Dopp Juice Archive

One quiet Sunday afternoon just a few weeks ago, in a bizarre display of things-that-are-not-surprising-in-San-Francisco, groups of people on trains all over the city spontaneously burst into Christmas carols. It was August.

It was supposed to be about happy jolly fun. Then it turned into a political act about free speech. And then it turned back into happy jolly fun.

The story is covered at the SF Shenanigans blog.

And I’m only sharing this because it’s interesting. I had nothing to do with it. I swear. That isn’t me in those pictures. Really. I’m a good upstanding citizen who doesn’t create anachronistic merrymaking chaos.

Seriously.

Stop looking at me like that.

You believe me, don’t you?

If you sent me an email in the last five days, you received this autoresponse:

Subject: Autoresponse: I'm off the grid.
Hi! Thanks for your email! I'm off camping this weekend, and will be back on Tuesday night.

While I'm gone, I will not have access to phone, email, text messages, voicemail, twitter, wordpress, livejournal, linked in, facebook, myspace, cpanel, firefox, photoshop, dreamweaver, or anything else that I generally consider to be a critical lifeline. This means you can't reach me. No, really. You really can't reach me.

Frankly, I'm a little concerned that I might die without my microchips.

But we'll see what happens.

Talk to you when I return.

~Sarah

The suggestion came from my coworker while I was running around the office last Thursday, frantically trying to make sure he had all the details he needed to survive while I was gone. When I offered to twitter my entire weekend so he could know at any moment if I was swimming or not, he gently put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Sarah, how about you leave your cell phone at home?”

I stared at him slack-jawed and tried three times to form a complete word, but couldn’t.

He backpedaled. “I mean, do what you want to do. You can bring it if you want and that’s fine — it might be helpful. I was just thinking maybe…”

I cut him off. “No, you’re right. I should probably leave it at home. It’s just… I can’t… even imagine what that would be like.”

“All the more reason to do it,” he said.

So I did it.

And from all the recognition and back-pats I demanded from my fellow campers, you woulda thought I’d just donated a kidney to a dying seven-year-old. This was major sacrifice. This was a big deal.

As soon as I settled in, something wonderful happened. I relaxed and paid attention to where I was. The campfire smell. The gravel between my toes. The dog scavenging for food scraps by my knee. The sun starting to burn my shoulders. The cool water rippling around my skin as I did somersaults in Lake Berryessa.

For five days, I didn’t know what time it was. And with the exception of the people in my campground, I didn’t know what anyone in the world was up to, when anyone was trying to reach me, or what anyone was concerned about. And I didn’t particularly care.

It was the same peace and beauty for five full days, and miraculously, I never once felt bored.

I hate to say it, but maybe there’s more to life than the Internet.

Maybe?

…

Okay, just kidding. So what’d I miss?