Analog Digital
My computer and I are going to take some time away from each other. She’s been acting up lately. It’s been making me mad. She’ll turn the screen on and off while I’m trying to type law school essays, like my ambition is something to play a practical joke on. She’s probably thinking of doing something right now while I’m typing this. She quit talking to me yesterday, her speakers just stopped working. The iPod gets tired after 45 minutes. Oh, and I don’t even want to talk about the time last month when the computer just blew up on me. Literally. Her powercord nearly caught my apartment on fire. I guess we lost our spark.
She’s got her reasons. She sees me checking out my other options. I was looking for an antique typewriter on ebay the other day, and she probably got jealous. I saw this beautiful Olivetti Valentine model, and I was reading about how they were only made for two years starting on Valentine’s Day 1969 (how poetically romantic is that?) and this particular typewriter I saw has a petite funky francophiliac “ç” on it (how romantic is that?!). I wrote the owner a few questions, to see if I could set something up. My computer somehow found out and flipped her lid. How dare I look at this sexy anachronistic technology!
Whatever. Just last week, I was about to kick my soviet-era LOMO out to the curb in favor of a new digital camera. I wanted to show my computer that I’m committed to this high-tech thing we’ve got going on. I was going to get her one of those shiny, cute Canon cameras. I decided to have one last fling with the LOMO (she hadn’t been working for me for about a year). But last week, things were better than ever. Picture perfect.
So, I’m going to take some time off from technology this week. I’m sending my computer to a spa, where they will rejuvenate her. And me, I need to sort things out in my head. I’m going to try and write on paper and really focus on saying exactly what I mean. I’m going to try and read books instead of blogs and I might even buy some postage stamps. I’m going to take a bunch of pictures with my Polaroid and my LOMO. I’m going to listen to some cassette tapes, maybe even some vinyl. I’m going to be an analog dude in a digital world—- for a few days, just to remember how things used to be.
