Dear Michael

My parents were huddled around my laptop.

I started flipping through the photos that I took of my room. As I scrolled through the pictures the room a bubble appeared at the bottom of the screen, at the taskbar. It read: Internet connection is now connected. I stared down at the words with a sense of awe. I had just finished scanning the room for a signal and after finding absolutely none I gave up. What should I have expected anyway. My parents live out in the stix for Chrissakes! That was when I started showing the photos of my room to my parents. And this little notice balloon pops up.

Sooo, I click on Firefox and up pops Yahoo! Sonofabitch! I'm on the web. I jack the fuck in, going straight to my email and pounding away. I jump on IM to let everyone know that I'm there. And I call up the article that I'm writing. I am a fucking multi-headed Hydra, fist and feet into the mix, until my eyes cross. Uncontrollably, just like that, they cross. Then my eyelids droop. Drop in fact, more than droop. The pull of sleep quickly overcomes me. I go 'invisible mode' on IM and sit back in the couch, my lights going out.

Four hours later I awake, feeling refreshed. I check the Internet connection and find it still up. The name of the router that's carrying me is 'Michael' which sounds like a kid. I tell my mother and she tells me that it could be from a nearby school, but I discount that. What school would name their Internet Gateway, Michael?? She tells me that if she's right, when the school closes at three, I'll lose my Internet connection. She's right about that one. I prepare myself by going into the Situation Room and chill out with my father, watching CNN.

Later, the connection does not go down. I do more work. I have tons of email and I blog. My father tells me that a wealthy doctor has recently moved into the neighborhood. Could the signal be coming from him? Maybe, possibly. I'll do a little homework on the signal and see what makes sense. Around four I'm back at the computer, finishing up the article for the magazine, and doing a drill down of the router statistics...it has been serving the connection for 12 days, 20 hours, 18 minutes, 32 seconds. That's not exactly a kids server, or maybe it is. But that's in someone's home regardless. Commercial network gateways would have a signal servicing duration, otherwise known as 'uptime' of something like weeks or months. Not days. But Michael keeps pumping out signal. Weak, but a signal. And I keep on riding.

It's mad cold outside. The temper- ature is supposed to drop into the thirties. I wonder what the Hell is so great about the South if it isn't hot. I want a little heat. But no. There's light drizzle outside. I take a stroll and go into my father's living room/garage. It is carpeted, except for under the parked cars. It has sofas, chairs, a well stocked bar, a stereo and photographs. Scores of photos of family members and friends. I find photos of me and my ex wife. Our wedding picture. One of her entire family and her. I stare at the faces, wondering if I will ever see them again. The way that my life was going now it would be very doubtful.

She's moved on with her life and so have I. Life's too short to live in fucking history. Make amends in the present, and reach out for the future. It's my parents that are in a kind of time trap. They have themselves decided to chronicle the life and times of the entire family. A strange re-enactment of Roots, except in real time. Every step saved for posterity. Every last one of us on our family tree. The pictures on the wall in his living room/garage is a testament to that.

My father is running, or rather walking on a treadmill. "What's up son?" Just wondering what you're doing in here. "My exercises." He's puffing and huffiing. How much of that do you do? He jumps off the treadmill and starts doing incline push ups against the back of one of the sofas. "I try to do them every other day," he looks at me, his eyes narrowing. "Get on out of here without a coat or something. It's cold and wet out here. You're going to end up getting sick." And I obey, reflexively, as I have done dutifully all of my life.

Mom makes dinner, chicken and stew beef. I love chicken. Everybody loves chicken. I spend more time online until the night falls. I can't sleep. I'm up after my mother retires to her room. My father nods off on the couch in The Situation Room. I'm all set up in the kitchen, on the table, typing away. Finishing the article and generally not going to bed.

But soon, as with all things, the body wins out over the mind, and even I get tired of the Internet.

I retire.

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