Return Of The Prodigal Blogger
Having spent nearly two months watching design shows and saying increasingly rude things about the owners’ color choices (apparently I’m picky), I am delighted to say that I am fully technified again at long last. Granted, this computer does not have Microsoft Office installed on it (who needs a word processor, after all?), and I don’t yet have access to the information on my old hard drive, but after two months I’m plenty grateful just to be able to read the Times online.
This seems like the time when I should stop to meditate on what I got out of my time away. I’m afraid given that I spent all that time in New Jersey and not at a yoga retreat in the Bahamas, what you’re going to get ain’t deep, but here are my thoughts.
I gather I have missed at least one Sarah Palin weirdness, a whole bunch of birther nonsense, and the more hysterical portions of the health care debate. Of course, I have also missed the intelligent parts of the health care debate. (I’m going to be optimistic and assume there have been some.) The pieces of the news that have managed to make it through to my unplanned fortress of solitude have been, well, weirdly assorted. For example:
a) Swine flu still scary!
b) Death squads, death squads! Help!!
c) Wildfires in California. (Doesn’t this happen every year?)
d) Drug lord’s escaped hippos making themselves comfortable in Columbia. (More about this in another post.)
e) Kidnap victim escapes from unbelievably creepy backyard camp.
f) Kanye West is a jerk!
That’s all that’s happened in the last month and a half, right?
It’s also been good for my bank account. I do like going to the stores, but being removed from the constant temptation of Mozilla Firefox and Revolve Clothing has definitely cut down on my impulse purchases. Of course, as September 1 came and went, that became a little brutal, too. No online shopping during the fall fashion season? Really? I’ve also come up with at least a dozen expensive ideas for how to refurbish my apartment from which I’ve been saved by my inability to comparison shop online. (I may be willing to impulse purchase a top, but $1200 on a chaise definitely requires thought.)
I’ve also learned a great deal about interior design. This would have been a little more useful if I a) had been able to shop for furniture online, or b) owned a house instead of renting an apartment, but knowledge is power and all that. I’ve gotten to the point that yesterday I found myself telling Angelo Surmelis from “Rate My Space” (disgustedly) that he really should have painted the ceiling. Before my computer died, I don’t think it would have occurred to me that a ceiling could be painted. I am all set to back-talk interior designers in life should I ever meet any.
That said, though, I’m looking forward to getting back to normal. Oddly enough, after all this time, I’m feeling a little ascetic. I would have expected to want to wallow in online shopping, but instead I’m feeling an urge to use the computer to *gasp* be productive. Who’d have guessed? Maybe I did get something out of all of this after all.
