Free The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart Page A

Bill’s friend Pat slept over. It seems he’d had a huge fight with his parents and his brother about computer time. LOL! “Did Bill tell you we have no power here?” I asked cautiously. “Fine with me,” he’d growled. “I’m over it.”
    The last time Pat and Bill had had a sleepover, Pat had brought his desktop computer along with him—strapped to his bike like a large child. This was not unusual. The friendship was really a foursome: two boys and two PCs. No matter how often Bill explained it to me, I could never quite figure out why this was necessary—like, if they were playing games, couldn’t they just take turns?—but it was something about battling each other in real time. Frankly, it sounded a lot like being married.
    This time, Pat brought a toothbrush and a book instead. “Wow. Pat can read?” Sussy hissed. (She was home on weekend furlough.) That night, I went to say goodnight and found the boys sitting up on Bill’s bed, side by side with their Coleman lanterns and their books: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and—get this— The God Delusion.
    So Dawkins was wrong after all, I reflected as I tiptoed down the hall. There really is a God.

    January 5, 2009
     
    Peaceful, almost Zen-like atmosphere in house today.
    Duh. No one home.
    Seriously—the quality of the silence has changed. It’s thicker, more meditative. The buzz is gone. It’s good.
    Cleaned fridge and found two gel eye-masks buried under a drift of pecorino. Gross! Made chicken curry for dinner. Girls (Anni, Maddi, Suss) returned around eight p.m. and screamed with laughter to find Bill and self eating it on verandah by kerosene lamplight. “Creepy!” they cried. (A: “Mum, this is the dorkiest idea you ever had.”) But dutifully took up their lanterns and went inside.
    Snuck down hallway later to find all arrayed in A.’s bed surrounded by lanterns and mags. Suss reading novel titled No Fat Chicks . Others discussing “fear of intimacy.”
    Bedrooms terrifyingly slatternly at present but thankfully cannot see much detail.
     
     
    January 6
     
    Wrote column in longhand, just like this diary. Painful to hand and head, big-time. Harbor no ambivalence whatsoever re: MS Word. It rocks. Sigh.
    Bought bunch of new pens, notebooks as treat to self. (Sharpie ultra fine points, permanent, and spiral bound nbks with sober but elegant black covers.) Spent foolish amount of time trawling well-lit, climate-controlled aisles of OfficeWorks. Can see myself starting to abuse stationery if not careful.
    Keywords wish list (i.e., stuff I wanted to Google today): 1—natural diuretics, 2—“French justice minister” AND pregnant, 3—Perth New York airfare cheapest, 4—cause of death, HD Thoreau.
    Read every blessed word of newspaper.
    Bill rode bike to Vinnie’s and just called to ask if he could stay the night. Evidently The Beast still roams, seeking whom he may devour.
     
     
    January 7
     
    Have totally settled into Walden -worthy routine now. Spent morning at South Beach, snorkeling, snoozing, and rereading Thoreau. Home for grilled cheese cooked in frying pan. (NB: Have discovered how to make toast over an open flame. Spear bread with long fork, wave in circles over gas ring. Avoid observing self in rangehood.)
    Definitely eating strangely, out of all routine. Today: ½ almond croissant, 2 mangoes, 1 cheese sandwich, 1 glass wine, 1 grapefruit soda, 1 Kit Kat. Thoreau would gag. He did have some pretty odd cravings himself, though. “I caught a glimpse of a woodchuck stealing across my path,” he wrote, “and felt a strange thrill of savage delight, and was strongly tempted to seize and devour him raw; not that I was hungry then, except for that wildness which he represented.” Interesting. Felt much the same way about the Kit Kat.
     
     
    January 8
     
    Near 40° today—same for tomorrow. Cannot Google “metric converter” for precise Fahrenheit equiv but know it’s over a hundred. (Weird how after twenty-three