September 23, 5:45 pm. Greetings from I-55, somewhere in the middle of Illinois, where I am currently making a roadtrip with my childhood friend Tom to the sleepy suburb of St. Charles, Missouri, where we both grew up. I'm writing the first draft of this entry in my paper notebook, of course, because a couple of days ago the power cord for my Treo broke, which means that it's out of commission until I can get another one.

And boy, the cliche really is true, that you never quite appreciate the things you have until they're suddenly gone again. I had never quite realized until this week, in fact, just how much my Treo has become a part of my daily life over the last year and a half I've owned it, or how much I take for granted anymore the small conveniences the device affords my life. "Gee, I wonder what the forecast is for later today? Oh, wait, I can't check anymore. Well, I wonder what's on television tonight? Oh, wait, I can't check that either." No photos, no email, no phone calls, no chances to look things up on the web; it's been driving me crazy, I tells ya!

And the irony, of course, is that as little as 18 months ago, this is how my life was all the time; my Treo, in fact, is the first time ever that I've had any kind of internet access at home, and is also the first phone I've owned in something like 15 years. (And to be truthful, I'm still not exactly crazy about the 'owning a phone again' part, because that other cliche is true as well - that it's always the people you want to talk to the least who call you the goddamn most.) Back before I owned my Treo, I would take all these things in stride; I would simply check my email once a week or so, for example, whenever I had a chance to go to an internet cafe, and then not think about my email again until it was time to go to the cafe again.

So how funny, I think, that now that I'm back in this state again, everything feels a lot more panicky - like that I'm missing out on all these earth-shaking announcements and news items every hour that my Treo is turned off. Which is ridiculous, of course, because my life is no different right now than it was two years ago when I didn't own the Treo in the first place. but man, once I did get that Treo, I sure got used to it really fast, and this week have almost felt that kind of severe separation anxiety that usually only occurs when a romantic partner leaves town.

And part of me, of course, wants to kick my own ass right now for feeling such emotions, because it's just a stupid fucking cellphone and I always told myself that I'd never be one of those assholes who form an emotional attachment to their fucking cellphone. But then part of me acknowledges that I'm in a bit of a special position - that in my particular life, my Treo isn't simply a cellphone, but also my only means of connecting to the internet and communicating with the world outside my apartment. Unlike most people, I can't just show up to an office job or school campus the next day, and do all the online things I wasn't able to do on my mobile device the night before; without my Treo, I'm off the grid for good, and considering just how active I've been online since actually getting it, I suppose I do have some justification for this panicky feeling I've been dealing with for the last couple of days.

Okay, enough of this stupid fucking subject. So why am I currently heading to St. Charles? Well, because my mom recently went through some pretty major surgery - she had her hip replaced with an artificial one, in fact, which as anyone who's gone through the process can tell you, is not very pleasant at all. The surgery itself was actually a couple of weeks ago; but it just happened to have fallen in the middle of my friend Alamar's trip to chicago, which means I couldn't get away until now.

Anyway, so that's why I'm heading down, to basically be hired help - to cook meals, do laundry, answer the phone, clean, and lots of other day-to-day chores that my mom is finding impossible to accomplish herself, during the day when my dad is at the community college where he teaches. And that'll be nice, I think, because there are just so few times in my parents' life that they legitimately need my help, so I feel good for having the chance to karmically pay them back at least a little for all the help and support they've offered me, over these (sigh) three years of unemployment that I'm in the middle of going through right now.

September 26, 2 pm. Greetings from St. Charles! The good news is that I've been here a couple of days now, and things have been going fine; the bad news, though, is that I'm finding it very difficult to find the time and silence necessary to actually write my journal. (Basically, I'm using my dad's computer, which is in the family room right next to the television.) Anyway, my mom's in with her physical therapist right now, so I thought I'd see how much of the last couple of days I could get written down before that's over and the chaos starts up again; that's why this entry may sound rushed when you read it, or have more typos and bad grammar than you're maybe used to from me.

Tom and I ended up getting into town just fine Friday, although it was disappointing to have not been able to blog the roadtrip live from my Treo, which I had been originally planning on doing. And the really good news is that my mom is doing much better than I had been expecting; she's on a cane instead of the walker I was expecting, can stand and walk around pretty well on her own, and even do a lot of the small daily stuff (showering, going to the bathroom, dressing, etc) that I didn't think she was going to be able to do unaided. The main reason, in fact, that she needs help in the first place right now, is because of the surgery scar itself - namely, she's not allowed to bend any further than 90 degrees, in fear of her stitches popping out, and she can't twist sideways either. So that's what I'm mainly here for, to do just those little bendy things that she needs help with - tying her shoes, putting clean dishes back in the cabinets, stuff like that.

So, Friday was a pretty quiet evening, and then Saturday the three of us headed over to this mall called St. Louis Mills which is now officially the biggest fucking mall I've ever visited in my goddamn life (but there will be photos of this coming to my Flickr account next week, so you can see for yourself). And the reason we went there is because of this birthday party for this kid, who is the kid of some friends of my parents who are sorta halfway in age between me and them, and whose own parents died before they had kids, so over the years my parents have become sorta adopted grandparents for them, and do all the things that grandparents do for grandkids. Which, hey, is just fine with me, because it saves me from all those excruciating conversations that all my friends seem to be going through with their own parents these days, about when they're going to have kids and why haven't they had kids yet, and when are you finally going to settle down and have those fucking grandkids that we're about to explode waiting for, blah blah blah.

Anyway, lots more to tell you about, but I'm finding it just impossible to concentrate enough to actually get it written; Jesus, God help me if I ever tried to do this journal while actually living with someone else, man. Maybe tonight I'll have my dad drop me off at one of the coffeehouses here in St. Charles, and I can sit and actually get a decent entry written. Meanwhile, I hope you're doing well wherever you are, and hopefully you'll be getting regular if not scatterbrained updates from me each day this week.