today flew! what did i do?

i guess i spent a lot of time thinking about packing. i spent a lot of time talking about packing, i spent a lot of time not packing.

i hung out on the icb a little.

i went through some old files and tried to throw a lot of things out.

but i guess i didn't get much packing done.

well, that is what moving companies are for, i guess. i mean, it is far more efficient to have them pack for me, right?

i guess i will do a lot of packing tomorrow.

at 11:45 p.m., i remembered that i had intended to submit a story to the "how the internet changed my life contest." the prize was a sun sparcstation, and the deadline was little more than two hours away. of course, just as i remembered that, my neighbor eric stopped by.

so, anyway, i sent in a modified version of the unlawyerrant i wrote a couple of months ago, and also scribbled out something new.

it is grossly incomplete, and even a tad inaccurate, but here it is anyway:

how the internet changed my life
by rebecca lynn eisenberg

amidst a world of constant daily strife,
in every turn, a gun, an axe, a knife,
and oj 's tried for killing his own wife,
to cyberspace, i came to save my life.

i used to wake at six a.m. each day,
put on my suit, begin to start my day,
and sit and write to dusk to earn my pay ...
i wondered if there was another way.

in fall of 93, i then discovered,
a world that netcom for me soon uncovered,
where no planes crash and copters hovered,
and by laws and bosses we could not be smothered.

i never dreamed then how this would amount
when i signed up for my first net account.
but three years passed, and i was still online,
enthralled to learn, to read, to write, to find.

i had gone to school and obtained a fine JD,
a life in law seemed in the cards for me,
i had earned myself a harvard law degree,
and employers had knocked down the door for me.

but i never was impressed with what i saw,
and couldn't be myself one bit at all.
i turned to the internet as an escape,
and found a whole new world beyond the gate.

at first i stuck to mail and irc,
then alt.tv-melrose place became a home for me,
i browsed with lynx, got files with ftp,
and built myself a new community.

i saw that when it came to book reading picks
i would reach for a new book out on unix,
rather than the legal anthologies
that ate away my soul like a disease.

i hated the practice of law and all it brought,
i did not like debate and rarely fought.,
i did not like the rules or powers that be,
i dreamed of a place where i could be "me."

i grew tired of colleagues telling me that i just don't fit in ...
as if changing hair or speaking slang were such a sin!
i reached a point that when i thought about "next year"
all the options looked so bad, i filled with dread and fear.

i knew what i loved -- writing, music, film and technology
i love to surround myself with creativity.
and what other venue stands up to such a test
than the internet, where "freaks" can do their best.

so, i quit my job in law and made a business card,
web site design -- i'd learn it! -- it could not be hard.
and right i was, because the very next week,
i was employed by a record store as their own geek.

and geek i was -- i designed and made their page,
and schmoozed with colleagues much younger in age.
i taught myself to master html,
and finally left behind a life of hell.

i love the internet so very much,
that now i am moving to multi-media gulch,
to work on a new internet production,
and finally have my own new self's induction.

you see, the internet to me is life.
it is freedom, community and lack of strife.
it offers me to live the way i have wanted to be ...
surrounded by blissful creative anarchy.