lust. dot com.

i have this strange fascination with personal ads. perhaps it's the combination of writing something quirky about yourself in 200 words or less and the repetition of clicking refresh-refresh-refresh on your email browser that keeps me loyal.

i got my first computer when my mom trucked me, unwillingly, to the rolling plains of the midwest. my best friend shared my first weeks with me in our new brick rambler, complete with a tornado-proof unfinished basement and pool table. 

michelle, my bff, introduced me to internet chatting, yahoo! and, essentially, the world-wide-web. in those days, internet was not a way of life like coffee or flintstones chewable vitamins at breakfast. in fact, i remember the struggle of keeping my monthly internet consumption to 100-hours, as that was our rate plan back before unlimited was all the rage.

anyway, michelle and i would spend hours (in closely regulated increments, of course), chatting with jamie-somebody's-in-north carolina and imhawt4u-16-m-tx. spending time with these distant yet comforting strangers perhaps made me feel less alone once michelle went back to washington, but also curious about the differences between my life and those on my online buddy list. 

during the four years i somehow spent living in nebraska, my online habits continued, yet slowed as real life friendships took over. 

now, at 24, my heart still gets a little giddy when i hear one of my friends has a w-seeking-m post on craigslist. or when i sit in my room, and listen to the laughter in the other room of two girls who met on match.com. 

i suppose it's only natural then, that i would want to spend my life thinking about these lovely possibilities that the internet offers. and it should be no wonder that i enjoy the sound of my keys clicking methodically on my macbook, forming frisky little something-or-others on my blog post. 

so, what's next, you ask? i'm not sure. i can imagine this obsession weaving some kind of magic or inspiration in a grad school application essay, or more simply, continued to be explored in all-too-familiar word docs disguised as personal expression in the wooden chairs of capitol hill coffee shops. 

until i figure out the hows-the-whys-and-the-wtf-does-this-all-really-mean's, i think i'll continue to sit here, in my comfy bed, browse the craigslist i saw you ads and listen to the laughter in the other room.