Bitterland

Gather round children and I will tell you a tale of the early days of internet, back before MySpace and Facebook and blogging. Back then, we talked to each other on news groups: Usenet news. It was great; if I had had problem with my computer, I'd just post it on comp.mac and I'd get an answer within the day. Yeah, there are groups like that now, but this was highly concentrated brains. Once I got an answer from the guy who wrote the software for my mac. There were fun groups too: the alt. universe. I used to lurk in alt.callahans and alt.bitterness. I loved alt.bitterness. Everyone seemed so smart and tired and urbane. Oh, and bitter. I loved reading about their bitter attitudes and their bitter problems and their bitter lives. I tried posting once, but it wasn't truly bitter. You see, I was not a bitter woman. Not one bit. Bitterness was a foreign country which I could see from a distance, but I'd never landed there, not even briefly. I felt like a pretty lucky person, and that I was living a life I'd pretty much planned.

So then 2008 happened. I have my visa to that country now.

But I won't go there. I've seen it, and it's not a nice place. Not even to visit.

Now whining, that's different; I could take a long vacation in whine country.