Computerlessness

Due to a final complication with some inexplicable thing within Alice the Netbook, I am now a lonely lady sans a limb.

Things I do on Computer:

Write to friends. Write for myself. Write for Hai Davai. Edit for Hai Davai. Edit for friends. Submit personal writing to magazines. Submit resumes to potential employers. Track places to entreat for employment. Reassure parents I’m happy and healthy. Be reassured family and friends are happy and healthy. Read poetry, essays, articles, news etc. Half of my reading comes from the web at this books-are-heavy-and-expensive point. Watch movies as I fall asleep (stemming much lonliness). Watch movies as I laminate things (necessary, but tedious and long process). Listen to music. Respond to official things like “Please put my readjustment allowance in my bank account” or “I’d like cash in lieu of a ticket because I will fly home from Athens and not Chisinau”. Order said tickets. Assure my bank I am me and I live in Europe. Look for MA programs.

Life without Computer results in a shuddering stop to all these things but the listening to music (ipod with wall adapting charger) and reading (which suddenly is all I do).

Things I do more without Computer:

Tan with Bunica. Read Faulkner. Obsessively clean my room and office at school. Laundry. Collage. Look for a store that sells ice cube trays (seriously hard). Text. Tan with Bunica.

Writing has all but disappeared from the daily regime. Some weird stream of consciousness drivel comes out in my big notepad, and some observational bullet points get jotted as per norm in my diary, but constructed, well thought out poems, chapters, essays et al. seem to be wholly adapted to the speed at which I type. Or I have adapted my brain to work at the speed of my fingers. I’m not the fastest or most accurate typist, but I am a damn site faster than everyone in my village, and I think average for a Millennial. I learned how to type not in school, but in ICQ at the age of 15. Like secretary boot camp that was. Seventeen conversations at a time… golly.

So, it is sad, but it is like losing a limb. Not like losing a friend. I stopped calling inanimate objects names when I realized it didn’t actually help me with anything. I do however, refer to them as animate objects, just with very Moldovanesque, utilitatian names (our cow is named Cow, our mom cat named Mama, our kitten named Small because she is small) like Computer, Printer, Bed, Guitar. These are extensions of my consciousness now. I believe this is not strange. I believe most people my age do this and don’t realize it. I believe people younger than me will never question this.

When I talk to Maria about it she says, “This is why Moldova will be the best country in the world when the electricity and energy fail.”

I’ll be tanner after the apocalypse at least.