I have a confession to make.  I'm addicted to the Internet.

What's that you say?  Duh?  Oh did I mention this addiction before?  My bad.  Well to reiterate and further elaborate, I am addicted to the Internet.  Have been since I opened my first Hotmail account in 1997.  I didn't have a computer at home so I used the one at school.  Only that was a slight problem since I was so addicted back then that I'd skip class to be online.  I'd miss my bus to be online.  I'd forgo sex to be online.

Ok the last bit wasn't true because that's when I was going through my born again virgin phase.  But I guess you could say that the being online was like sex for me.  Still is.  And no perv, I don't check out porn sites.  Well not much, just every once in a while.

But the Internet.  Man I love this thing.  I've got friends in New Zealand for god's sake.  I have ONE friend here in New York, WHERE I LIVE, but I've got friends in New Zealand.  Well just one friend, but come on how awesome is that?

But with the good comes the bad.  And the Internet, while glorious and a gift from the gods, can also be a curse.  It possesses you.  Once you start going on the Internet that's it for you.  It owns you for life.  Like being in the mob or Amish.

I know this, because I speak from experience.  No silly ... I'm not Amish.  When I got my first computer and accessed the web from home, I didn't come up for air for about two years.  Hell I'm still struggling to break away from it.

Initially I'd spend every waking hour online.  That amounted to about 19hrs each day that I'd spend online.  Back then I barely slept.  And when I did, the first thing I'd do when I awoke, was go sit at the computer because it was always online.  I skipped school, I called in sick from work.  I made excuses to friends on why I couldn't go out with them.  I never left my room.  There was no need.  All my addictions were right there within inches of each other.  I was like the guy in the French movie Thomas est amoureux (Thomas In Love). The difference between the two of us was that he was agoraphobic and the whole 'staying inside and living vicariously through his computer' was something he had no choice about.  I on the other hand was always one to give into my addictions.  Well the ones I liked anyway.

I become addicted to things that entertain me and fuel my curiosity.  Television, movies, books, the Internet.  Other stuff like drugs and alcohol, while fun in their own ways, just don't cut it for me when it comes to addiction.

Give me something stimulating.  Not something that takes away feelings.  Alcohol while it may enhance the fun level, deadens the brain.  Ditto with drugs.  So no thank you.  TV on the other hand, and movies and books and most certainly my beloved Internet, enhance everything in addition to expanding the brain.

Sorry drug lords, but you can't beat that sort of head rush.  The rush of knowing that the minute you log on you've got the world right there at your disposal.  That by typing in a few words you can pull up every bit of information on anything your little heart desires.  That you can figuratively travel all over the world without so much as taking off your pjs.

Don't get me wrong.  I'd love to travel.  I even have a schedule of places I want to go every year up to 2026.  Mina and I have plans to hit the world and take it by storm.  But until I can actually afford to start globetrotting ... i.e. until I get a job that I can stand for more than two months, I'll do my traveling through the Internet.

You can make entire worlds while online.  I've got a host of friends that I've never met.  I know more about some of them than I do about certain members of my family.  And trust me I prefer it that way.

The Internet is an alternate universe that if you want, you could just start your life over.  Find a job and a place to live in a city where no one knows you and by the time you get off the plane, your new life would have been set up and you could leave whatever past you didn't want behind.

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