I'm not addicted, really I'm not!

I never considered myself particularly “wired”. I don’t glance at my cell phone every fifteen seconds, I don’t live with my IPod strapped to my arm, nor do I spend more than an hour a day on the computer—well, unless I’m writing. Maybe I’ll turn on the TV during the day, maybe I won’t. Social networking, blogging and e-mailing take up only a fraction of my time.

But take it away from me and I’m rampaging around the house flipping switches every half hour just in case it’s spontaneously fixed itself. Got home from a weekend at the farm and cable was out—my call to the cable company was met by an automated greeting which I’m paraphrasing: “Yes, we know, your cable is out. Did you hear the storms? We’re working on it”.

I couldn’t watch TV. Couldn’t cruise the web. I don’t even own a radio anymore because I always listen to streaming stations.

So I finished one novel and started another, listened to some CDs in the DVD player, and made a nuisance of myself with Comcast. They were fast, though. Twenty-nine hours after my first call (I won’t admit to how many I made) someone was on my pole.

This brings me to the challenge of my pending move—remaining a member of the critique group and starting Book 2 with Larry. I’ll be too far away to meet with them in person, so we’ll have to do it all electronically.

On dial-up.

Of course it can be managed. It’s not like I’m losing access to internet completely. I mean, people used to write books on typewriters, right?

We’ll do what we have to, but I’m telling you right now, I may become one of those weird people in the corner of a wi-fi restaurant, drinking coffee and pounding on my laptop because it’s actually faster to drive to town than wait for the computer to get online with dial-up.