Tonight I'm gonna party like it's 2002

OK people. On to some happier news. EXCITING news! Well, exciting for me, anyway. I can't claim it will be in any way noteworthy to you. Remember that aging desktop of mine? The one that gets upset with me and demands a rest if I dare to do two things at once (even though the second thing is often something no more complicated than turning on my printer)? That desktop is no longer my only means of accessing the Internet in my home! No, I also now have a new-to-me used laptop which, with the help of a very nice young woman in India, is now connected to my very own brand new wireless network. Yippee!

I was trying to decide from which room in my home I should celebrate by typing my very first wireless post when it occurred to me: I am wireless! I can type a little bit in EVERY room! I am coming to you right now from the comfy purple couch in my living room, but wait! ... Now I am in my KITCHEN!! Whee! Hold on, folks. Gimme a second here... Now I am in my bedroom! Whoo hoo! Oh, the freedom. I can even take you into the... Nope. I'll stop right there. I do have some boundaries, some lines I won't cross. Blogging in the bathroom seems a good one to keep solidly on the other side of that line. I DO look forward to blogging in my backyard come this spring and summer, though. Finally, my desire to be outside and my desire to waste time on the Internet do not have to feud with each other incompatibly! It really is a brave new world; is it not?

I do realize, of course, that this magical new life I'm living is one the rest of you took for granted five years ago already, but I am a minimalistic, baby steps kind of girl. I still have a paper checkbook register, remember? Still tape shows on a VCR. I didn't ditch the rabbit ears and pony up for cable until 2006, and my move from dial-up to high-speed came AFTER that. Maybe by the end of the next decade I will finally trade my land line and prepaid cell phone for a mobile phone with Internet access. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, though. This Pioneer Days life I'm living, I like to think it has its own quaint charms.

I should note that the laptop came thanks to my pal Steve, who... oh my word; for crap's sake, was he really not in my sidebar all this time? Sorry, Steve. Totally an oversight, I'm sure, which I shall blame on the fact that I routinely forget I even have a sidebar (cases in point: I finished "Persuasion" nearly a week ago, and the same not-so-recent search activity has probably been in that box almost since Christmas) and on the fact that you, Steve, do not update very frequently, and I suspect that every time I thought to add you, I probably assumed, "Huh. Maybe he's quit blogging now."

ANYWAY... Steve! Steve is even more proof that the Internet really is an amazing, amazing place full of all manner of fantastic and helpful folks, because he read about my computer woes and subsequently secured me a used laptop from his office and shipped it off to me. Seriously. I have a new (to me) laptop all because some nice guy out in California found my silly blog and forged a friendship based on words on screen, photos on Flickr, and random nonsense on Facebook. What was that I was saying about a crazy brave new world? It doesn't apply just to wireless connections, obviously. Anyway, thank you, Steve. Thank you for protecting my sanity by assuaging my techno-rage, for keeping me from taking my old desktop and playing out a scene not unlike the fax machine assault segment in Office Space. Ah. Deep breaths. It'll all be OK.

Of course, with the Internet at my easy access anywhere and any time, I may never actually read another book ever again. Jane Austen, I hope you're comfy over in that sidebar spot there. You might be sitting there a while.