(Written Sept. 8th)

”You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Blah blah blah. All truths that parents and teachers tell us over and over again until we get them tattooed on our ribcages (i.e., me). They’re usually about loving our family members or friends or dogs and it should make us want to stay in contact with them constantly, talking to them everyday or visiting them at the drop of a hat. But who gives a shit about that when we can Skype them or shit-talk/tweet about them on the internet or completely block them out cuz the new episode of Top Chef: Just Desserts is ready to go on our DVR’s. Lord knows I’d rather laugh at underweight people, who clearly don’t eat sweets on a regular basis, get chastised for making inadequate creme brûlée. Didn’t Rachael Ray teach y’all better than that? Giada De Laurentiis? Paula Deen? One of those bitches made creme brûlée before, I just don’t know which bitch…

Anyfatass, there’s nothing more sobering than realizing how dependent we’ve become on the aforementioned “new media” means of communicae and entertainment. No one calls each other anymore. We text cuz we just want people to hear what we have to say and then choose not to respond to them when it’s their turn (guilty!). Facebook lets us get our P.I. on to see if a potential date looks bad from any angle. TiVO makes it easy for us to keep up with not only the Kardashians but every other hundredth or so program on one of our thousands of channels, which are no longer a privilege limited to the upper-middle class. Come on, you know you’ve judged someone that rushed home to catch a show cuz they couldn’t record it:

- “Where are you running off to so fast, Jack? I thought we were having a good time?”

- “Well, Jill, Deadliest Catch is coming on and I can’t miss it. Someone else is supposed to die!”

- “You don’t have DVR?” 

- “Nope. But can I call you later?” 

- “Ooo gee wiz! You have a mobile phone!? Get. Out. Don’t tell me, it’s a Razr?! Screw you douchebag tool-face!”

Nice one Jill. Hopefully you left him cuz he wanted to watch Deadliest Catch instead of bone you to smithereens…I really hope that line was used somewhere in the Pirates of the Caribbean porn parody franchise or else it better be in the next one.

Rambling? Rambling. All of these technological advances are without a doubt very beneficial. We have faster access to the news we want or need thanks to the internet and Twitter. We can FaceTime with relatives in the Phillippines we haven’t seen since childhood. But our co-dependency proves itself when we’re left with the worst natural disaster of our time: a blackout. 

When I was a kid and the power went out, I got so excited! We’d get to bust out the candles and eat junk food and sit in a room together and make up ghost stories. Ah, the fun of being a kid in the 90’s. But nowadays, getting the electricity pulled out from under your feet is like walking in the dark. Even in the daytime. 

As soon as I noticed the whir of the AC unit stop, I immediately sprang awake from my nap like that feeling you get when you realize you’ve peed a little in your sleep. Anyone? Just me? Ok. Here’s a step-by-step re-telling of the events that proceeded: Look at laptop to change the song playing. Check iPhone to see what time it is. Notice it’s no longer charging. Weird. Look at the ancient time-telling device that is a modern clock and notice it’s no longer on. Ask myself if it’s even been on for the last month since I don’t use it. Try to turn on the fan. Nothing. Notice more clocks in the house aren’t on. Run back to laptop and try to get on Facebook to see if anyone posted a status about weird thieves turning off clocks in houses. No WiFi connection. Scramble for iPhone. No WiFi connection. Panic.

Since this is being written in the middle of the blackout, I don’t know all the details of the Debhiliating Southwestern Blackout of 2011 (it better be called this). But from what I can gather from various text messages and small news reports from the battery operated radio (tech saves the day!), is that a power plant in Arizona went out earlier in the afternoon due to a technical malfunction and the pressure it put on 2 power grids in the San Onofre area forced them to shut down as well, leading to 4 million (!) people without electricity and some without water for the past 6 hours. This includes most of San Diego County, bordering areas of Mexico, Orange County, Riverside, and Arizona. That/This is ridiculous! And it’s also frightening when you realize what it means to us: No work, which can be good unless you’re saving up money for LA. Given that SoCal is the most densely populated place in the country, traffic lights are no longer working and people are all being let off from work at the same time, there is some of the worst traffic we’ve seen. Imagine if you had little gas! You’re fucked. And if you think you can pump some on your way home you can forget it since most gas stations sadly run on electricity to pump. Double fucked. Now what are all of you (us) spoiled, sun-kissed, beautiful people going to eat if all the restaurants are closed and you (we) know that none of you (us) have food in the fridge? Triple fist-fucked.

But definitely the hardest part is that the means that we’ve had to communicate to each other so easily have been taken away from us so quickly. Want to Google Chat to see if your friends are ok? Nope. Get the latest updates on the situation from Yahoo? Yea right. Check Twitter to see if Lady Gaga is still tweeting? Bitch, please (hair flip and finger snap). It’s like we jumped in the Delorean and went back to the days before Al Gore invented the internet. Which most of us are probably thinking was back in the eighties. But get this people: Google wasn’t around until 1998. Yea, not too long ago. Fbook? 2003. Thank you, Jesse Eisenberg. iPhones? 2007. Fuck me. The time it took for us to get jacked into everything Matrix style is SO SMALL in comparison to anything else that has happened in the history of history. Is this why we’re in such a rush and moving at a frenetic pace all the time? Demanding information and attention and YouTube views so quickly? They don’t call it “going viral” for no reason.

We can not lose our sight of reality folks! If you don’t know how to cook anything that doesn’t involve using your telephone to order in, learn. Buy books and magazines and don’t forget the joy of reading and DON’T let a Kindle replace the feeling of holding a book and turning a page (fuck you, Kindle). Learn to love walking and exercising again because it does make you healthier and live longer. Don’t believe me? Look it up on your smartphone, smartass. But you can’t cuz the power’s out (hair flip and finger snap). This is the reality we used to live in before the information era took over. Yes, that reality is now shared with tumblr, Blackberry’s, iPads, and iTampons but you can’t physically hold onto the internet or electricity (unless you want to die). These things are all good for us and have become embedded in the way we live but like other sayings go that we can tattoo on ourselves, “Everything’s fine in moderation,” or “Update your Facebook status once a day about the life you live then go out and actually live that life,” or “Go stand outside at night when the power’s out and look at how the world looks when it’s only lit up by the moon. Pure beauty.”