The High Price of Anarchy

My computer doesn't feel like home yet. When I boot up it says "owner" as opposed to my name. That bugs me. I don't know how to fix it. I realize that I have lost some files--- not major project files, but smaller ones, my collection of erotic fairy tales, for example, three are published, three are lost. A book proposal--- but at least my agent has a hard copy of that. I have to go back to trusting the online world again, but oh the trepidation in my heart. I remember this feeling. My home had been broken into in Ft. Lauderdale. This is many years ago. Nothing valuable or irreplaceable had been stolen, who would want my books? But that sense of invasion of my personal space--- is the same.

My desktop is still under populated. Before it looked like Times Square, all my bells and whistles, yahooo. Now it looks like a lonely little frontier town, tumbleweed rolling down the streets, hello, anybody home? Hacking into somebody's computer is a crime. Yet its weird. You don't call the police. You don't report it. Your friends and family have to suffer through your endless descriptions of clusterfucks and frustration as you try and fix a problem a criminal has created, yet there is no real legal recourse. Real time policing surely has not caught up with online policing. Ironically THAT has been part of the allure of the digital world--- the fact that it is a frontier town in all its lawlessness and anarchy and of course this can be beautiful.

I used to say that Craig's List was the last bastion of a true populist democracy. I read the rants section with glee, I regularly cruised MEN LOOKING FOR WOMEN, even went out on a few dates (don't ask!), checked out real estate, sometimes I would see what was up in other cities, what apartments were renting for, what the men looked like, but then I watched a program about child prostitution. The "dates" were set up via Craig's List. I fell out of love. Sadly disappointed, not with the original idea, no. The original idea was great, a free market, an open exchange of ideas, pictures of penises, I used to entertain myself for hours. Not anymore. Perversion is A-OK in my book as long as its between consenting adults. Alas. Those days are gone.

It is our modern version of paradise lost. How much of the gorgeous anarchy do we lose as more and more "policing" takes place? I would like someone to PAY for what they did to my life last week. I admit it. I don't like having to rebuild something that wasn't broken. Not only not broken, but flourishing! Fertile! Prolific! Happy! I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't being stupid. I LIKE porn but I NEVER visit porn sites because I know they are rife with spyware. I don't watch movies on my computer for the same reason. In this area, at least, in my life, I operate with forethought, prudence, and caution. I write this because I honestly don't know what I would've done differently.

But, hey. You can't keep a good woman down.