Kicking Frustration Out of My Way

Today is not starting as well as I'd like, so I'm taking aim and kicking the frustrating out of my way. And mainly, that is all computer stuff.

I tell you, if it weren't for needing an email to do quick correspondence, I'd be sore tempted to rid myself of the internet altogether. Sure, blogging is fun, but its been sporadic of late, both the ones I write and the ones I read. Email is fun to check, but usually its just my daily doses of newsletter stuff, like the weekly weather updates and my notes from the universe (which I do love) and the Ideal Bites on green living. Pretty much everything else is just time-taking stuff, like cruising through cool merchandise sites that encourage me to spend money (I ordered toys yesterday) or reading up on news I'd rather not read anyway, just because its there.

Which explains why I haven't been online much at all lately. No Messenger, just online once or twice a day to check email and cruise blogs. If I leave the computer on, I end up checking email everytime I pass (though if I checked earlier that morning, that's pretty much it for the day). I can feel myself slowly phasing out of the internet altogether and while I'm sure writer who depend on internet connections would poo-poo this, I can't help but feel that this is a much better state of mind for me to be in. I think if it weren't for my daily newsletters and blogging, I wouldn't be online much at all.

Which makes me think . . . would that be so bad? So far, I've gotten more writing done by not doing it on the computer. Can't surf the net as a distraction if there is no internet hooked up to your typewriter. My procrastination now end with clean cabinets and organized files rather than three hours wasted online with nothing to show except three lost hours. And nearly 75% of my stress comes from the computer. The antivirus won't work, the monitor freezes, the Word doc closes on me . . . I can't think of anything else in my life that causes me as much regular frustration as the computer does.

So I find myself getting away from it more and more. Thinking about how easy it would be to just pop down the hill and check email from the library computer. How much space I would have in the sitting room if we got rid of the computer desk.

Sure, I'll need a computer to plug in my ms's after I've finished with the rough draft, but that would be a swell thing for a laptop to do. Not connected to the internet and sitting back at the kitchen table like I do with my typewriter. Heck, I could even get one with a wireless modem and go hang out on the neighbor's porch and ride their wi-fi like they invited the neighborhood to do, or go have a sit down at Starbucks, do my email and call it good.

Man, it's a good thought. I really like that thought. I think I'll aim for that. Then I can add another rocking chair to the sitting room and maybe a low set of bookshelves for the expanding collecting of books and toys and when folks come over, we can hang out in the sitting room with tea and biscuits and the desk won't jut out into people's hips and the computer hum won't be an obnoxious drone. And I bet I could even keep up my blogs by writing them during my downtime here, then sending them when I wi-fi.

Hee. And now all my techie friends are shaking their heads because once again Ris is plunging herself three steps further back into the 80s.

Did I mention the toys I ordered are updates of the 1982 G.I. Joe articulated action figures?

Yo Joe!