What I did on the Net today.

(This is a test post for a potential project in my Internet Art class with Jordan Tate--I just want to see if my idea can even be fleshed out. So, um. Bear with me.)

Since this morning I had work at the writing drop-in center, the first thing I did on the internet was frantically check both my emails--the UC outlook email and my personal gmail. I flagged one email as important--from David Rosenthal, talking about an upcoming show at Prairie Gallery. He wanted me to contact engineering professor Rosales about the electron microscope tour we're arranging. I figured I'd get to it later, maybe between classes.

Then I ran to work where I logged in to eTutoring.org and waited for any student questions or submitted papers to pop up (or for a student to drop in). None of these things came to pass, so I spent two hours refreshing the page, trying to get YouTube to play Pachelbel's Canon without stopping repeatedly (and failing), and reading Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. I used Dictionary.com to look up works like "perseverating" (which my firefox dictionary flags as misspelled, suggesting "persevering" instead) and "obtunding" (also marked misspelled).

Then until 8 pm I was not on the Internet, classes and rehearsals and grocery shopping being necessary activites.

When I got home I tried to open the two tabs I had opened in the morning, but firefox crashed and refused to open. I opened safari instead and checked my emails again, noting that no one I wanted to talk to was on gchat. I skimmed my googlereader subscriptions. Then I progressed to facebook, where I had three friend requests, a message, and two notifications waiting for me. I dealt with the requests and left quickly in favor of tumblr--the new facebook layout is just too much for me to handle. At this point I was making dinner and scrolling, occasionally opening articles in a new tab or liking/ reblogging posts of interest--ones about Occupy Wall St, and bullying, and feminism. Eventually I decided to try firefox again, since all my webcomic bookmarks are saved there, and this time it cooperated. I opened tumblr again in one tab and in another surfed through my various webcomics--girls with slingshots, sinfest, multiplex, the homepage of julia wertz, teahouse, so far apart, octopus pie, johnny wander--looking for updates. I noted that some webcomic artists are clearly more committed to the regular creation of panels than others. I also noted that since there's several big conventions going on at the moment, I should probably cut them some slack.

For a while after looking through the comics I sat and stared at the screen and felt like the Internet is such a vast place and all I'm seeing is a tiny labyrinthine corner of it (and I'm destined never to escape).

I've been flipping between various comics, tumblr, and links in my "BRILLIANT" bookmarks folder since then, diligently procrastinating my English reading. In particular, I've been admiring the work of Megan Amram, twitter comedian and Glee enthusiast. I posted her audition video on the Internet Art google+ stream. At some point I must have visited the class calendar for Internet Art, because there's a half-read pdf open behind this window and it's about net art. In the middle of reading it I had a sort-of idea and realized that if I didn't act on it it would be gone forever. So I opened blogspot and signed in and started writing this post. And that is what I did on the Net today.