The WebLessStress

I have no internet connection. I am writing this in OpenOffice (a small personal silent protest against Microsoft, despite running it on a PC running a brand spanking new, legal copy of XP Pro).

I am pretty stressed.

I am stressed with the absence of the internet. I feel anxious, nervous. My heart rate has increased, and not, disappointingly, due to an unhealthy consumption of caffeine as is the usual for a Monday morning. I am imagining the backlog of email desperate to flood into my inbox, packets sat impatiently on Thunderbird's doorstep.

An arachnophobic would be elated to suddenly have all eight legged creatures unceremoniously destroyed. A vertigo sufferer would be more than happy to be moved an awful long way from anything cliff like. But The WebStress, a self-confessed interphobic, has realised that I need the internet.

It is a pretty difficult realisation to swallow. I need the one thing I am afraid of. I feel like I am suffering a rather painful breakthrough in my budget counselling course.

The internet makes me tense, stressed, upset. It isn't just my work either. Poorly laid out, badly designed websites make me angry, especially when I am trying to throw my money at some miscellaneous company (recent attempts at insuring my new laptop online equated to much stroppyness). But it isn't just bad websites that feel my wrath. Considering I actually lectured in aesthetics and ergonomics of web design, it is amazing that even the simplest of navigation confuses me. And woe betide you if you were to add a distracting and pointless piece of flash to your website (badly tweened text and poorly faded jpgs is always a good one to get me going). I can feel the muscles in my arms tense just thinking about it.

I officially suck at surfing too. If Google doesn't return precisely the right search results on the first page to my often rambling, overlong and vague queries, then I will close the browser window aggressively (and believe me that is possible) and skulk off to make a cup of tea. And don't even get me started on eBay. I lost at several bids just before Christmas on a Jabba's Palace Lego set, no longer available (complete with minifig Princess Leia in gold bikini and chains, trap door and Lego Jabba). I got frustrated with constant outbidding and failure (I am not a betting woman) that I just bought it outright (I felt initiated into the community briefly, even if I was somewhat of an impostor, but felt relieved when the whole ordeal was over).

But I also need the internet to make my work life bearable. My friends and family on msn, email and Skype really do help me battle through, once my toast seems like a distant memory and I've had one too many cups o tea. Its usually just a brief whine about how badly their day is progressing, then one of us will say 'got to go, really busy' followed by a series of vaguely related hyperactive emoticons (Skype's dancing man is a personal favourite). I need to know I am not alone in sitting at my desk sulking that it is Monday, bored, fed up but with an enormous workload. I need to know that other people are as miserable and depressed as me, there is something deeply comforting to know that I am not alone in my suffering.

Oh its back on now. No-one's online. I've had no gmail apart from an auto generated email. Msn is 'temporarily unavailable'. And my inbox is overloaded with pointless, time consuming, dull amends to banner ads that had to all be completed before I even took breath this morning. I am behind with my work and its only half ten on a Monday morning. Quite clearly, the grass is always greener.