Disconnect

David just walked down the hall to announce, “the internet’s down—and it’s snowing.” Another practically perfect day in “the cruelest month.” There are still things I could do: whittle a banana, whittle a monkey to hold the banana, whittle a tree to hold the monkey. But as web manager, I’ve got nothing to manage—the Maytag repairman of cyberspace. I know that NCPR.org is still out there, but it’s like the train that runs by Folsom Prison, out of reach beyond the razor-wire of the University firewall. I can write these words, but it’s a message in a bottle—no one will ever see them until they have been mooted by the industrious geeks of IT. I could catch up with some old friends, but my contact list has nothing but email addresses. I could continue my research for tonight’s poetry show, but there’s nothing in my notes but website URLs. There’s a poem by a friend--on my website, there are things I could make reference to—in my blog. There are sound clips I could use—in the online archive. Twice now the connection has come back on, only to swoon again in less than a minute: “No! Wait!”—then nothing but my forlorn claw marks in the dust on the screen. How could something that didn’t even exist a little while ago become the center of the universe? Shall I burn incense? Try the Tinkerbell technique? I look out at the snow, but it gives me no information.