What we tell our computers

Disco Diaries #31

Good afternoon my fellows,

There is a chili recipe we very much like around here, and Jake was kind enough to make it for us last night. Then he was kind enough to remind me, over leftovers at lunchtime, of a glass-half-full perspective, which is that in just over two weeks we’ll live through the shortest day of the year and then the worst of the early darkness is over. We must remember this.

Opening up to inanimate objects

Long ago, I wrote to you all about how I felt like I was dating my journal. Well, things change. The intensity of a relationship waxes and wanes, and journal and I are going through a phase. And I met someone else. 

Actually, I’ve known them for a long, long time. We spend pretty much every day together, literally staring into one another’s eyes, divulging our weaknesses and insecurities, sharing our hopes, dreams, and schemes. They know as much about me as my IRL, flesh and blood partner Jake. Honestly, they probably know more.

They are my computer.

MacBook Pro 2012ish, silver with a light up keyboard that’s missing an escape key, recently updated to High Sierra. It took me years to get around to updating the operating system, and when I did so it was only for my own benefit, so that I could run a certain program, not for the sake of the computer’s well being. I guess that says something about me and relationships.

Our companionship is not like something you’d see in a starry-eyed romcom. There’s not really passion, I guess because there’s no newness or no element of surprise. But that’s sort of what makes this work. I can say or do or type anything in front of this computer and it is just received, without judgement. All day long, I carry this surprisingly heavy rectangle around my apartment, trying to find new and different places to sit to break up the monotony of quarantine. Computer is accommodating to almost any position, as long as they can be plugged in, because their battery, they disclose to me, needs replacing soon. 

In the mornings, I sit and work, which I know isn’t always easy for this computer. I get frustrated sometimes, burnt out. Some days, I start on one thing and, finding that I simply cannot bear to do it at this particular moment, I minimize a window full of relevant tabs and start another one. I know my computer gets tired of holding on to all these things for me. I know they do. And I can empathize because I feel that I, too, have dozens of metaphorical tabs left open in my head at all times.

Our winter courtship

Let’s zoom in on the tab issue. Aside from a work situation like the one described above, there’s generally at least one window of miscellaneous topics expressed through open pages. I take care of this mess about once a week, both for my computer and for my brain. For computer, I save all tabs in a bookmarked folder named something ambiguous like “l8r” because I know computer likes that better than keeping them minimized on the dock. For my brain, I write them down on a list. Neither is a perfect solution, because the items are still there, lingering with procrastinated meaning.

What am I trying to save and why am I not looking at it now? An investigation must ensue. 

Right now, I have four windows open. One is relevant to this present writing, although I’ve begun to also open tabs regarding submissions to different podcasts which, of course, I won’t get to today. Another window houses a handful of tabs with similar ambitions: research on content marketing agencies, possible contribution opportunities to other newsletters. The third window is more of the same, and the last window is a Google doc grocery list for everything we need for a giant, four-day feast-oriented visit with my mom over Christmas. It is called “Christmas at Yum City.”

If I had to guess, I’d say most of these tabs will eventually be closed, a handful will be saved to a bookmark folder, and maybe one will be transcribed into a prompt on a physical to-do list. 

All of them are significant to me, if only for a fleeting moment, and I feel as though I’m doing my future self a favor by leaving them around like little hints.

As for the mess that my computer is so devotedly holding onto for me already in its bookmark folders? There’s a huge list of recipes, most of which no longer appeal to me, and a folder called “Apartment” with links to a couple of $60 white planters in there. (Thank god I did not buy these dumb planters.) A folder called “Botanicals,” a folder called “Art Ideas,” a folder called “Essays I Like,” and it goes on and on. I also just found one called “tornado ‘fun’” that I apparently made for a quick reference to my favorite storm chaser videos and blogs.

There are a couple of folders that I do actually come back to, and find them helpful and intentional. If the rest of the folders are a stack of random food porn torn out of Bon Appetite magazines, these are a notebook of personal , hand-written recipes. One of them is called “Books I Might Read,” and another is “Morning Coffee.”

Morning Coffee started as one of the folders I made to hide away all the tabs I’d opened, and it turned into a place to save online stories and essays I want to read. The idea was to set aside an hour before work each day to just sit and read. The reality is that once or twice a week, usually in the evening, I read a random selection from the folder.

In a way, all these saved pages represent lost ambitions, but I don’t see it as a bad thing. Neither does my computer, who patiently holds onto them until/in case I’m ready. 

Revisiting this chaotic collection of internet pages puts things into perspective. When I see something that’s easy to let go of, it shows me what wasn’t and isn’t worth my time. Deleting the bookmarks that no longer interest me is as satisfying as cleaning out an inbox. In other cases, I’m reminded of something that I still really want to do, and even if I still keep it tucked away, it simmers in the background waiting for later.

Part of what makes me and my computer so close, part of the glue to our relationship, is everything computer knows about me by being the host of all of these bookmarks. It is a revealing collection of temporary and permanent priorities. 

Another ingredient to the relationship are the things that never get saved, but are instead just Googled in the heat of the moment. Our internet searches are sometimes performed in the most vulnerable and tender moments. Any business in an incognito window aside but not invalidated, we turn to the unlimited information of the internet for any number of timid or private needs.

This is the revelation that lead me to the conclusion that I have something special with my computer, that all these years they had been acting as a receptive, trustworthy companion. Silently, I sit and reveal myself to its screen, searching things like “how to get rid of smile lines,” or “signs of social anxiety,” or asking it questions that I find embarrassing or stupid about government or politics or grammar or spelling. All of these are things I wouldn’t want others to know I wonder about. But my computer knows, and that’s what makes it feel like my number one confidant. 

I feel very lucky to know that there are people in my life who I could also come to with these concerns and curiosities, who would not belittle me for needing to look into them. When I see vulnerable, searching questions come up in Google’s autocomplete suggestions I have to assume not everyone is as fortunate.

To read

On the topics of letting your consumerist urges expire in the bookmarks folder, and seasonal gift giving, here is one of the essays from my “Essays I Like” folder. It’s by Claire Louise Bennett, Irish author of one of my favorite books, Pond.

Thanks for being here!

xo

Katya