Sunday, February 08, 2009

the devolution of internet expression

In a word: Facebook.

Here's what life used to look like: I used to wake up around 8:30 or 9, make myself some coffee, and plop myself down at my desk with my feet up and the computer in my lap. First I'd check my sitemeter stats, then surf around some random, fluffy news sites, then I'd catch up with a few of my favorite blogs. And then, usually, I'd throw up a blog post of my own. Something would spark my interest in the fluffy news, or I'd wake up with some weird conundrum stewing in my mind. And I wrote about it. I didn't have to worry about dragging myself to work until the 3:00pm area. I truly lead a life of leisure.

Now here's what life looks like. I wake up around 7:30, drag myself to work by 9 most days (via the bus, which takes about 40 minutes one-way), I work until 5:30 or 6:30 depending on the day, I drag myself back home (via that same effin' bus) and get home around 7ish in the PM. At home I find my wife and my dog and any number of little chores that need attention. And it's winter right now, so it's dark. Maybe I do the dishes, throw some dinner together, drink a beer, drink another beer, drink maybe one or two more. Watch t.v. with the wife. Pass the iPhone back and forth with a game of scrabble on it's tiny little screen. Her mind is numb from work and school, my mind is numb from work and from missing the best part of my day, my morning.

Here's the internet part: I pick up her computer (b/c mine bascially doesn't work anymore) and check my email. Then I navigate directly to... Facebook. Because I can enjoy Facebook even in my mind-numbed state. Why? Because there are pictures! And very brief notes on my "wall." And cute little invitations to be a vampire or join the mafia or whatever. There are memes, just like in the blogosphere. But it's all so much easier. My status report is the most creative thing I write most days. Used to be ten page blog posts that possibly noone bothered to read entirely. Now it's generally one brief sentence, always with the same structure: "Dawn is..."

"Dawn is having a beer and playing scrabble with the wife."

"Dawn is wishing Barack would take off his shirt..."

"Dawn is thinking she caught that cold that's going around! OMG!"

I mean, jesus. This is what it's come to.

But I love my wife and I love my dog and I even love my job, most of the time. My only problem is the timing of everything. If I didn't have to work 40 hours a week, if I could go in to work at noon every day and still get off no later than 6? That would change everything.

But you guys are all probably tired of me whining about the same things over and over. If you were on Facebook you'd be able to get a much more palatable bite of me.

3 Comments:

Blogger heather said...

i used to get on facebook once in a while...but the people at my work were all over it, and so it ended up sucking me in. does it help that i can be snarky or witty and get a badass comment thread going? oh yes.

11:41 AM  
Blogger south carolina boy said...

Rachel It took all the motivation in me to get out of bed and go after those two chapel credits this morning...and i'm writing it down!17 minutes ago - clear

8:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't know what I'd do without my mornings. I didn't have much of a morning before I broke down and bought a car. Now, it's a worthy sacrifice.

I get up at 6:00 in the morning, get ready, take care of the dogs, take Miso for a walk, eat breakfast, and spend an hour writing morning pages. I leave for work by 8:30 to get to work by 9:00, which works out perfectly. Of course, I usually get out of work by 5:30 which means I have more evening time to spend with Agent. I'm asleep by 10:00 every night.

Without this time in the morning, I go a little nuts. This is my time to do whatever I want and to start my day with good footing. It's when I'm the least numb and I like to take advantage of that for myself instead of giving it all over to my job. Every once in a while Agent gets up too and she makes us breakfast and sit around talking. That's the best.

2:40 PM  

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