Nevergirl’s

So, I’m at it again, eBay-ing like mad and not just for girly stuff, I promise. My eBay interests are pretty diverse. While I ogle shoes and look for Loreal Pink lip gloss, I trawl the online store for industrial handles, too. I blame Myth Busters for this. Wett watches Myth Busters religiously which is how I end up watching it, too, by default.

Now, what’s so interesting about these handles? Well, in that episode I saw, the myth busting guys said that these handles are so strong and secure they won’t slip out of your hands even if you’re holding on to them while hanging from a helicopter! I want one such handle for our closets. The girls play hide and seek with our closets almost daily (read: Charlie wriggles inside the closet while Alex looks for her, opening one closet after the other). They end up banging the closets up in the most horrendous way so it’s not surprising two doors are now missing a handle.

So anyway, I’ll get these handles whether or not I find the lip gloss to go with ‘em. Thanks to online shopping, I can buy items from the U.S, have them shipped, pay via PayPal, and all without getting off my chair! I think I love you, eBay!

I can’t repeat this enough. I have a lot of kooks for friends. One takes photos of her feet wherever she goes, whatever she does. Another has a stuffed little cow that blogs. This cow’s blog is pretty popular, too, and so is the cow, who travels from country to country, staying with this foster parent or that. One girl has a collection of stirrers, threads, hooks, and untold stories. Another is obsessed with finding the perfect herbal weight loss formula. There’s also this girl who’s a whiz at the sewing machine. She collects teapots, books, and fabrics and she goes about the city in patterned stockings. And then there’s this little woman I went to college with who cuts her own hair (never mind how it ends up looking the day after) and plants pot in a pot.

Compared to these women, I’d seem boring.

Oh yes, I have kooks for friends, and I happen to think they are among the stories that make a life worth telling.

I wonder if this is true of everyone with Jobs in IT but if there’s one thing I can’t thank my laptop for, it’s putting the world at my fingertips. Here’s why I think this is doing me a disfavor (along with the favors, of course): I don’t need to go out, and I rarely do. Not going out is a problem because no matter how fun trawling the Internet can be, it’s also very depressing.

I tuned in to BBC today and caught the bit where they announced that Internet access has been found to cause depression. I would have to agree. I don’t know about you but being online is depressing. There’s a whole world out there – one with trees, and dogs, and old women sitting outdoors picking lice off each other’s heads – and while it’s not a world that is always easy on the eye and on the head, it’s a world that has more meaning than the virtual one.

So here’s my resolution this month: I will try to leave my laptop more. It won’t die from inattention but my imagination will, if I don’t leave the house more.