I often lament at the majority of noders who talk incessantly about things I have no knowledge of, things that they know that I do not. The person who introduced me to E2 was himself a noder, and far more knowledgeable in the fields of computer stuff than I. He showed it to me because he thought I would enjoy it as a place to write, a place while my own place online was still under construction. Even now, with a web site to which I can donate my daily ramblings, I am more devoted to E2. I have come to it almost religiously, no doubt, with similar fervor and anticipation as my fellow noders, though perhaps for varying reasons.

I am a writer. If writing on stone tablets were the latest rage, the most modern way to get my words out there, then I would quickly learn cuneiform to satisfy the desire I have to communicate to people on a grander scale than my personal journal would allow. But, situations being what they are, the internet has become the way to go, and I am responding as well as I can.

I have this love/hate relationship with all things modern, and with all things internet based in particular, namely because I am pretty much ignorant of it in the sense that I do not know how to communicate using it outside of my own words, my blinking cursor on the screen. But it is also because I am emotionally tied to it. It is how I talk to my friends, my brother, even my boyfriend, who I even met online and maintain contact with through this one-dimensional frame, long distance. It is how I am able, at times, to feel less alone, less isolated. At the outset of that admission I realize the irony of it, but I am beginning to learn that it isn't as unusual or negative as I had originally thought. It's becoming more integral to human relations than I ever thought it would be.

It has that bitter side to it; any person who spends as much time online like I do is aware of that. It kills a part of you to know that you can't reach out physically and touch someone all the time, not, at least, the person you would prefer to touch at that moment. But, more often than not, it's enough. It's enough for me, on most days, to be able to talk to people online while I'm at work, to talk to friends and people I care about on a daily basis when they would otherwise be unreachable. But you can't build to much on it. At some point, we all desire to make contact, to sit across from someone and watch them in their real state, to see them in the totality of who and what they are.

Maybe I care too much, or about the wrong things. Maybe I've had too much to drink or have watched a particularly sappy movie tonight and am feeling more lonely than usual. Maybe I wish I had more ability, right now, to be in the company of friends than I am able to within reason.

I don't regret that I haven't seen the boy online tonight yet, though I can't help but admit that I wish I did. It would have been nice to talk to him. Or my brother, or other friends who are far away. I needed tonight to be by myself. Did you?