Ma'am, Please Put the Mouse Down and Step Away From the Computer
So lately I've been depressed. It follows an almost daily pattern. The problem is that I sit in front of a computer all day. I don't even have a job, but I'm still working on my computer.
Like today. Wake up, turn on computer. I brush my teeth and start the teapot while it boots up. I think, I'll just check email, read the news, listen to NPR for half an hour while I have breakfast at my desk, then I'll go out for a quick bike ride. This becomes several hours of browsing the web, IMing friends, and listlessly combing job sites for uninspiring postings that make me question why the hell I'm so stubbornly and irrationally idealistic about this nonprofit career track ("Seeking Program Director for Reproductive Health in Africa Project, must be willing to travel and perform the following five-page list of responsibilities, $28,000/year, no benefits").
The bike ride never happens, but three o'clock rolls around and I stumble out of my room to pee and have lunch. An hour later the sun starts going down and the depression sets in. Nothing sounds appealing to me except a nap. It's too dark and cold to leave the apartment, too late to run errands, and too depressing to call friends to whine about how depressed I am. I am too depressed to write, cook, clean or make small talk with my roommate. I lie down in my bed for half an hour, then wake up cursing. Why is it so effing cold in here? I stomp to the thermostat, crank up the heat, and return to my nap, this time with a blanket. I notice that an IM window is blinking on my computer screen.
dan_t (5:35:19 PM): come on!!!!!u must be there....
But Dan has signed out. I roll over and let my depression sweep over me again and take me into sleeping oblivion.
I am sitting in a dark booth at McDonald's, waiting for Dan, who is visiting me from Israel. It's his first time in San Francisco, and the fool wants to eat at McDonald's. I spot him already seated in a different booth, munching a cheeseburger and talking to a friend. I go over and sit down with them. "Welcome to the U.S.," I say. Dan nods and keeps eating, strangely comfortable with my presence even though we haven't seen each other since we met in China almost three years ago. His friend, also from Israel, ignores me, and I think of a joke Dan once told me.
While Dan and I catch up over more and more cheeseburgers and fries, his friend grows increasingly and inexplicably impatient with me, rolling his eyes and running his hands through his hair. Other patrons around us, I notice, are also young backpackers, mostly from Europe. I feel out of place, and I sense that they know I'm an imposter, someone posing as a fellow backpacker, but who is actually old and, worst of all, not a traveler. Most disturbingly, I notice that Dan doesn't look like the tall, dark-haired hottie I remember from the guesthouse in China. He looks 13, and has all the awkward physical malproportions of that age. His eyes are too small, his jaw is too big. I feel mildly heartbroken. I wish that time hadn't been so absurdly cruel to Dan.
The phone rings, jolting me awake. I know it's my mom. She has been calling me a lot, checking in on my cold that is nearly gone.
"Hi, I know you don't want to hear this," she says. "But you really need to take care of that cough before it becomes bronchitis or tuberculosis. Be sure to drink lots of warm water. Warm, not cold." It's the third time today she has explained this to me.
"It was bronchitis, and I'm already better," I say, exasperated. "I don't need to drink any more water."
After I hang up with my mom, I notice the IM window from Dan is still open. Before I close it, I fire off a quick note, relieved that to the best of my knowledge time has not transformed Dan into an impish tyke.
justina (7:12:52 PM): boy did i just have the weirdest dream about you!!
I pad through the apartment, hoping that just getting out of my room will lift my spirits and spark some interest in a chore or project. My blog, my website, and my nanowrimo novel have no appeal to me. In the living room I spot the lampshade that I've been wanting to paint for several years. Right now it is dotted with brown and gray stains, marks that still remained after I had scraped off all the poop from a pet bird I once had. Perhaps watercolors, I think, its creative potential inspiring me enough to go to the fridge and contemplate my dinner options. Leftover pasta and butternut squash soup. Both delicious and 100% microwaveable.
By the time my dinner is heated, I've flipped on the tube and made myself depressed again. It is a sad, sad sign of the times that I eat dinner while watching Trading Spouses and The Swan, the whole time feeling annoyed by the obvious ways they try to manipulate the emotions and judgments of viewers, who they assume to be stupid and willing enough to accept textbook stereotypes of people on their shows. It is a sad, sad sign of the times that for the majority of American viewers, they are probably right.
I finish dinner, but the lampshade project has lost its immediate attraction. I turn off the TV and go back to my computer.
Like today. Wake up, turn on computer. I brush my teeth and start the teapot while it boots up. I think, I'll just check email, read the news, listen to NPR for half an hour while I have breakfast at my desk, then I'll go out for a quick bike ride. This becomes several hours of browsing the web, IMing friends, and listlessly combing job sites for uninspiring postings that make me question why the hell I'm so stubbornly and irrationally idealistic about this nonprofit career track ("Seeking Program Director for Reproductive Health in Africa Project, must be willing to travel and perform the following five-page list of responsibilities, $28,000/year, no benefits").
The bike ride never happens, but three o'clock rolls around and I stumble out of my room to pee and have lunch. An hour later the sun starts going down and the depression sets in. Nothing sounds appealing to me except a nap. It's too dark and cold to leave the apartment, too late to run errands, and too depressing to call friends to whine about how depressed I am. I am too depressed to write, cook, clean or make small talk with my roommate. I lie down in my bed for half an hour, then wake up cursing. Why is it so effing cold in here? I stomp to the thermostat, crank up the heat, and return to my nap, this time with a blanket. I notice that an IM window is blinking on my computer screen.
dan_t (5:35:19 PM): come on!!!!!u must be there....
But Dan has signed out. I roll over and let my depression sweep over me again and take me into sleeping oblivion.
I am sitting in a dark booth at McDonald's, waiting for Dan, who is visiting me from Israel. It's his first time in San Francisco, and the fool wants to eat at McDonald's. I spot him already seated in a different booth, munching a cheeseburger and talking to a friend. I go over and sit down with them. "Welcome to the U.S.," I say. Dan nods and keeps eating, strangely comfortable with my presence even though we haven't seen each other since we met in China almost three years ago. His friend, also from Israel, ignores me, and I think of a joke Dan once told me.
An American, a Russian and an Israeli are going to the store. When they get there, a sign says, "Sorry, we're closed. Meat shortage." The Russian says, "What's meat?" The American says, "What's shortage?" The Israeli says, "What's sorry?"
While Dan and I catch up over more and more cheeseburgers and fries, his friend grows increasingly and inexplicably impatient with me, rolling his eyes and running his hands through his hair. Other patrons around us, I notice, are also young backpackers, mostly from Europe. I feel out of place, and I sense that they know I'm an imposter, someone posing as a fellow backpacker, but who is actually old and, worst of all, not a traveler. Most disturbingly, I notice that Dan doesn't look like the tall, dark-haired hottie I remember from the guesthouse in China. He looks 13, and has all the awkward physical malproportions of that age. His eyes are too small, his jaw is too big. I feel mildly heartbroken. I wish that time hadn't been so absurdly cruel to Dan.
The phone rings, jolting me awake. I know it's my mom. She has been calling me a lot, checking in on my cold that is nearly gone.
"Hi, I know you don't want to hear this," she says. "But you really need to take care of that cough before it becomes bronchitis or tuberculosis. Be sure to drink lots of warm water. Warm, not cold." It's the third time today she has explained this to me.
"It was bronchitis, and I'm already better," I say, exasperated. "I don't need to drink any more water."
After I hang up with my mom, I notice the IM window from Dan is still open. Before I close it, I fire off a quick note, relieved that to the best of my knowledge time has not transformed Dan into an impish tyke.
justina (7:12:52 PM): boy did i just have the weirdest dream about you!!
I pad through the apartment, hoping that just getting out of my room will lift my spirits and spark some interest in a chore or project. My blog, my website, and my nanowrimo novel have no appeal to me. In the living room I spot the lampshade that I've been wanting to paint for several years. Right now it is dotted with brown and gray stains, marks that still remained after I had scraped off all the poop from a pet bird I once had. Perhaps watercolors, I think, its creative potential inspiring me enough to go to the fridge and contemplate my dinner options. Leftover pasta and butternut squash soup. Both delicious and 100% microwaveable.
By the time my dinner is heated, I've flipped on the tube and made myself depressed again. It is a sad, sad sign of the times that I eat dinner while watching Trading Spouses and The Swan, the whole time feeling annoyed by the obvious ways they try to manipulate the emotions and judgments of viewers, who they assume to be stupid and willing enough to accept textbook stereotypes of people on their shows. It is a sad, sad sign of the times that for the majority of American viewers, they are probably right.
I finish dinner, but the lampshade project has lost its immediate attraction. I turn off the TV and go back to my computer.
posted by Justina at 10:06 PM
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