Snapshots of a Modest Life

Click.

I have this daily tradition, maybe more of a habit, of clicking. During the summers it's not daily, more like. . .whenever I'm bored and avoiding something I know I should do--clean my room, go to the john, sleep at a descent hour. It usually starts with me moaning, then rolling out of bed. At school the distance from bed to desk chair is generally less than a foot, so I find myself there, shuffling things around the desk so there is room for my mouse. Then it starts.

Click.

My computer wakes up and the screen goes on. There's a picture of autumn on the desktop background. I don't see autumn anymore, a real autumn that happens from September to November and is precipitated by warm summers and succeeded by snowy winters, so I put one on the background of my laptop all year round. I have one hundred eight square inches of autumn all year round to compensate for two and a half months of autumn all 'round me.

Click. Click.

Firefox opens. While my homepage loads I scan the instant messenger box to see if my friends are awake and admitting it. I change my away message from "sleeping" to "class" or perhaps "not here," or simply "not available." Microsoft Outlook opens and I see that I have a few emails. Usually they aren't important: some article from my dad, or a fellow theatre major informing me of free theatre this weekend. I go back to Firefox and scroll down on my homepage, this very page you're reading right now. I bit narcissistic, I know. I had it on MSN for a time, but realized that my life could be better spent doing something other than looking at the latest celebrity gossip. Besides, I live with a bunch of girls, I get enough of that anyway. So I changed it to my blog. I visit it every day anyway on the off chance that someone actually posted a comment. Usually they don't. Not a biggie.

Click. Click. Click.

There are three sites that I visit every day. For Better or For Worse strip fix. Pearls Before Swine on comics.com. Homestar Runner. Every day. There's usually something new. Well, maybe not on Homestar, but I still get a kick out of the guy in lederhosen saying "Ricola" when I scroll over the "e-mail" button.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

When I have time, I hit up the blogs of various friends. I visit a few of people I've never met, and probably never will. The first I read almost religiously. He's a missionary in Amsterdam and an amazing writer. A friend of a friend referenced him in her prayer letter several months back, and I found that I loved reading it. There are blogs of several friends, in some cases the only way I keep up with what's going on in their lives aside from a phone conversation once in a blue moon.

Click.

I close the browser.