subset of my findings:

1.) I use the internet A LOT. Like, really. A LOT. I click the refresh icon on my yahoo mail account at least once every half hour, when not engaging in work-related or social (gasp!) interactions at the office. The internet is like a drug for me – a means of catching my breath, meditating, taking a break from the hard work that is thinking. I look up everything that comes to mind: how IS beggar actually spelled?; where can I find a Team Zissou-esque red knit cap?; what time do I have to leave the local BART station in order to get to the CalTrain on time?; what number do I call to request refills on my prescriptions?. Without the internet, I’m a fish out of water.

2.) I actually use the internet for reasons other than personal ones. Like today – I really need to look at a map of the MUNI transportation system because I’m assisting on a project on transportation and health in a particular section of the city. Can I access a paper copy? Not so easily, seeing as how the bus system keeps the location of map purveyors completely on the D.L. (Spice?). The MUNI web site has a very convenient PDF document of the entire bus system. I can even zoom in on locations of particular interests. But can I access this document. NO! THE INTERNET IS DOWN!!

3.) The only – or primary – way I interact with friends and family is through the internet. I owe several people a note. Like, for example, our very own Spice, who left me a phone message the other day. I need to tell her I plan to give her a call soon. This would be SO easy over e-mail – just type a quickie between tasks. But I cannot. For all I know, she thinks I’m ignoring her (unlikely). I also owe an e-mail to my mom who hasn’t heard from me in a while. She assumes it’s because of all the time I’m spending with Jiggity (an accurate assumption), but it would be nice to let her know I’m doing fine.

4.) I have become frighteningly dependent on my daily tour through the blogring. Like, right now I really really want to know more about Japanese toilets from Sophist, how many movie extras Spice interacted with this morning, what athletic gear J.Bro purchased over the internet, Grrbear’s recent activities with the GF, and how many more reasons TOWWAS has come up with to not blog. But I am without this information for now. I am faced with the reality that the blogring serves as a replacement for my non-existent social network during my time spent at the office. Someone should do a sociological study on blogging, by the way. I’ve definitely noticed that everyone in the office is interacting more with one another today. Weird.

What the hell did people do at work before the internet? They probably did work. Or chatted about Taxi over the water cooler.

It’s now 4:15pm. We still don’t have internet access. I don’t know how to handle this situation!!!