Email addict.

I woke up to my phone ringing at 8:15 am this morning. My dear friend Julia had miscalculated the time her flight from Halifax came in (oh, that pesky one hour time difference), and she was waiting at the airport. We had a breakfast date, and I was her ride. I was happy to hop out of bed, throw on some clothes and come get her, skipping my morning ritual of email, coffee, newspaper. In that order.

Driving Without Coffee (DWC) is a dangerous offence I don't take lightly. But tough times call for desperate measures. So I got through it. But not checking my email - now that turned out to be a bigger problem.

When I got home around 10:30, after breakfast and running an errand, the Carleton email server was down. It was already much later in the day than I'd usually be checking my email for the first time, so this was not okay.

"We're experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later." Later? Like, in a few minutes? Okay, I thought to myself. I can check in a few minutes.

A few minutes later, no email. Huh.

I wasn't waiting for anything in particular. I was just all alone in my apartment, as per usual, with my email a fundamental link connecting me to the outside world. Without it, I was just a girl in a messy apartment with a cell phone. I tried to distract myself. I kept the page up and kept hitting "refresh". Nothing.

Around 3pm, I called the computer tech at the university. No, it wasn't just me. No, he didn't know when it'd be back up. Yes, they were working on it. Thanks. Goodbye.

At this point things were getting bad. Not because I needed my goddamn email, but because my dependency, my sad and useless addiction was so blatant, so shameful. I'm the same person who un-installed both Second Life and Facebook after having each for a few days only. I don't want to be that person. Real people. Full sentences. A sense of self that does not hinge on a computer interface. These are things I value.

But I have clearly failed. I should have already known. M. should have tipped me off while teasing me in December, when I'd go to check my email one more time before falling asleep (crawling OUT of bed to do so) and he'd look at me as if I'd become a monster.

The server's back up. I didn't even miss anything important. I think I'm going to go on a internet diet. Maybe later.