i'm getting DSL, on Friday. That means some 'technician' (cable-guy?) is going to come inside my house. For a while. He's going to touch my computer. He (or she?) is going to improve my connection. Will we connect?
I should probably clean the apartment before Friday. I know I won't; I hope he's not cute. Will he be impressed with my system, envious? I doubt it. He has probably hooked-up liquid-cooled systems with wall-size monitors in Halon protected environments. Does one tip these people? (That depends on how good 'it' is for you! Yuk, yuk.) Maybe there'll be more than one—a menage-a-trois!
It gets sickening. It's not funny anymore. The double-entendres, innuendoes, fantasies; they are all just desperate clawing evasions of simply being human. I flee to the potent distraction of re-enacting sexual trauma, and I enmesh with it. It's a pitiable engagement.
i so lose track of days, if I am not suffering at work. The days just fly... I planned on laundry Sunday, but I just did it this evening. Monday, I think, I went over Stephanie's to cook and offer moral support. She has been sick, with debilitating aches, swollen joints and strange rashes. They don't know what it is, but it seems now to be getting a little better. Of course, I did not cook. I bought a huge pizza and a bunch of appetizers—all deep-fried. It seems to be all I eat these days. It was even delivered by the same guy that delivers similar healthful entrees to me at work.
But the days just vanish like umbrella drinks poolside. I find that the sky is already getting light before I feel I'm done for the day. And then the next evening gets itself underway before I've gotten around to clearing away a moment for lunch.
Friday, work will save me from myself. If all goes well, and DSL lives up to its touting, and actually works the same day it's installed, then I will need the pedestrian demands of a work schedule to retrieve me from certain Internet-enthralled catatonia. But significant obstacles remain. I failed to do my part in the process of becoming the 'S' in DSL; I was supposed to have a NIC (specifically a 10BaseT network interface card) before the stranger comes. I had no idea! (actually, I thought I had to have a DSL modem here and installed. Silly me, they provide the modem! But not the NIC.)
When attempting, tonight (I thought it was more like noon, still), to find the right modem to buy online and have it delivered via overnight-superfast-instantaneous-USS Enterprise-transporter beam (which I knew would cost bunches, but that's what I deserve for being so lazy), (will this sentence ever end?) I discovered all the DSL modem manufacturers—the very few I could find—strongly recommended getting the modem from the DSL service. (Phew!) So, I had no choice but to do what I dread: call their customer service line. And talk to a real person. Eeek.
Ralph sounded gay. He's probably denying it, out there in some conservative suburb in Colorado or Utah, or wherever he was. Actually he was just.. normal. It was refreshing to see I could still identify it. But it's a little disturbing, too. If they're all not monsters out there, or worse, if they're all *normal*, then what the hell am I doing hiding? ...my whole life! What the hell have I done?
rhythms NetConnections seems to be lacking some degree of marketing presence, at least here in the Northeast. See, I heard MSN was offering cheap (maybe not so cheap, we'll see) DSL, and that was right about the time I realized that I am online constantly. I mean 24/7. I have two dialups (MSN and World@STD), and the local one is just a back-up cuz they charge if I go over 250 hours in a month. So MSN is connected night and day, unless I need more dependable bandwidth, then I use Software Tool and Die (that's what the STD is, it's got nothing to do with oozing genitals.) So one day I leisurely checked the MSN member site. No mention of DSL. Not one word. I went back a day or two later, searched more diligently. Nothing.
I don't remember how I found it, or where (I don't think it was from within MSN's site), but I linked to an MSN DSL page, filled-out a form, got an e-mail. The e-mail mentioned a technician, but I figured that referred to a big-bellied Bell Atlantic guy, like the one that spent an hour in my basement installing my second phone line, without requiring my interaction at all. He never said a word. Nowhere did Rhythyms tout a 'free' modem—a vulgar misappropriation of the word, but used throughout such offers with almost absolute uniformity. Likewise, they never mentioned the NIC.
Now, I don't like to say nice things, generally, but Ralph was nice. He wasn't even a telemarketer, with their polished phrases and the cattle-chute way they drive your call toward their goal, with no regard for what your objective was. Ralph had no agenda. I was calling to see what kind of modem I'd need, hoping they'd help me locate the seemingly scarce device, or even recommend one in particular. The way he sounded, I could imagine him at home, picking up the call while adjusting his headset, just after he'd put a teapot on to boil. He spoke easily, absently about Sprint, the network they use and how there was a storm just then, and he hopes it won't affect his log-on. His voice was gentle and calm. "It usually comes with the installation," he said of the modem. In ten, maybe fifteen seconds, he asked for my ID number, and lo and behold! right there on the e-mail where I got his phone number was a little unassuming six digit ID number.
He said, "Joseph?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Yup, they've ordered you a Cisco677. The technician will install it when they install your line." "Oh. What a nice surprize." (How dumb must I seem, I thought.) "So that's all I need?" "Yeah, it's all included," but then he added, "except, you will need a network interface card." He must have sensed my lack of one. He said "specifically a 10BaseT blah blah garbledmemoryofindicepherablejargon, preferrably by 3Com." "Thank you," I said. I almost didn't want to let him go.
It's on the way from McGlen Micro. Transporter-beam cost: only an extra 16 bucks. It'll be here tomorrow (actually, today). Cool.
Oh, and lest I sound too bereft of whinings: I have a miserable cold, centered around that most tender and oft forgotten post-nasal region, the groin of one's head.
See ya.
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