Charter Communications is annoying me.

So, I finally got a post up this morning. The time stamp is 7:45, but it went up at 11:39. For about the 7th time in the last 4 days, my internet connection cut out. It's constantly on and off.

Last night, it was on, then off, and I called Charter Communications and went through the familiar layers of the automated program until I got to the part where I was told that all the human beings were busy, so why not just get started with the help of the pleasant-voiced robot lady? Okay. Actually, I liked working with the robot lady. She didn't bug me with preliminary questions like what are the last 4 digits of my "social."

But then she misunderstood one of my answers and got onto a path of questions that were all wrong. Exclamations like "stop" and "you've misunderstood me" and "you're wrong, wrong, wrong, shut up, stop" all failed to get her attention. The connection restarted for some reason, so I just hung up. But an hour later, it was off again, and I was back on the phone. We got it fixed again, but an hour later it was off again. I shut the computer down and went to bed.

This morning it was working, and I wrote the long post about the Hindu priest, but then the connection cut out just as I needed to leave the house and go to an eye doctor appointment. No time to stop at a café and publish the post. After a morning spent answering questions like "Is it better this way or this way?" -- which in another context could be exciting questions -- I dropped back at home to see how things were. Still out. I relocated to a café so I could get on line without layers of robotic questions... and get some coffee.

I'm so annoyed with my Charter Communications service right now. They help you when you call, but I'm sick of calling only to lose the connection later. Maybe I'll just cancel all my service. I'll have to leave the house to get a high-speed connection and I'll just dial up at home. It would inject some moderation into my internet habit. But what would it do to my coffee habit? But it's all temporary, since I'm moving to Brooklyn in a few weeks. That's why I'm not in the mood to spend any time fixing problems. Perhaps I will think of that as liberating.

On a different level: life itself is temporary. Maybe you shouldn't consume too much of your time trying to fix your problems. Live while you can.

And yet a different level: Do you think when eye doctors have sex, they're all "which is better #1 or #2, #3 or #4"?