DIGITAL DARKNESS-DAY 3

I've been trying to keep a diary of my life without my laptop, but it's not easy. What am I supposed to write on? Pen and paper? I don't think so. It would be easy to say that constant use of computers has caused me to lose the ability to write things by hand. But that overlooks the fact that I was never able to write things by hand. I have handwriting so bad it actually counts as a learning disability. (really) But I've got time on someone else's laptop for a moment so I thought I'd check in.

First off, all the rhythms of my life are messed up without my computer. When I wake up, I have a routine. I stagger out of bed, update my podcasts, check my email, and then brush my teeth while my iPod is syncing. Now I get up and I don't know what to do. Of course, I have discovered that I have two children that are usually awake when I get up. Apparently, they are the same two children I have been posting photos of on this very blog for the past 9 months. Who knew? They're actually quite cute in person, too. So I guess there is some good that has come from all this.

But it is the lack of podcasts that is really wearing me down. In my job, I have to drive a lot, and podcasts are my way to pass that time. I have long since given up on radio, what with its commercials and insistence on playing shows and music on a schedule and not stopping their programming when I get out of the car. Luckily, I had about 18 hours of podcast programming on my iPod when I sent my laptop off to the Mayo Clinic. But things are getting a little thin now. Gone are the back episodes of "On the Media" and the Hospital Drum and Bass podcast. Now I'm actually listening to those BBC "In Our Time" podcasts that I downloaded just to make me feel smart. "In Our Time" features a panel of scholars speaking at length on some subject like Greek love poetry or symmetry or some obscure philosopher. I have listened to them all now, and I don't feel smart, I feel very stupid.

Right now, all that's left is an Australian program called "The Night Air." "The Night Air" is a program that mixes elements of "This American Life" with sound art and even some hip hop production values. I once actually heard a host of the program utter the following sentence regarding a fellow sound artist, "David works primarily in the medium of VHS tape hiss." I have only a few more episodes left, then I'm left with nothing but... the radio.

As an experiment, I listened to the radio this week, and it was just as lame as I remembered it. It pains me to say this because radio is my first love. I actually worked as a DJ for a while when I was 17 and it literally changed the course of my life. But things have changed a lot. Now all you hear is automation and angry right-wingers. (NPR is the exception, but I podcast most of their stuff anyway.)

So anyway, I turned on the radio a few days back and heard some man yelling at the top of his lungs about Iraq timetables or something like that. He was screaming so loud I thought he'd damage his studio microphone. I was about to turn the radio off and enjoy the silence, when I heard something even more disturbing on this radio station... me!

That's right, it was me reading a story on zebra mussels. Our station has a deal with a radio station group in town and reporters have to record radio versions of most of their stories. I've been sending out stories for more than a year, but I never had any idea what happened to them once I hit "send" on the mp3 file. But there I was, on conservative talk radio. Ah, if my parents could see me now.

So I'm hoping to hear from the repair place soon an learn that I can have my digital life back. But for now, I'm drifting back into the darkness. Until next time...