Where’s Steve Irwin When You Need Him?

January 16, 2008 – 5:13 pm |

Or, How I Spent My Internet Break, Part One of Three

Day One:

I expect Day One to be easy.  We have the first in a series of Fabulous Christmas Parties to attend as a distraction.

Major snowstorm hits.  Babysitter cancels.  We decide Hubs will go alone to the party.  I am home alone with sleeping kids on a snowy December night.

No big deal, I think, I’ll just catch up on blogs and in Face … Damn.   I try to remember what I was going to do with this time, but I end up curled up on the couch watching Sweet Home Alabama on cable.  I also flip to GAC.

Apparently, GAC has a market for products peddled by Billy Mays.  That guy needs to use his inside voice.   In other news, I find I’m still in love with Gary Allan, but think it’s a shame he’s always releasing songs like Airplanes instead of songs like Nickajack Cave.  But, what do I know.

Day Two:

I’m born again.  I wake up to more than a foot of snow, and I shovel.  If I were blogging togay, I would pen a witty, thoughtful piece about how quickly motherhood changes.

See, I Shoveled.  Alone.  Uninterrupted.  With three kids at home and Hubs away, I cleared the entire driveway of snow.  And while I shoveled, the kids played, and sledded down the hill in our yard.  Alone.  Unattended.

A feat of independence on this grand a scale is unprecedented in my 6 years of parenting.  I touch the light at tunnel’s end, and it feels snowy, cold and fabulous.

Day Three: (Don’t worry, I get less verbose as the time passes.)

I find that a personal internet ban is rather difficult to accomplish at work.  Skipping the procrastinative value of the internet at home is one thing, but at work?!  As I suspected, I am an internet addict.

Withdrawal sets in.  I shake.  I quiver.  I imagine intoxicating conversations happening in the threads of ALOTT5MA without me.  I envision new Facebook friends piling up in my cue, desperately wondering why I haven’t accepted their friendship.  I wonder whether Adam Bonin and Jennifer Weiner had their baby.

Just as I am about to break, to cave, to seize my mouse and storm back onto the superhighway, I get an e-mail at my work address that saves my life.

The e-mail, from new friend and favorite Thing Thrower Kate, contains cut and pasted portions from an ALOTT5MA thread about the movie and book The Golden Compass.

“I love this particular loophole,” Kate writes, “– given my total lack of respect for you not going to ALOTT5MA.  (You won’t go? Fine. I’ll just cut and paste the interesting parts in an e-mail.)”  Though I’ve never met Kate IRL, as they say on the Internets, given this grand gesture, we are clearly destined to be totally BFF.  I write her back and tell her so.

Calmed by a bit of the proverbial dog  that bit me, I set about doing actual work.  Also, I add “Determine whether author Jennifer Weiner recently gave birth,” to the homework problems for my Legal Research class.

Day Four:

God or Karma or Someone hates me.  Hubs got word from work he’ll be traveling.  I face another wintry weekend without the web and the prospect of attending The Second in a Series of Fabulous Christmas Parties alone.

Day Seven:

Because I am the nineteenth wheel at a party of our college friends, I volunteer to drive to the post-party festivities.  Friend D. starts talking about how we should run a Full Marathon in 2008.  Clearly recalling what happened the last time I drank with D., I dodge the decision and resolve to avoid consuming any intoxicating substances with her in the New Year.

Day 8:

I head to the mall for my first day of shopping.  First order of business – those fuzzy-lined crocs – as requested by my nieces.  Croc Store.  Sold out.  Shoe store.  Sold out.  Call around town.  All Sold Out.  Decide online shopping is an excusable exception to the moratorium.  Crocs.com.  Sold out.   Several hours and zero presents later, the panic begins.

Day Ten:

Anxiety has officially set in.  Not only don’t I have the coveted Mammoth Crocs, I have no idea what to get my own kids.  I ask them what they want from Santa.

“A snowboard,” says 6.

“A Little Mermaid dress,” says 4.

“Powers,” says Kong.