Tag: internet

My Online Real Estate Obsession

On By erintothemaxIn CommentaryLeave a comment

I have many pathologies, one of them is compulsive use of a website, Redfin.com.

There are many cities in which I look at homes. I look at homes for hours. I will never live in these homes. I will never live in these cities. Many of these cities I don’t even want to live in.

Nor am I looking to move at this time.

I hate moving, actually. I hate boxes and packing them and especially, unpacking them. It is why I still have unpacked boxes from moves several years ago.

But here is what I love: fantasy.

The fantasy of having a slide that shoots from the upstairs to the playroom in the basement (what lucky children live there)!

The fantasy of an old-school elevator, the kind with a collapsible metal screen painted black instead of a proper door, or an outdoor shower by the sea.

The fantasy of any number of architectural styles having nothing to do with one another: mid-century modern, Victorian vampire, camelback fixer-upper, exposed brick artist loft, ugly nouveau riche McMansion (often contains provocative innovations in toileting equipment).

I have realized what this is about. I want to have multiple lives, as many lives as possible.

I want more.

The older I get, the more I have seen the irrevocable finitude of others. And I see my finitude. This one life of mine is moving fast, seemingly accelerating because that is what happens when you gain perspective by way of time.

By fantasizing about a succession of alternate lives, I am able to pretend I have more runway than I probably do. (Though I consider myself to be quite healthy and put effort into that—it would be awesome to live as long as possible.)

I rawdog this website, Redfin.com, no account, no app, gawking homes in my pretend cloak of anonymity.

Of course every site I’ve ever visited is tracking me with “cookies.”

Of course Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the supposedly depersonalized algorithm know everything.

Redfin.com and the whole internet control apparatus knows damn well I’m a middle-age woman with a long list of additional monetizable insecurities and obsessions (to flatter the ego, we’ll relabel them ‘aspirations’) not specified here. This is escapism with no escape hatch.

Holding A Baby And An iPhone

On By erintothemaxIn Commentary2 Comments

I live-tweeted labor. The first night of my daughter’s life I realized I was going to be nursing for long stretches overnight; I began using my phone to stay awake. Every night I spent hours nursing her quietly, listening to her sweet little swallows, and surfing the Internet like it was the best Gidget movie in the world. I developed eye strain, and my carpal tunnel flared up again.

Eventually maternity leave was over. I held a different job then, one I loved, but I was also a rare part-time employee on a staff of full-timers. That meant checking in on email all the time anyway, so I wouldn’t fall behind.

Work-life balance is this elusive thing. It’s a psychic pair of skinny jeans, designed to punish. Work-life balance is not a gender-neutral phrase. Work-life balance may as well be Morse code for throwing women to the wolves. We are expected to take care of our families, make nice food that looks like it belongs on Instagram, and shatter glass ceilings through perseverance and sheer will. (Friendly reminder: There are no personal solutions to societal problems.)

Generally I suck at work/life balance, as do a good portion of the people I know, because we are expected to work all the time and we have the Internet with us almost everywhere we go.

And yet I’m not complaining: I’m fortunate that my line of work so happens to be my life passion. Still, if work/life balance means having two separate spheres of life that are both well-tended, nope, I don’t have that.

I’m the woman who is opening up Slack for conversations with a colleague while my daughter eats in a high chair next to me. You can catch me firing off work emails at the playground. And I’m ashamed by how often I look at Facebook when she is in my care.

My daughter has taught me a love of presence. We should listen to crickets and wonder what they are. An airplane overhead is worth pointing to and talking about. Silence is a lavish gift — seriously, take it when you can get it.

It is hard for me to reconcile my actual and/or perceived need to be always available online with being the attentive mother I want to be. And yet, I am terrifically proud to be a working mother, and I claim that title. I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to realize that the woman suffrage poster in her bedroom is not just wall art, and that her mom is a troublemaker.

Ultimately, I am doing both. Sometimes I hold my daughter and write emails. Sometimes I push the stroller and go on Twitter rants.  I am a parent and a working feminist at the same time.