Typewriters annoy me. It's a mark of real modernism, especially in a writer, when a computer is preferred over a good old-fashioned typewriter. I don't know what it is about computers...they fascinate me. Information stored in tiny chips no bigger than a pinky nail, and yet they can control and even destroy lives.

More so than this advanced technology we experience with computers, there's the relative face of secrecy. One can only take other entities as they come: don't assume, and assumptions won't make things hard. So on and so forth.

The third, and biggest reason I absolutely love computers is: It gives me complete freedom from reality. Of course, it only applies when I stay away from news websites...which I always try to do. Freedom from society, as the title suggests, is elusive when you are constantly surrounded by people who wish to know every aspect of your life.

I think He is the only one I can really talk to, really connect with, although I think our relationship has simmered down to platonic friendship. I still feel little twinges every time I see him, but to me it's rather normal. It's okay, though, because I think it's healthier this way. If we were to force a relationship it could lead to a blowout, fallout, like the Whig party in 1850.

Oh, that's the honors government talking. We've been paired off in groups for mock-presidential debates, on various issues that plagued the nation back before the Civil War. It's astonishing how so many people have so many misconceptions about the antebellum period. The whole country was raised on racism, no joke. Northerners were perhaps even more prejudiced against blacks than Southerners were. Unfortunately, I have the part of Senator Seward, from South Carolina. He was almost fascist in his beliefs about slavery.

Wish me luck in this reluctant endeavor.

Novel is coming along a bit slowly because of homework.

~AF