Spinster

Birth to the end of high school
I must admit, when I was a child I was afraid of computers — in 2nd grade, when we went to the computer lab to play Oregon Trail and Word Munchers, I always tried to get out of it because I was afraid I would break the machines. Plus, I mean, I’m just not a big game person (except for Tetris and Super Mario and Snood). And for the longest time, my family didn’t even have a normal computer. We had a computer, but it had those big old floppy-floppy disks and I’m pretty sure it only did word processing. That was in, like, 1997. Swear to God. Eventually, we caught up with the late-’90s and got a real computer, one with an actual internet connection (AOL dial-up, what’s up?). I sure did love receiving emails, but I wouldn’t say I was completely hooked yet.

1999 to 2004
And then I went to college in 1999. I got my own computer. It had a CD burner (!!). It was fast. It was also MASSIVE — it was a desktop from Gateway and after I lugged that thing around, like, five times during all of my moves, I vowed to get a laptop the next time I got a computer. But still, I loved it. I figured out how to convert mp3s to wav files or vice versa (whatever, I don’t really remember) in Winamp to burn CDs. I used AIM. I’m pretty sure I downloaded porn. I know I downloaded pretty much my weight in mp3s (I’d like to give a freshman-year shout out to Napster). Eventually, however, things went south. The internet connection at one of the houses I lived in was sporadic and there were five of us trying to use it at all times. My then-current boyfriend spent approximately a million hours playing stupid Alpha Centauri on it while I was trying to write my thesis and he was taking the semester off school. I didn’t even bother to unpack it at the last place I lived at in Portland. When I moved, I gladly gave it to my friend Eric.

February 2005
I was living at home when my parents’ computer crapped out on them. My mom was going through a rebellious phase (it happens every now and again. When I was like 16 she wanted us to get matching Tinkerbell tattoos) and went out and bought a sweet iMac (she also bought me an iPod mini, which I loved dearly until I callously upgraded it for a video iPod). Dude. That was maybe a turning point in my life. We were in the Mac store in The Falls mall in craptastic Miami and everything was just so…sleek. Sleek and white and black and punctuated with bursts of metallic blue, green, and pink. I was charmed. I fell in love. To this day, I adore my mom’s computer, to the point that I would consider visiting Miami just to be able to play with it a little bit. She doesn’t even use it. My next major goal in life is to somehow convince her to give it to me without having to give up my laptop.

September 2005-present
I purchased my laptop (iBook G4) when I started grad school. I believe this coincided with the Internet going from pretty awesome to mind-blowing. Gmail and gmail chat (if I ever win any kind of work-related award, I am going to have to thank gmail chat for getting me through every single work day). Blogs. (I’m going to pause for a moment here, to reflect upon my love of blogs. I mean, oh my God. Celebrity gossip blogs, knitting/crafty blogs, single-girl-in-the-city-ruminating-on-the-lack-of-good-men-out-there blogs, random bitchy-people blogs. And those are only the ones I read. Think of all the actual, important-things blogs — blogs that discuss politics and world events and culture.) Podcasts. (Hello, Savage Love! Nothing says Monday morning at work like weird feeder fetishes and anal sex. Also, This American Life is fairly fantastic. And the best thing? You can download them for free on iTunes. Love it.) For the crafty, DIY-er like myself, the Internet is a treasure trove of freakin’ awesome information and ideas: Craftster, BurdaStyle, and You Grow Girl are my current favorites.

All I ask of you, Internet, is that you keep up the good work. Or get more awesome. Unpossible? Perhaps.