ruby unplugged. reboot.

Told you we aint dead yet /we been livin’ through your internet /you don’t have to believe everything you think /we’ve been programmed /wake up, we miss you.

say reboot, refresh, restart/
fresh page/
new day

- “The Healer”, Erykah Badu

I went to Erykah’s Vortex Tour last night. I feel completely renewed. Like I’ve claimed an entirely new space in the Vortex, on some real shit. Been crazed over the past few weeks, thoughts jumbling and tangling, knotting into each other, competing for output. Matrix overloaded.

Like everyone in America, I’ve realized how ADD I’ve become. All the constant stimuli; the buttons we can push, the new emails feeding in, the blogs to read in order to keep up, Gchat, Ichat, text messages, television! It can drive a girl mad. My writing process is suffering. I’ve come so accustomed to writing on my computer, that somehow, it makes the process less…organic? Someone tie me to a tree and log me off, dammit!  I go on my computer to write, and somehow become bombarded with temptations to do five hundred things all at one time: send emails to press, write back to a myspace comment, check on new blog updates, read the news online, respond to the orange chat light on gchat, watch a youtube video- all the while forgetting that the original reason was to decompress my thoughts and god forbid, write.

The other day, I watched television for four ridiculous hours- (see, I stay logged into Mac Dre** all day, but television? That’s foreign mayn) I felt sick to my stomach. Something must be chemically altering in our brain cells when we stay focused on the television screen for too long, cause I swear, I felt like part of my brain turned mush (not Mush, the amazing poet my brain wishes it looked like), but mush, like yucky, like soft, like polluted. I stopped watching television as a regular past time long ago, and these days when I sit in front of it too long, I want to vomit.

Well, perhaps it was cause I was watching 3 million blondes in hot pink prance around and sing for tryouts for Legally Blonde on Broadway (don’t ask) and had to sit through commercials in between trying to sell me plastic remedies for perkier boobs, flatter abs, and/or yogurt. What the hell, television’s depressing. How ironic I’m so interested in entering its evil industry***.

My ADD, my already heavy (but fast moving) thoughts, nausea from excess television, overachiever’s anxiety syndrome, and my suffering writing process combined was beginning to strangle me. Overload. Somewhere along the journey, I worried I forgot my ability to create. There’s nothing scarier than that shit.

Then came Erykah. Pinstripe suit with a hair bigger than this lifetime, she put it DOWN. Somehow, something clicked back. I understood New Amerykah Part One Fourth World War clearer than I ever did, despite bumpin it on regular rotation since March. “The Healer” regenerated flesh and heart where tangled wire crackled. Reboot. Refresh. Fresh Air. New Day!!

Chinaka said I re-positioned my space in the Universe today. Hell yes, I shifted the Vortex- new energy, I welcome you!

**My computer’s name is Dre. And he’s my first Mac. Get it, Mac Dre? teehee.

****But see, I’m aspiring to be television’s new day.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 1:15 am. It is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.