I Still Don't Sleep At Night

I called in at work again today to be with my computer. I reallly am running out of excuses. I mean I even gave my mother a heart attack last month for a week with the computer. Today it was that I was in manic phase. I guess it's time to get out of denial and accept my powerlessness and admit: My name is Maryellen and I am a computer addict. Because it's not just the internet. No, I can also spend hours and hours now looking up errors and what to do about them, posting various other repair questions to forum message boards and news groups and running back and forth between Dell and Microsoft. It's what I do. Here's what I don't do anymore: Brush my teeth. Take a shower. Comb my hair. Clean my apartment. Wash my clothes. Eat. (I've lost 10 lbs. post-computer. Who wants to stop and eat?) I really resent having to take a pee. I need help but I don't want it yet. I still like being an addict. I'm not hurting anyone. So what I blow off work. I still see my children. They just have to instant message me instead of phoning, that's all. But I'll admit I AM possessed. If my ex were alive he'd be pointing his bony finger at me and shaking his head and saying that I had false gods. I know he would. Because I spend all my time in this chair at this table. I resent any activity (except seeing children, family and friends) that deprives me of time with computer. I make excuses when out to get home ASAP. Are other people like this I wonder? I thought that was just if you played video games or something. I know, I sound like the coke head who comes in for treatment saying he didn't know he could get hooked because he never smoked crack. I mean really, I never freebased in the world of computers: I live very simply. I have yet to burn a CD. I haven't yet gotten around to buying any floppy discs. I am not even using my paint, art and music programs and who knows what else.

Here's what I like to do besides work on my computer. (I felt like a guy in the garage with grease up to my elbows working on a hot rod when I said that.) I like to go around the internet and feel like I am eight years old and at Disney World for the first time in my life after a somewhat deprived childhood. I want to see everything, do everything, have everything, experience everything. I don't know what to do first. I do a little of this. Then I run and do a little of that. It is so overwhelming. The thing of it is I feel all alone in this because I am so late in coming to this computer world that everyone else is now blase about it. I'm afraid I'd be embarrassed if they knew my passion for it, not to mention the extent of my sick addiction. So I put it in my weblog for secret keeping because no one reads this.