Poverty Is Not an Accident

Poverty Is Not an Accident
Nelson Mandela

Friday, July 02, 2004

Cybornetic Organism

You are reading http://livinginthehood.blogspot.com

I woke refreshed and full of piss & vinegar. I fumbled in the semidark for the WebTV remote. Couldn't find it, which isn't THAT unusual. It also controls my "watching" tv. Sometimes, when I go to sleep at night, I put that in the wrong place, or it falls on the floor in the night, when bumped by a cat.

So, since the remote was MIA, I felt around for my WebTV cordless keyboard. No dice. Well, THAT doesn't make sense! There's only ONE place I put that: on a TV tray that straddles a pillow, on the left side of the bed. hmmm

By now, I was becoming conscious. I rolled on my belly and dug behind pillows. No remote, no keyboard. What the ....?

I flopped onto my back and looked at the place where my WebTV TV goes. It didn't look right; it looked smaller.

That's not the WebTV TV; that's the TV that used to be in the livingroom!

Then, I remembered.

Yesterday, I carefully lugged my WebTV TV, WebTV, printer and VCR into the livingroom! I replaced the tiny livingroom TV with my big, stereo Panasonic which operates on the remote.

I'm lying on the sofa, shoulders propped up on pillows against one arm. The WebTV stuff is at the other end of the sofa, on a small cabinet.

At my right elbow, the computer monitor, office supplies, coffee coaster, sewing machine and a small lamp sit. The computer mouse rests on a vinyl CD storage box, on a wooden storage box, under the table, next to the computer tower; the mouse is exactly within reach. The keyboard rests on end in front of the tower, easy to grab and rest on a flat pillow across my thighs; the same pillow now holds my WebTV keyboard.

On the back of the sofa, to my left, sits a tiny ashtray. My elbows are propped on pillows, so my fingers work keyboards without fatigue. Behind my head, next to the computer's drafting table, sits a metal waste can, to collect cigarette butts and junk mail.

As I look to my right, across the room, my "watching" tv is perched on a tall filing cabinet; it's exactly placed so I can see the bottom of that TV over the top of the computer monitor. Next to that filing cabinet sits the shelving on which I've placed: musical instruments, the turntable, my CD containers, speakers and a few, precious momentos from lifelong friends who've ALWAYS encouraged me to write. There are 2 wooden boxes, too: one contains a music box mechanism, given to my mother by my father; the other holds boxes of small, perforated discs which play songs on the music box.

On the top shelf, right in the middle, my bottle of Strega, witches' brew, stands sentinal over my audio equipment. They say that, if one drinks Strega with another, those two are bound in love, for life. So, Strega guards my fledgling radio production and my writing.

I can lie here, dog at my feet, cat at my elbow, and run the entire universe.

I'm a cybernetic organism.

And proud of it!

PS: almost every piece of equipment, furniture, etc. around me came from the trash! In the case of the WebTV, I SOLD trash, to pay for it!

So, I'm a RECYCLED cybernetic organism!

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