cyber ennui

march is a terrible month, filled with terrible essays on terrible subjects. so far this month, i've had to write on spider-man (okay, that was cool), a bunch of dudes who liked rocks way too much for their own good (17 pages later), and how violence is inherent to man (THAT one really made my head hurt). and i have essays on the sound and the fury and the history of paint to keep me warm for the next few nights (for realsies). the history of paint, for christsakes.

strangely though, as i search for any distractions possible, the internet isn't fairly good at giving me the goods. as previously posted, my favourite videoblog ended, and i now i feel a big ze shaped hole in my daily diggs. msn messenger is handy, but no one you REALLY WANT to talk to is ever on when you want them to be on, and for the most part, i talk pretty regularly to the people i talk to anyway. and facebook seems to have lost its unholy power to inspire serious procrastination, because to be perfectly honest, most people are just as boring as i am. some even more so, which is surprising (but really shouldn't be). hell, i even joined a sleezy dating site, not for all of the fine fellers in high supply, but to laugh at the creeps who message you (and trust me, there are a LOT). and it wasn't funny, just mostly depressing about the state of the majority of society cruisin' the singles market. i don't know if i can overstate how appetizing that is. blergh.

i've just realized that i value real world stuff much more than anything the web has given me lately. i like reading books rather than computer screens, like conversation over coffee more than conversation over my wireless router. everything has become so goddamn easy and fingertip accessible that i want it to get a little harder, a little more time consuming, a little more tangible. i don't want to focus on cultivating my cyber persona because the best things about myself don't translate very well into html, and i have a feeling that it will become an increasingly important thing in the future.

doesn't it sick you out that if you meet someone you like, you've either already seen them on facebook or you try to find them immediately afterwards? where's the mystery in that? do people not enjoy slowly getting to know one another anymore? do we really need cheat sheets on our favourite cultural products?

but you need to play the game to be in the game. which fucking sucks.

oh, internet. you strip us down and fill us up in such delightful ways.

amanda

dear lord, consider essay writing pre-internet. pre-computers. scary, isn't it?