When I think about my time offline, I think about all the events that didn’t transpire until years later. Twitter wasn’t X. Donald Trump wasn’t in my consciousness. Neither were, I’m sorry to say, the relentless struggles of other minorities in America. I was still blind to the systemic racism that has been brought into public discourse today.

I wrote this journal in 2013. I wasn’t as politically aware as I am now. I’m still learning, of course, but I was more ignorant of the ways in which the system stomps on other marginalized Americans. In 2013, there was no COVID. I didn’t know the frequency of race-based police killings.

I’m telling you this so you can understand why this journal may seem dated in places. I wasn’t aware of a lot of things, and my ignorance led me to perpetuate an oppressive system. It helped racism flourish during that time. I didn’t address social justice in this journal apart from my own blindness. I’ve since worked to expand my knowledge and listen more to racially marginalized writers’ stories.

This was the first book I wrote, so it will always hold a place in my heart as the beginning of my writing journey. I’ve created a lot of things since then. My hope is that after you read this snapshot in time you’ll decide to join me as we learn and grow together.

Robert Kingett

“Off the Grid. Go off the grid on October 1!”

The challenge begins at a park in Chicago, as I’m sure all great things do. It’s September 2013, and a bitter cold slaps my face. I’m sitting on a wooden park bench with my cell in hand, hearing my emails with one ear and listening to my friend, Marcus, prattle on about his web development class in college across from me. I can’t help but multitask, however. I bite a chunk out of my burger and navigate my emails with my right thumb.

“It stinks that you didn’t get the internship, Robbie,” he says as he masticates his fries. “I mean an internship with WIRED would be totally sweet! You’d be the only blind guy on staff.”

My phone tells me that a whole host of PR people have sent me about a dozen press releases without asking me if I’d be interested in their car rental services or boots with cameras on them. My phone tells me, via my earpiece, that I have even more emails flooding into my inbox as I devour my burger.

For the past week, I’ve been sending in application after application. Sure, I’ve had several offers from people who didn’t want to pay me for my articles. Friends —- including Marcus, sitting across from me —- have sent me several writing opportunities that don’t pay at all. They’ve also shared a few writing “contests” that demand a reading fee.

I decide to go to the park. I want to get away from my office, a.k.a. my apartment. I’ve been reading about the Federal Communications Commission’s (the FCC’s) latest venture to destroy internet freedom, and the article was so draining that I just had to get away for a while.

Now I’m listening to various calming sounds around me. The wind whistles a melancholy tune against a backdrop of other noises: kids laughing, shoes thumping on the pavement as people run or jog by, and people joking with one another about something they saw on TV the other day. It’s all very soothing. I’m in a kind of zone until Marcus snaps me out of it by waving a hand in my remaining field of vision.

“Hey, you know what? Wait. Are you listening to me now?”

“Yes, of course.” I lie, silencing the speech on my old Nokia cell phone.

“I’ve been reading up about the FCC and all of that. You know, about the net neutrality regulations and stuff, including what you’ve sent me on it. About Verizon and the crap they said about how killing net neutrality will help disabled people.”

“Marcus, I came here to get away from that for a while.” I sigh. I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the emails I’m still receiving even when my inbox isn’t open. Every few minutes, there’s a bleep. Then, a synthesized voice tells me I have a new email from a random sender. I soon decide to switch my phone to Offline Mode. I look at Marcus with an eyebrow raised.

“Look, dawg,” he says. He’s hurrying now, as if I might punch him if he doesn’t finish his sentence. “I’ve been thinking about that. Just how useful is the internet to a blind guy?”

I stare at him, without blinking, for what seems like forever. I answer slowly. “Very! It’s a utility if you’re disabled. For me, it’s how I do my job. For others, it’s—-”

“But,” he practically shouts, forgetting his burger and fries on the table, “That’s it!”

I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about or even what direction he’s headed in. I place my hand on his forehead to suggest he has a fever. “You know what, dude? You really have to stop eating all them sweets. I think you’re getting a bit ill. I think you’re turning green!”

“I’m Black, dingy,” he says with a smile.

We both crack grins that could part the Red Sea, and I lean in closer. Instinctively, I shut out all the other sounds so that my attention is completely on Marcus. I can’t see his facial expression, but my ears are locked in and ready to listen.

“What is it? What were you getting at? You want to have me call the FCC and go, ‘Hi, Mr. Fed! Please don’t destroy the internet because disabled people need it’? What’s in your head?”

He folds his hands on the table and leans in even closer, as though we’re CIA operatives conducting a live drop. “Why don’t you show how important the internet is?”

“Excuse me?” I blink. I’m aware of the sounds around me as they come back into focus. A few feet away, a man tells a woman on a cell phone that he’ll definitely pick up the kids tonight. I’m gaping at Marcus. “I use the internet every single day to do every single thing! People know that’s how I work—-online. I don’t understand what you’re getting at there, buddy.”

“You didn’t let me finish.”

“So, finish.” I steal a french fry from his bag and set it on my napkin.

He smiles and takes the fry back before continuing. “Okay. That’s it, though! You use the Web every day. You do your schoolwork, your job, everything on the internet. It’s important to you, yeah? It is important to you. So, my dear friend, I have a challenge for you.”

I try to steal another fry, but Marcus grabs the other end, and a tug of war begins.

“What’s the challenge? Tweet the FCC what I’m doing every hour, including how it would help the disabled?”

“Tempting, but nope.” The fry shudders back and forth as we lightly tug it away from each other. “Tweet the Tribune every day and tell them why they should hire me?” I yank the fry again.

He snatches it back as he responds. “Nope. Another good idea, though.”

Another yank back to me. “So, what is it then?”

A yank back to him. “Go offline. Go offline completely! No email, nothing.”

The fry hovers between us. I’m so stunned by his dare that I forget to pull my arm back in.

There’s a looming silence. Mocking it, my phone starts banging in my pocket, announcing an email from DePaul University. The subject is something about a seminar.

“You mean, like, for a day?”

Marcus grins and inches the fry toward himself.

I yank it back.

“No, silly boy.”

“A week?” I ask, pulling the fry closer to me. It almost makes it to my chest before he snatches it back. His grin is the size of the United States.

“A month,” he says.

Immediately, I go still. My brain can’t process what he’s just said. A month without using the internet? A month without email, Spotify, Pandora, news, Twitter, and conversations? A month without sending any work in except —- well, I don’t even know how to send my work in without the internet.

“A month?” I squeak. My fingers grip the fry harder than I mean to. I’m so stunned that I don’t even fight back as Marcus gently takes the fry and pops it into his mouth. He chews as he nods. He’s lucky I can see him at this moment. The fry is officially his.

“I need the internet. Literally!” I wonder how I can notice so many ordinary park sounds during this conversation.

“I know you do, Robbie.” Marcus lays a hand on one of mine that’s resting on the table. “That will be the fun of it, the challenge of it. Don’t use the internet for a whole month. Write about it. Keep a live diary of your journal entries and even write down what you see, hear, and experience. Do a running commentary on life without the internet. Write it all down.”

“The FCC doesn’t care about me or this, so why do it? The FCC won’t look at this commentary at all, so why even do this? It’s interesting, but, like, why?”

“Do you have to have a reason? It’s a challenge. And, knowing you, you’ll definitely see, hear, and experience things I’m sure will be worth jotting down —- regardless of whether the FCC reads it. All the same, it will be a cultural experiment. It will just be keeping a journal.” He pauses as he contemplates a title, his expressive brown eyes narrowing in thought. I’m still trying to process his dare as I stare at his bright pink shirt with a red Apple on it.

“Off the Grid. Go off the grid on October 1!”

It takes me a while before I can respond. “I don’t know what that’s going to be like,” I say. I sound almost as if I’m flying into outer space.

He pats me on the hand and his brown eyes bore into my blue eyes. My cane is folded beneath my feet, and my phone has finally stopped buzzing in my pocket. The world behind me seems to fall out of existence as Marcus and I stare at one another. I wait for his reply.

“I know, Robbie. I don’t know what it will be like either. But don’t you think it would be interesting to see? Something to live through, just to see how you’ve changed with the internet, if at all?”

His suggestion does intrigue me. I steal another french fry and eat it, debating my answer as I chew. I have no idea what I’ll do, see, or even experience. I have no idea what will even begin to transpire. I don’t know how I’ll even listen to music. I think for a while, weighing out this challenge.

For a month, I couldn’t use the internet at all. For a month, I’d need to cope with my blindness without communicating via Skype, without looking at email, and without looking things up on the fly on my own. I’d have to use something else, like a phonebook, as a blind person. I’d have to deal with my blindness the old-fashioned way. I’d need to adapt my life all over again.

Marcus is right about one thing: I do need a reason. Taking on the dare of a sighted person isn’t reason enough. And I can’t stop thinking. I’m a journalist. I study technology. I advocate for internet access and accessibility. What could I do to really follow through on this challenge, documenting it the whole time? Perhaps I’m at a unique place in history, a time when this project would make a difference. Before, it would simply have been impossible. What could I document about the pace of these changing times, about the lives of people like me?

I don’t realize that Marcus’s hand is still resting on mine until he shakes it slightly. My vision snaps back to his brown eyes. I steal another fry and pop it into my mouth before replying.

“I accept your challenge, Marcus. It’s a deal. For a month, I won’t use the internet at all.”

He breaks a fry in half and offers me one end, his mouth set in a thoughtful line. “I can’t wait to see how this will turn out.”

I lock him into an intense gaze as I listen to the blip of an iPhone. A woman asks Siri where the nearest steak restaurant is. Siri tells her it’s found seven nearby and that “two are fairly close.” It’s astonishing to consider how many things won’t be available to me. How will I get by in daily life?

Slowly, I turn back to Marcus. Siri is asking if the woman would like to hear some classical jazz. “We’ll see, Marcus. We’ll see.”

It’s a few days before I do something that seems like jumping out to swim across Lake Michigan. In a few days, my email will have an autoresponder, my Twitter feed will no longer update, and my Facebook account will be temporarily deactivated. I’ll be off the grid completely.

People can’t believe I’ll really go through with this plan. All day, I’ve been fielding texts, tweets, direct messages, and Facebook messages to reiterate that, yes, I will definitely do it. I’ll go a month without the internet, without the world at my fingertips. It’s very shocking how plugged in I am to the World Wide Web, even for mundane tasks. I’ve incorporated the internet into my core being. As a result, I just can’t fathom leaving it behind for a month. I can’t even imagine what I’ll do when I’m not looking at emails for a story idea or popping onto AOL Instant Messenger for a quick hello from a few people I’ve never met in person. Stepping away from the internet is like leaving the world behind and moving to a different planet where you have only the occasional space junk to chat with.

The goal is to show people why we need the internet. But who knows? Perhaps, after a month has gone by, I’ll say I don’t want to be on the internet for another month. I may end up a hermit in a desolate forest, muttering snippets of HTML tags and hyperlinks to myself. I won’t know until I try.

My last week online has turned into a huge question of “What should I do?” Whenever I’m peeing, getting dressed, or logging in to delete spam from my inbox, there’s this looming wonder dancing around my mind. There’s a nudge all through my consciousness that keeps pressing me. It’s as if my internal clock wants me to know this monumental event will happen at this time.

It’s all a bit surreal, like stepping into The Twilight Zone. For closure or out of boredom, I’m not sure which, I open up a host of sites —- Facebook, Twitter, my email, and YouTube —- my sanctuary. I click on a video that shows a cute cat pushing a parrot around in a stroller. The experience makes me break out into a wide grin —- until the comments load. Something urges me to read them. I believe everyone is sucked into the comments sometimes. They’re hypnotizing even though you know what sadistic text awaits.

I don’t want to read them, but the pull takes hold of my consciousness, tugging my attention toward the loading frame. As I read the comments on the video, my mood deflates with each troll. I sigh and close the browser. Comments are something I won’t miss.

Another day, I’m opening my email to a review code. I pop it into an edit field in Audible so that I can review a book. I note how easy this process is and how much harder these kinds of transactions will become. But I know how peaceful my days will be as well. I won’t have to deal with pokes; I won’t have to deal with spam; and I won’t have to stay connected with, entertain, or educate a vast number of people I’ve never met in person. I know all these things, and I’ve been bouncing around in my head all week.

As someone who’s disabled, however, I’m limited despite having a world at my fingertips because I have to stay connected. Disabled people don’t have much choice when they’re looking for things. Books aren’t available in large print as much as they were a few years ago. I’ve called many companies this week to see if they have a PDF of their book, restaurant menu, or catalog. They’ve told me, as if in a hurry to get me off the phone, “It’s on our website.”

Aside from reminiscing about the internet and what I’ll miss while I’m away, I’ve been trying to prepare. This task is proving harder than I’d originally thought. The United States has three types of accessible libraries apart from some open-source options for the mainstream. The services for the blind in this country are the following: Bookshare, an online library comprising DAISY text files of books, magazines, and other materials; Learning Ally, a site that provides voluntary recordings of educational and traditional books to be distributed in DAISY format; and my favorite, NLS BARD, a site with thousands of recorded audio files by professional narrators and readers of books and magazines, some of which blind people wouldn’t even find on Audible or other platforms.

None of those services offer a standard dictionary or even a standard encyclopedia. A search turns up various specialty encyclopedias. Some are useful, and others are just silly, like a Fart Noise Encyclopedia. None of these sites have any decent almanacs, either. The ones I usually find are aimed at elementary school kids —- nothing that would help me.

This week, I’ve also called many dictionary publishers to see if they had audio CDs or large-print versions. The operators have all told me no, baffled that I didn’t have internet access at my location and at my audacity to ask about such things when I could use a library with internet access in Chicago.

I believe libraries are important and necessary solutions for our whole community, especially for the disabled and economically disadvantaged. Yet, they can’t be the solution for internet access. Although libraries have public resources, they aren’t always reliable. For instance, a library could be closed for holidays or due to the weather. Also, people shouldn’t have to take themselves out of their comfort zones and potentially endure difficult or time-consuming travel just so they can participate in society. Society should desire full participation without barriers, even minuscule ones, because the stress of facing a hostile society causes bitterness and fear of that society. Basic internet should be provided in all homes, and that’s what I hoped this challenge would help demonstrate. More than just responding to the challenge from Marcus —- not that his dares aren’t serious —- I’m seeking to make a point. As a journalist, I’m also aiming to document my experiences along the way.

Yet, many of my friends don’t like this challenge at all. The minute word got around that I would be going off the internet for a month, emails flooded into my inbox from a very good friend of mine, Sam. She’s freaking out, and I don’t blame her. Her emails are saturated with a desperate sense of loss as she types, with many exclamation points, about how silly this challenge is and how badly I’m needed. Nobody else who she knows has as much tech knowledge as I do. I reply with a loving, long explanation that basically boils down to: “Too bad! I’ll be back soon.”

Those messages from people begging me not to do this challenge gets me thinking, though, about my connection to the world. As much as the internet has helped me connect with people, without it, the world won’t be able to connect with me. People won’t be able to pop onto Facebook and see what I’m doing at any given moment. Potential editors won’t have the luxury of sending me a quick email through my website. PR professionals won’t be able to send me press releases that I have begged them for—-even if they’re about subjects that I cover, such as a new kind of adaptive technology inside a Performing Arts theater.

I wonder how this disconnect will affect the people who do keep up with me, who follow me, and who smile when I say “hi” over Skype. I’ve been exploring what this decision will do to me as a person, but I’d never even thought about the people I haven’t met in person but have gotten to know well. Will I lose Facebook friends? Will people lose interest and disappear from my World Wide Web circle? I assume they won’t, but people are diverse creatures. An endless swirl of possibilities could happen while I’m away. People won’t be able to connect with me as easily, and I won’t have the chance to connect with them as easily either.

I can send a job application in less than a minute by email. The editor can look at my resume and everything else that’s linked in my signature. Then, they can decide. Since I’ll be offline, this process will become more straightforward and frightening. It will have to be more direct, which feels a bit daunting. With email, I can compose my thoughts exactly. I don’t say “uh” or “um” whenever an employer asks me a question, and my stutter is non-existent. While the internet has become a life-changing improvement for everyone with access, it’s also a prosthetic device for me and —- I believe —- for others as well.

Speaking of interactions, my last online connection happened, ironically enough, offline, as I walk to my local bank.

I’ve spotted my last influencer for a whole month. Earlier today, I’m walking to my bank’s local branch. The sun is stabbing my body with daggers of late September heat, and my cane is wildly tapping the sidewalk because I want to complete my mission and get out of the heat. I don’t see the other cane user in front of me until our canes clash at the crosswalk as if we’re preparing for a duel. After the clash, I look up to see a smiling young woman. She has flowing locks of brown hair flecked with golden patches. Her smile is radiant, but her sunglasses hide her eyes from my view. I smile at her, feeling slightly bashful about our near duel in the middle of the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

Her smile broadens as she answers self-assuredly. “No problem. I’m guessing you’re headed to the bank as well. I’m new to this area. Usually, I’m on the south side.”

“Yup,” I answer as we cross the street together. My friend sends a text to the phone in my pocket. He tells me he’s having a good birthday party. “So, how are you?” I ask. I wonder how to continue a conversation after nearly jabbing a fellow blind person.

"I’m swell! My name’s Crystal, by the way."

"Nice to meet you. I’m Robbie." We step into the cool building. It cloaks us in receptionists’ sounds, complete with people saying “please hold” every few seconds. In line, I turn to Crystal again. I want to get to know her a bit more, including her online life. She’s also interested in my online presence.

“How often do you update your Facebook page?” she trills. “I love Facebook and, gosh, Twitter, too! How many followers do you have? Do you post a lot of YouTube videos?”

As we move further up the line, I answer all of her questions about my social media activity. She listens with rapture as if I’m the king of the internet. She’s amazed at how many Twitter followers I have, and she soon asks me what I read on social media and the like. I explain I use social media to keep up with underground news that the mainstream media doesn’t cover, such as disability news, and then I ask her what she reads.

Soon, we’re both busy with our transactions. We have no choice but to temporarily part ways. When we meet up again, we’re at the bank’s entrance. Again, we discuss our social media worlds. I tell her she should Facebook friend me, and she tells me to add her everywhere she has an account so that I can listen to her music, watch the videos she uploads, or read the poetry she publishes.

As I step out into the hot afternoon, I turn back to express one final sentiment. “It was very nice to meet you! Add me.”

“You, too! Add me to Facebook, and Tweet me, okay?”

I don’t reveal that I’m about to embark on a challenge (because that’s part of the challenge), nor do I reveal the reason I’m at this bank to withdraw some offline cash in case I want to buy something I see in a store. The door shuts between my newfound acquaintance and me as I leave the interconnected world for thirty-one days.

When I first wake up in the morning, there’s a click in my brain. It’s a default that I listen to every morning without fail, at the same hour every day, like a perfectly scheduled school day. The thought invades my brain even though I know every wireless component in my place is deactivated. Before I even get dressed, hop in the shower, and brush my teeth, I simply must do something because the habit is so ingrained in me.

The mantra: Check email.

I rise slowly from my slumber. My feet pad their way over to my desk, where I sit at the computer as always. Even though my screen reader tells me it has no wireless connection, I still perform the familiar task of pressing the Windows key and R and then typing in Thunderbird, where my email is stored on a server. When the program loads, I see all of my old email messages. I know what’s supposed to happen next. The client is supposed to connect to the server and display my new emails. But nothing happens.

I wait for the bold, unread messages to trickle into my inbox. They might contain replies from my editor and a host of emails, wanted and unwanted.

Nothing happens, but I want to see the emails in my inbox. I open the client again and then close it again, repeating the process just so I can have something to look at. I haven’t spent even three hours offline, and already, I’m completely lost.

I soon give up on making an internet connection spring from thin air without any wireless or Ethernet drivers in my laptop. I sit down on my bed. I call Marcus.

His voice is scratchy from sleep. “Hello?”

“Hi!” I’m feeling good now. At least I’m having some sort of connection with a human being in the morning.

“What’s up, Robbie?” He sounds a bit more awake and a bit worried. “You never call me.”

“I know. I’m having a problem.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Well, I can’t check my email.”

I know some people, many of whom grew up before Twitter and even before the computer generation, who see the bad side of the internet. But they don’t see the good that it also brings—-for instance, with email.

Email spares us from awkward pauses or, indeed, any pauses at all. An email reply can be composed over time, ensuring that people can include all the information they want in one central place. Plus, you don’t see at the bottom of emails, “Please write me back at your earliest convenience. Here’s my address.” You can just hit a few keys to compose a reply.

Although phone calls may have been quicker in some respects, they just weren’t a convenient way for me to send or receive information, mainly because my brain isn’t wired that way. From my narrow-minded perspective, people just won’t provide me with as much information when they talk to me over the phone.

Throughout the day, I do various things to keep my mind busy simply because I don’t have emails to keep me occupied. The day rolls out in a mesh of activities. I flit back and forth between them as if I’m clicking on hyperlinks. I read. I watch TV. I begin listening to some audiobooks I’ve had on my Victor Reader Stream for years. I walk around my apartment complex and talk to people I would usually avoid, mainly because I don’t have any emails to answer. No one calls me on the phone or sends me a text, so I’m left to my own devices. The day passes by really well. Really well indeed.

I haven’t settled into a routine yet. I’m all over the place. I’m sure the wind is laughing behind my back as I go from talking to someone on the elevator to imagining what shammy subject lines are in my inbox. I feel a bit nutty because I really, really want to delete these messages.

Even though today was fine, and even though I contacted Marcus, I feel a sense of withdrawal. Will this feeling escalate, leaving me in a forest as I murmur URLs to the trees? Or will I overcome this withdrawn feeling? I hope to find out soon.

Today, something happened to me, and I couldn’t look up any information about it.

Where I live, staff usually do monthly checkups and the like. At about 9 a.m., a certified nurse’s assistant (CNA) enters my apartment after asking if she can come in. She’s here to look at my vitals, just because.

Everything’s all good until she gets to checking my blood pressure. It’s low. Really low. Seventy over forty-five. I don’t know why it’s so low. I’m not diabetic or anything like that. I don’t have any heart problems, though I do have asthma. I drink quite a lot of fluids, and I’m relatively active. Okay, I lied just now. I’m occasionally active. I walk around the apartment complex, and I walk around the city. I know that’s not much exercise, but still, I feel fine.

The CNA asks if I’m okay and if I feel dizzy. I say no, I don’t feel anything of the sort, but she checks my blood pressure again. It’s the same. We trudge up to the nurse, who tells me the same thing. It’s low. She asks if I’ve been drinking fluids. I explain that I have indeed. In fact, since 7:00 this morning, I’ve consumed about half of Lake Michigan.

After a few more tests and some water, she tells me to come back to her office so she can monitor how I’m doing. I immediately race to my apartment and sit down at my desk. I spread my fingers over the keyboard, wishing they could strike the commands to bring up Firefox.

My fingers pound out a query for Google to parse only to meet with a message saying I have no internet connection. Then, I return to reality. Ah, yes, I don’t have the internet. I can’t look things up. I’m forced to depend on what people tell me because I don’t have any medical books.

Since I don’t have the internet, I need to delegate everything to specialists in certain fields. I’m limited by what they know. The prospect is truly daunting—-or perhaps I’m just not used to being offline yet.

I know people aren’t supposed to be their own doctors, and I know that even if you do your own research, you’re supposed to follow up with a specialist. I firmly believe you should follow up, certainly. But today, I feel like a child learning how to read. I have to trust people around me because I don’t have the tools to look anything up myself.

I wonder if looking things up is part of my journalistic nature or something the internet has taught me to do. The invention of the internet allowed people to research anything in the world within a few moments.

I haven’t had a chance to call the public library today to see if they have a medical encyclopedia. But I’ll call my library for the blind this week to see if they have one.

I’m the kind of person who feels comfortable knowing the basics of things and, even better, having the tools to look up what I don’t understand or what I want a second opinion on. One might say that I could ask people, but if I asked a gym teacher a question such as, “Why was my blood pressure low?” the chances are they wouldn’t know the answer. There’s a certain absolute to the infinite internet.

Weirdly, I’m of two minds about what happened today. If I had the ability to look things up, how much would I really have learned? I’m sure one web page would have said one thing and another site would have said something else. At least with a specialist, such as the nurse I saw earlier, I can always have a definite answer, even if it’s “I don’t know.” The internet is filled with opinions and medical blogs that may not be very accurate and whose authors won’t know the specifics of my situation.

But in the end, I must trust the people I ask since I don’t have the internet to fall back on. I’ve been wondering, throughout the night, which is the greater risk? Is it the lack of solid information when you’re trying to look something up using massive, global infrastructure with no filter? Or is it the information residing with others and not at your fingertips, obliging you to trust, to a sufficient degree, that what you’re told is somewhat on target, based on the knowledge this person has acquired? Which is the greater risk when your life may be on the line? I have no idea. But I did eat a cookie while I tried to ponder an answer. I found myself wishing I could look up the cookie’s ingredients.

I wonder if anyone’s ever felt “the itch” before.

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about —- or at least you will when I start describing this itch I’ve been having all day. It’s a compulsion to look down at my phone in the hopes that I’ll see a new email or Twitter notification so that I can interact with the sender. Usually, this itch occurs during a lull in conversation. There’s an odd pause, and then most people divert their gaze to a five-inch screen in their palm. In my case, my ear would automatically hone in on the phone’s output, searching for the comforting feeling of a new email or Twitter message.

I’ve never had what’s called a “smartphone.” My Nokia doesn’t have external applications, but I can still access Twitter, Facebook, and emails through my phone. Everything pops up in a new window that talks, automatically reading to me. All the time, I listen instinctively for a new audible notification. That listening is my version of looking down at the screen.

All day, I’ve had this itch I can’t scratch. The worst part is that I know I chose to do without this satisfaction. I could just turn the internet connection on again, and I’d skip to the end of this month. The solution is always on the horizon.

Earlier today, as I’m waiting on the bus after my college English class, a woman taps me on the shoulder. She’s about my height, with blond hair and a bright white T-shirt that frames her slim figure. Her smile is radiant. Her pink bubble gum keeps making loud pops as she talks to me, as if the gum were exclamation points at the ends of her sentences.

“Hi, Miss. Can I help you?” I return her smile as the sun beats down on me. For this time of year in Chicago, the heat is astonishing. It even feels warm to me, and I’ve flown all the way from Florida to be here in the Windy City. To everyone else, it must seem like a heatwave.

The woman heaves her bag onto her other shoulder. Her hair whips about as if we were in a hurricane. “Hi there!” She sounds like Barbie. “I just want to say I loved your essay about rap music even though I can’t stand rap at all.”

I realize that, although she must be in my class, I don’t know her name or even what she does for a living. We’ve never approached each other before, but it’s wonderful to meet someone new.

“Thank you. I don’t remember your essay, though. I’m very sorry if you’ve read yours and I wasn’t paying much attention. I’ve had a ton of things on my mind lately.”

“Oh, my god! It’s totally okay. I didn’t go today. That’s tomorrow. Tomorrow, I get to rant and rave about putting advertisements in books.”

“Are they seriously considering that?” I sputter.

She giggles a bit before replying. I can tell she’s really relaxed around me. I can also feel the urge to look down at my phone. It’s a new kind of habit that I’ve developed for the sole purpose of combating lulls in conversation.

She must feel it, too, because she whips an iPhone out of her pocket as it vibrates. She glances at the screen eagerly, as if it’s a new kind of million-dollar bill.

The time has come for me to do the same —- or it would be if I had an iPhone. I’m supposed to be carrying on a full-fledged conversation with someone while watching cats on YouTube. I hold my phone, poised, and I open and close my email inbox and even my outbox. I don’t have any messages, and I can’t open emails, so I’m left to open and close my inbox.

I look up at my new friend. Her fingers are dancing across her iPhone. I smile. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I’m tweeting.”

“That’s wicked,” I say.

“And YouTube surfing, and email replying, and I’m also on Facebook.” She’s bragging. “What about you?”

I open and close my empty inbox before replying with an ironically giddy smile. “I’m watching my outbox to make sure my messages send, and I’m craving a cookie.” I’m just happy I can keep up the required skill of multitasking while conversing.

We laugh as the bus finally arrives. We sit on opposite ends of the bus, going our separate ways. I open a new text message and send it to Marcus.

“You are lucky. You have an iPhone. Kiss it. Now.”

The minute Green Day’s “Wake Me Up when September Ends” pierces through my dream, I bolt upright and grab my phone in an utter panic. It’s Marcus.

“What’s wrong?” I squall. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course, I’m okay. I just thought you should wake up right now is all.”

Sleepily, I pound my talking alarm clock until it beeps. Then, it says the time: 7:30 a.m.

“You thought I should wake up at nearly 7 a.m.?” I bark.

“Well, yeah. Partly because I’d like to ask to borrow some money from you today.”

“You’re sighted. You have a full-time job. Why would you need to borrow money from me? Do you not see something wrong with this dynamic here?”

“I’ll make it up to you either with dinner or a young stud.” Marcus was always joking that he could hook me up on dates.

“I think I’ll take the dinner. You know how I feel about pizza.”

“Dude, you got it.”

“Anyway, wait a minute, and I’ll just send money to your account.”

Marcus is a solid friend. If he says he needs money, I’m going to help. I open the SMS section of my phone and text my bank’s number. When the screen reader is in the text area, I type in a few commands.

Send money to Marcus.

After a few automated prompts and some back and forth with the robot on the other end, I learn that —- for some reason —- I haven’t added Marcus as a contact to my QuickPay profile. When he hears this, he immediately pounces.

“Ouch, Rob. Really, ouch.”

“You should be thanking me, actually. If I get hacked, your information isn’t in my bank account.”

“Good point. You’re right. I thank you. I love you.”

“I love you, too, even though you call me at 6:30 a.m.”

“7:30 a.m., actually.”

“Whatever. Give me a sec.” I put the tiny phone on the bed and look in my money drawer for some folded-up bills in any shape. I don’t find anything. I growl when I slap the phone to my ear again.

“Guess what.”

“You’re a rich white man?”

“I wish, but no. I don’t have any money. Like, paper money. All I’ve got is plastic. And I can’t add you as a contact over the phone, so I’ve got to go down there.”

“Why can’t you add me to your bank stuff by calling them?”

“You know, Marcus, security.”

“But they ask you for your social and stuff, right?”

“I’m telling you, dude. I’ve got to go down there.”

“But why can’t you just use the internet? Oh, wait! You can’t. You can’t use it. Man, I wish I could see your face right now.”

I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of complaining that this whole predicament is his fault. “When do you plan to come over, brat?”

“About five. Is that okay?”

“That should give me enough time. How much do you need?”

“Thirty dollars.”

“It’s a deal! I’ll see you later.”

“Can’t wait.” He hung up.

I moan and groan before setting the phone on my bed. Of course, I wouldn’t have put him in my contacts because, well, I’ve never needed to use the QuickPay by SMS feature before. And unfortunately, as technologically advanced as banks are, my bank only lets people transfer or send money using their contact list.

I guess that restriction makes sense. But still, it means I will have to make an otherwise completely unnecessary trip to the bank. I know calling them won’t work, but I try anyway.

After verifying my information, a young man asks me what I need help with.

“Well, I’m trying to send money to a friend,” I begin.

“Is he in your contacts?”

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” The question has just flown out.

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Kingett. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m just a bit grumpy this morning, but it’s not your fault. But anyway, it is a ‘he,’ and his name is Marcus.”

“I see here that you don’t have him in your QuickPay contacts,” the man says. He sounds a bit puzzled. I don’t understand why because he has verified my information on this very call.

“I know,” I say, “but I was wondering if you could help me send money to him.”

“No, sir,” is the brisk yet sorrowful reply. “Not over the phone. If you have a computer, you could send money to him that way.”

“I don’t have a computer.” I lie not only because lying is easier than explaining my situation but also because, if I explain the experiment, people might be more willing to accommodate it.

“Well, then, the only other way is for you to come down here and do it in person since you can’t do it online.”

“But I’m disabled. I’m blind. I can’t just hop in a car today and come down there.” Even though the bank is only a few blocks from my home, I don’t want to go outside today. I want to stay inside. I don’t want to go out and face the many cracked sidewalks and my cane getting stuck in those cracks. I don’t want to deal with parallel traffic or crossing intersections or, again, broken sidewalks. “Are you sure we can’t do it over the phone? You’ve verified my info.”

“You can do it online,” he intones.

I explain again that I don’t have a computer. “I wish you guys had complimentary cab service or something,” I blurt. “You’ve already verified my information, so why not just look in my history, see all the other times I’ve sent Marcus money, ask me for his information, I repeat it, and if it’s right, you send him money?”

“Because if I did that, I’d get fired. It’s our policy.” He sounds so sincere that the next question just blurts out of my mouth.

“If I can make it down there today, will you be there?”

“Of course. Name’s Lorenzo.”

“Great, name’s Robert,” I respond automatically before mentally facepalming myself.

“When you get here, I’m the only Lorenzo around,” he says.

I hang up the phone, still a little perplexed and annoyed. It isn’t fair that I have to walk blocks to my bank just because I, technically speaking, don’t have internet. After all, the wireless drivers in my laptop are still uninstalled, even after today’s adventure. And besides, I’m doing this project for a cause.

Yet, the rest of the morning, I can’t stop grumbling. It isn’t just about the experiment, either. My frustration is broader because this experiment has amplified how disabled I am.

I feel like my whole life has been a disability tax in one way or another. Day after day, I have to exert extra energy just to interact with the sighted world in a manner that will allow me, maybe, to participate fully.

While the internet isn’t a requirement, nor is it perfect, at least it has sliced that disability tax clean in half. Sure, dozens upon dozens of websites don’t have properly coded HTML, leaving me wondering for minutes what a certain button on a page does or where an empty link will go. But still, if I had the internet, I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to this bank, try to explain myself to sighted people, and then walk all the way back. I wouldn’t have to worry about the ATM’s talking feature and wonder if it’s broken today. I could just press a few keys and send money through wires. Not today, though. Not today.

When I step outside with my cane in hand and my trusty Nokia in my pocket, my mood lifts with every step. I enjoy the surprising smell of a new bakery that has just opened near me. I stop to sniff the many fragrances, boosting my mood even more.

I still have a sense of dread when I open the outer doors to the bank. Fleetingly, I wonder how much disability tax I’ll be forced to pay today. No matter how many times you enter a place, you always prepare for your energy to be completely gone when you leave because your disability energy will be stolen away from you with a few questions and assumptions. Also, you always have to play a teacher in some fashion —- always. Instead of training from big corporations or individuals looking things up, I’m always required to be the teacher. This role starts anew with each interaction.

The ATM noises don’t comfort me. I go into the bank lobby and look around for someone with a blurry nametag or some sign of officialdom. Finally, I decide just to walk up to a blurry person sitting behind a computer by the entrance.

“Lorenzo?” I call. “I’m Robert Kingett.”

The blur clicks a mouse and then turns to face me.

“Yup, that’s me. So, actually, do you want to set up your account so that you don’t have to manually come down here again? I was thinking about that before you arrived.”

“I can’t; I don’t have internet,” I repeat. “Or a computer. There’s no way to do this by phone?”

“No. The reason for that is, as I’m sure you know, security.” I can’t help noticing something smells like blueberry pie. My stomach starts growling so loud that Lorenzo pauses before leaping up. “Would you like me to help you to a seat so we can get started?”

“Actually, rather than doing this, why don’t I just use the ATM?”

“Oh, of course.”

“But wait. Lorenzo, does it talk?”

“I’m new here, so I don’t know. Let me ask my manager. Okay. Just wait here.”

I know the bank has talking ATMs but not at every branch. And still, the technology has broken on me before, so I want to check. The scent of blueberry pie drifts into my nose again, so I turn my head to see Lorenzo’s blur walking toward me, holding something out.

When I take the object, I’m pleased to discover that it’s a set of earphones. I give Lorenzo a big smile, as he says, “Our ATM does talk, yes. Would you like me to help you operate the machine?”

“Yes,” I say, grateful because I don’t want to walk out and grope about the ATM for a headphone jack. Sighted people wouldn’t need to grope, I think, as we walk back out to the ATM I passed earlier.

When Lorenzo puts the headphones into the jack and I place them over my ears, I hear so much crackling that I make a face like I’m about to pinch one off and have to hurry to the bathroom.

Both earpieces are worn down. I can tell just by the speaker grille in each ear. The pad is completely gone in one ear, and the other side has no sound. I strain my left ear to hear what the ATM is telling me, but I can’t make out what it says. I start scolding myself for not bringing my own headphones.

“These aren’t working,” I say. I mean he should have looked at these things, I think bitterly before taking the headphones off. “Do you have any more? Maybe a different pair?”

“Lemme go check,” says Lorenzo in a rush. He leaves me feeling extremely vulnerable as I tap my cane aimlessly, trying to wiggle the wire enough to at least catch what Eloquence, the ATM’s synthesizer, is telling me. Nothing. I can’t get a clear signal. This is so maddening that I actually consider just letting myself cry just to relinquish some anger and frustration.

By the time I’m planning on just going home, Lorenzo comes back. He says, “That’s all the working headphones we have.”

“How is that possible? How is that possible! These talking ATMs should be standard.”

“I know. I’m sorry! We don’t have many visually impaired customers.”

“I’ve been banking with you for more than five years,” I almost shouted. I wasn’t even yelling at him, but I’m not sure sighted people understand how this frustration grows, how it always feels like starting over.

“Most of our visually impaired customers bank online,” he says, still calm and professional despite my harsh tone. I want to scream. Instead, I yank the cord out of the jack and sigh.

“Can we do this inside? I mean can you and I sit down and transfer the money?”

“Of course,” Lorenzo says. For some reason, this response makes me want to cry all over again. I slap on a smile, and we go back inside after I hand over the broken headphones.

We make our way to a cubicle a little farther from the entrance. Lorenzo sits in front of me, typing away. He asks me a lot of information he has previously asked, asks to see my ID, and then finally logs into my account.

“Since we’re here,” I say in a much calmer tone than a few seconds ago, “could you look into doing special things over the phone because I don’t have internet? Or maybe by SMS?” He scratches his admittedly attractive, thin chin. He’s silent as his mouse clicks. I picture a horde of alien ships blocking his mouse from clicking the proper tags. I picture his tiny on-screen ship blowing them up so that we can get to where we want to go.

His soft tone snaps me back to reality as he replies. “It doesn’t look like it. Mostly, we want people to do stuff online, not by phone.”

“Yeah, well, not everybody has internet, you know.” As I argue, I can feel my face grow hot before I calm down again.

He sighs, sucks his teeth, and then mutters, “This is some bullshit.”

“I agree.” I nod.

He clears his throat and then clicks some more.

“I’m really sorry about this. I’m trying to find a way we can do this by phone next time or SMS.”

“Will SMS work after I add Marcus to my bank contacts?”

“Yeah, but that ain’t gonna help you if you don’t got contacts for future people,” he says absently.

“What about, like, if I have extra security? Can I do more stuff by phone if I say a passcode or something?”

“That’s what I was looking into, and it seems as though there isn’t a way to do that. It’s either online or in person.”

After a few more minutes of clicking, sighing, and sucking his teeth, he finally sighs. He says, “Okay. I went into your history. You’re right. You sent money to an account ending in —- you said his name was Marcus, right?”

“Yeah. I’d like to send money to him.”

While Lorenzo sends the money, I text Marcus.

Check your account. Money is on the way.

You text like my grandpa, comes the retort. Then, after a few seconds, Thank you. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.

I can’t help it; I burst out laughing. Lorenzo looks at me as if I’ve grown twelve more feet.

“Well, that’s all, Mr. Kingett. Anything else?”

“Nope. I’m all good,” I say brightly as I gather my things to leave.

“Hey, wait. I thought you said you didn’t have a computer at home.” I stop in place.

“I don’t have a computer,” I say, heart pounding. Has someone hacked into my bank account while I’ve been offline? I wouldn’t be shocked.

“I’m seeing here that you logged on a month ago when you sent that last payment to Marcus.”

“Yes. I can’t use that computer now,” I say softly.

“Want me to check your security for you?” I nod vigorously, and Lorenzo begins clicking rapidly.

“No strange activity. No suspicious logins. All looks good from here.”

“Oh, my god, yes. Great!” I exhale, suddenly feeling happy to have endured the disability tax today.

“No problem. Would you like me to show you out?”

“Yeah.” I take the slim elbow he offers and tap my way out of the bank.

On the way home, I check the time. The excursion has taken me nearly four hours so far, and I haven’t even made it all the way home. As I tap my cane along the sidewalk, I receive a text, but I don’t have time to look at it until I enter my apartment. I pull out my phone.

Bank alert. Marcus has sent you money. The amount is the exact amount I’ve just sent him. Confused, I compose a new text message.

Why did you send this back to me?

Well, he replied. I thought about what you said, and you were right. I make far more money than you do, so I decided to give it back. I hope that’s okay.

I sigh. The whole day suddenly flashes before my eyes, and I slap my forehead in bewilderment. Marcus doesn’t have a clue about how today has gone for me, and he doesn’t understand that going to the bank was an epic journey.

What’s even worse is the fact that I don’t even know how to start explaining the disability tax, how my whole day was spent at the bank, or how I’m so exhausted I didn’t want to ever talk to anybody again. At least not for about a hundred years.

I keep listening to his text, wondering where to begin, how to begin. I sigh and then flop onto my bed, ready for a good, long nap. I hit Reply and type.

It’s okay, but could you do me a favor?

Sure Rob. What?

Could you order me some pizza? I don’t have enough money.

Without hesitation, he orders me a pizza. The total is the exact amount we’ve been exchanging today—-plus tax.

Some could say I lied. Honestly though, even if I did, I still think this treat was well deserved after the day I’ve had. And let’s be real: Marcus will never have to pay the disability tax I had to endure today.

For the last few days, I’ve been doing a lot of things that have made me more productive overall.

It’s really weird to say this, but I believe I’ve done more in these last few days than the last month when I still had the internet. It’s taken me a while to settle down into a routine, but I’ve finally done it. I’m even getting stuff done while I’m doing my routine. A lot of things are becoming clear to me since I’ve become disconnected from the world.

Correction: It seems as though I’m disconnected from the world, but I’m actually not. I’ve become closer to the world around me in various ways, including conversations, human interactions, and, most of all, my attention to detail.

My routine has morphed into something I now do religiously, even after only a few days. I’m even planning my days better, which is weird for me simply because everything was tied to the internet through my Google Calendar.

This calendar has been indispensable to me. I thought that I’d be wandering misfit if I didn’t have it to remind me of events, meetings, and appointments. I’ve been taking voice notes on a recorder that I listen to at night before I go to bed. Instead of focusing on the event’s date and time, I’m beginning to focus more on the meeting itself. What will the meeting be about, and how can we make it the best it can possibly be? What questions could be asked that would provide possible solutions? Now, whenever there’s a meeting, I feel like I’ve slept for a million years, and my brain is set up and ready. People check emails secretly, under the table, or tweet some clever jokes while I babble away, making sure my points are thoughtful and clear.

My first meeting offline isn’t a good one, however. I don’t have any warning about what the meeting will be about since the notes were emailed the day before. It details various budget needs for my employer. Around the conference table sit all sorts of executives with years of experience ahead of me. They’re all distracted in one way or another. Some are swiping to see the next tweet, and some are frantically tapping out short replies to emails, possibly explaining that they’re in a meeting and that they’ll get back to their contacts later.

The topic turns to our salaries as freelancers. The paper has lost funding, so freelancers (myself included) will no longer get paychecks and will soon be released, discharged, or whatever you want to say to make being laid off sound nice. Either people don’t understand what this means right away, or they don’t absorb it fully because their reaction isn’t as big as I thought it would be. Everyone seems to dig deeper into the phones in their laps. I don’t have a choice, so I look at the main editor across from me. My eyes bore into him like tractor beams. I want to hold his gaze to test his validity. The people around me are still texting, emailing, and even surfing the Web. I can hear the sounds of links opening on iPhones, emails, and even the occasional notifications. I, however, am the most productive because I am just sitting here with my tractor-beam eyes.

“What? You’re kidding, right?” I ask, incredulous.

Finally, people look up from the information superhighway to stare at me as if I were performing radical open-heart surgery for the press.

“You think I’m joking?” the head editor asks. He sounds as if I’ve just told him it’s scientifically possible to pour all water into a single cup.

“Yeah. You’re kidding, right?” I don’t really care if I’m being professional. My paycheck had been taken away in a single sentence without even the courtesy of a private conversation.

“No.” He speaks to me as if I need an extra explanation. “I’m not kidding. Our budget has been cut significantly. We’re in a real crisis, and advertising isn’t biting at all. More people are subscribing, but that isn’t enough to offset the costs of freelancers.” He looks directly at me. His hands are folded on the table. Then he adds, “I’m sorry.”

As if to highlight my isolation in confronting him, an iPhone keyboard clicks before I hear the sound of an email being sent. How bizarre that the people sitting next to me are still connected to whatever they’ve been doing. I’m not the only one in this room who’s just lost a position. I don’t even know what to do or say. I just sit here with my mouth open. I want, more than ever, to escape to YouTube, answer an email, or even just reply to a tweet. At this moment, I think the reason I want these things is to express my current thoughts, but as I write this account, I realize I wanted to feel anything other than what I was feeling. I wanted to send a text with “LOL” at the end, but I didn’t have any connected device to sink my feelings into.

“But I’ve been here two years!” I complain, unsure why I’m even complaining. My fate has been decided for me.

“I know. You’ve done really, really well —- even better than some of my other staff members in a few cases. But I just don’t have any more room for staff positions at the moment, and I’m not sure if I’ll have a new opening anytime soon.”

This is definitely not how I expected this meeting to go. But now that it has turned out this way, I don’t even know how to fight for a staff position. The meeting swerves onto other matters, but it’s clear that this meeting will be my last. Ironically, it’s the one I’ve paid the most attention to.

Usually, when I’d go to meetings, my mind wouldn’t be so present. I’d think about how many links I’d surf when I got out, how many downloads I’d get within a day, and how many emails I’d read and reply to late that night. Sure, I’d pay attention to the meeting, but my thoughts were always connected to some point later in the day, such as what video I’d watch. I received a ton of YouTube notifications from people who uploaded videos, which I’d watch instantly. I didn’t subscribe to many people, but the people I did subscribe to updated often, so I always had something to entertain me, educate me, or ease my mind. I’d know, with each notification, that I’d watch this video after I got home from work or school. I rode the internet like a surfer to keep away from the things I didn’t want to do and to help with the things I did want to do.

For my new, sudden job search, I have to resort to repeatedly dialing Directory Assistance only to look for companies in Chicago with the word advertising in their names. I don’t get very far, mainly because the people I call don’t take me seriously due to my stutter. Hurriedly, they give me email addresses and then hang up.

Although I don’t have an active internet connection, I write emails to these addresses and queue them all, setting Thunderbird to start sending them on November 1.

Aside from attending more meetings than the president, I do something I haven’t done in years —- not since sites started showing movies for free that are still in theaters. I go to a movie theater. Without streaming services, I have to step into this long-forgotten land of tickets and headsets for audio description. I don’t regret this decision one bit.

For someone like me, who’s used to scouring the internet for exactly what they want, I think the idea seems silly. Why go to a theater when a little Google digging can come up with a movie that costs less and saves on transportation costs? I’m this kind of person. To me, a movie theater was just a very quick way to get your cash out of your pocket. Why would I do something so costly as going to a theater when I could have the same experience at home for less?

I had thought that others had the same experiences. Sure, I’d gone to several movie theaters, but it had been years since my last adventure. Now, a group of blind friends and I want to see The Equalizer. We all have very different reasons; I’m hoping to see a shirtless Denzel and hear an audio description of his surely epic body, and others are after some adrenaline-pumping.

Making sure we get to a showing with an audio description is harder than necessary without the internet. I volunteer to call the two theaters in Chicago that offer audio descriptions to see when the movie will be playing. With the internet, I’d just have to log onto the website, but instead, I navigate through long menus and patiently eat crackers while I wait on hold for more than twenty minutes.

“Hello!” announced a voice that could be the spokesperson for sugar. “And welcome to the AMC movie theater in Chicago. And how may I help you today?” She punctuates her killer introduction with a giggle that makes me crack a grin.

“How many times have you practiced that?” I ask.

“Oh, my god, sugar, you have no idea! I’ve been doing it for ages! Tee-hee!”

Her nickname for me is not lost on me, but I let it go. “Totally wicked. Anyway, I’m calling about the movie that’s showing on Sunday at twelve. Can you see if it has an audio description?”

“Audio description?” she asks. She sounds as if I’ve just said, Can you please check to see if there will be any giraffes in the theater that day? I’m allergic!

“Yes, audio description, not closed captioning. It’s for the blind.”

“Audio description?” she repeats.

“Yes, audio description. It’s for the blind.”

“So, you didn’t mean closed captions?”

“No. Audio description. For the blind.” I wish, more than ever, for the internet. I wouldn’t have to perform this song and dance.

“Okay. I don’t know what that is at all; let me look it up.”

I’m on hold again for a good while. Finally, she returns with a cheer that could pump up a football team. “Okay, so, great! I Googled it. And closed captions, too, and the movie, and then I looked at our own accessibility page. I didn’t know this even existed! Yes, this showing does have an audio description. You’d have to pay extra, I think.”

“No, it’s free. I just need to know at what showings it’s available.”

After some convincing, she agrees, and soon she confirms. I call up my buddies, and things are all set. We’ll be going to the movies!

If you watch a movie online, usually, you’ll do so in the lone comfort of your apartment. Perhaps it’s late at night, and the sounds of the outside world occasionally drift in and out. The apartment might be empty except for someone watching the movie with you. Still, something would be missing, that sense of companionship.

I believe we’re sorely missing this sense of connection today. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m close to the mark. Maybe I have the right idea but the wrong explanation. All I’m sure of at the theater is that people around me are sharing these emotions with me. The fact that I know there are people around makes it okay to exclaim “whoa!” out loud at an epic scene.

When I watch movies alone, I have minimal reactions. I feel the emotion of the flick, but I don’t feel the need to express it by laughing out loud at a funny part. I merely chuckle because I think it would be silly to laugh out loud in an empty room.

Sitting in the theater, watching the movie with others and a working headset —- something that’s never been available in my previous ventures —- I feel a sense of harmony. We are all experiencing emotions at the same time, so whenever one of us laughs, the feeling is contagious. Soon, we all feel as if we’re doing the right thing by laughing at the same moment. My feelings are validated. We don’t have to be self-conscious about what we’re experiencing. Here, with all these epic friends surrounding me, I feel like I’m right where I need to be. In a way, this place is like a home away from home, in the company of friends. I can’t believe I’d abandoned this experience so easily.

We are all chattering as we leave the theater. Our moods are lifting each other.

“Oh, my god. Did you see the part where he tricked that guy with a hammer?” I’m utterly gleeful.

“Yeah, man!” my friend Eric replies. “I don’t think Denzel has ever made a bad movie.”

“I don’t think so either!” I gush, still giddy from the action scenes. The movie was so good.

Even on the way home, we remain effusive about the film. I felt more involved in the last two hours than I ever have when watching a movie. The cost was definitely worth it.

I’m thinking about what I did today. I’ve been doing that a lot lately —- thinking about things very deeply simply because I have a lot of free time, even when I’m returning from a bus trip that lasted hours.

Today, I didn’t do much other than figure out what a place was. I didn’t even know the name of the company, but I did know the company was in Chicago. It was a computer store. I wanted to see how much they’d charge for flash drives and SD cards. The store was supposed to have very good deals on everything. A friend said he got an amazing deal on SD cards, but he couldn’t remember the name of the store. So, the hunt was on.

To start, I had a sighted person look in the phonebook —- or at least I tried to. My facility —- a supportive living community specifically for the blind —- didn’t have a phonebook, so I was left to call Tellme Directory Assistance. An operator came on the line because the automated system didn’t understand my stutter. Quickly, I asked if he could look for a computer company in Chicago. They asked me the name of the company.

“Well, sir,” I began. “I don’t know the name.”

“We need a name, sir.” The operator sighed.

“I don’t have it. Can you just do a general search?”

“Nope.”

“It’s a computer store.” I tried to remember part of the name. I couldn’t.

“Is that the name? ‘Computer Store?’”

“I don’t know.” I felt really incompetent by this point.

“Okay. Look,” he said, exasperated. “Google it.” A click ended the call before I could explain that I couldn’t.

After hanging up the phone, I tried again to look for the Yellow Pages around the facility, but there weren’t any copies or anything resembling them.

I resorted to going around and asking the other residents where they went to get their computer supplies. They all said either online, Best Buy, or a small tech store nearby that I had already known about. It was called Microcenter. I didn’t give up, however. I called Directory Assistance again, hoping to get a different operator. This one hung up the phone after telling me to Google the name and then call her back. Again, I tried going around to my facility’s staff members and pressing them for information. None of them uttered a company name that sounded even vaguely like the one my friend had recommended.

Next, I went to a library. A librarian sat and told me every number and address for every computer store in Chicago. I took down all the names and numbers on a digital voice recorder, and I even asked her for the addresses. Perhaps my friend remembered what street the store was on. I was in the library for at least an hour, listening as the librarian read out every name, number, and address related to stores and electronics.

Finally, I left the library with an audio recording so big it didn’t even fit in one file. I called a few companies after trying my friend and leaving him a message asking him to tell me the store’s address. I hadn’t gotten anywhere with my sleuthing. Nevertheless, I marked down which stores I had called and kept the long list for later. Soon, I realized the whole day had passed and I still didn’t even know the company’s name. I relaxed by reading a book I’d downloaded a month before so that I could eventually write a book review of it.

In a way, I learned something very valuable today, even if I didn’t get the information I wanted. I realized the extent of my dogged determination. I wonder why I hadn’t noticed the same drive in myself a month ago. I’d look things up, one after the other, cross-referencing, double-checking, and comparing. A few theories are swimming around in my head, but I’ll settle on one and lay it out here.

The internet has allowed me to be the master of my own knowledge. But at the same time, it’s made others complacent. I know people who believe the first link on Google is the best or the most appropriate. I firmly believe schools and other resources should teach better search engine techniques. The reason for my keen research ability is that I taught myself everything about search engines and how they work. I did this because, since internet searches are often my primary information sources, I had to.

I know how to do deeper searches through Google and other platforms, using plus signs, quotes, minus symbols, and certain phrases combined with various search formulas. To me, these advanced searches seemed normal. Yet, I constantly heard, “Oh, my god! How did you find that?”

I hope we can all take the following lessons away from my experiment: we should again think about data research as a skill that should be taught and understood, as well as the extent to which we trust not only data but also how they’re handed to us. This topic, I think, would fill a separate book.

I remember sitting at the front of my eighth-grade class, looking up at my English teacher as she paced in front of the students. Her hands were on her hips, and a smile was on her face. I remember she turned to the class with an air of importance and mystery. Then, she cleared her throat as if a frog were going to leap out of her uvula and teach us the correct way to add and subtract fractions.

With braille writers clinking behind me, I didn’t hear her question right away. I was looking up the books in my school library on the laptop in front of me, so it took a while for the question to sink in. Her perfume wafted in and out of my nose as her pacing picked up in front of me. Her question made us all look up in wonderment.

“What do you all think?” she had asked. “Are you smarter because you have the correct answer to a question, or are you smarter because you learned something new while trying to find the answer?”

Today, this question keeps ringing in my brain while I’m on the bus. I received a call from the Chicago Public Library. My items are ready for pickup. I haven’t been in Chicago very long, just two years, and I still haven’t taken the bus to many places.

Chicago has a very accessible bus system for disabled passengers, especially the blind and visually impaired. But I’ve mostly stayed inside and ordered what I needed online, doing my business via email or websites, even for library books. Occasionally, I would get an actual, physical item, but 98% of the time, I’d just get a book from Libby or Overdrive —- digital book services that libraries use. I wouldn’t have to go anywhere because it was all right there in front of me.

Today, I need to get to the nearest library. A book I placed on hold about two months ago has finally arrived, and I want to get it.

Chicago is a huge city. It isn’t like Tallahassee, Florida, where you can just say the name of a street, and the driver will immediately know where to go. Here, you have to know exactly where something is because one street can run all the way to the opposite side of the city.

I know the street where the library is located. I also know the address. In Chicago, all addresses are numbered based on a grid, north, south, east, and west: The further you are from the center, the larger the address number. To someone who has never traveled in a big city before, this system can be daunting. It makes sense, but it’s tough to understand instinctively. Moreover, Chicago neighborhoods can shift quickly from the crowded, familiar areas where I feel safe. The system’s certainly logical, but it isn’t easy to learn. It’s especially hard to grasp for a country bumpkin like me, who used to live in a town so small people could name all its streets.

Usually, when I go somewhere, I look up the address on Google. Then, I call paratransit to take me straight there. I didn’t want to schedule a ride just to travel a few blocks, but I didn’t want to spend $10 on a cab. So, I thought I’d take the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus today.

Since I’m not good with Chicago geography, I called the CTA operator and explained that I wanted to get to the closest library. I gave her my address, and she told me how to get there, but her instructions didn’t compute in my brain. She couldn’t just email me the directions, and I was struggling to parse them over the phone. Still, I said “thank you very much!” with a smile that could smooth the wrinkles from clothes. Although I took her directions down on a voice recorder, this adventure still seemed mysterious. The city should have shuddered with looming dread.

I started by heading to the bus stop and getting on the number 11 bus. As I stepped on and smiled at the driver, I had a sudden realization. I’m hopping on a bus when I’m not even sure if I’m headed in the right direction. I’d never have done this if I had the internet at my disposal. Am I really that bored, I wondered, or that ready to learn something new? I wasn’t sure, but I was happy as can be.

“Hi!” I beamed at the driver with a smile that could cure all ills. He was an older, dark-skinned man. “Can you tell me how to get here?” I showed him the library’s address, and he hmphed in response.

“So, can you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wicked! Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

The driver made a motion with his head, but I couldn’t see well enough to tell if it was a nod or a shake. I sat down, very eager. I take in my surroundings. To my left, a woman is talking on her cell about her son, who’s home with chicken pox. Across from me, someone is staring at me with the intensity of an armed guard.

“Hey, son!” he calls, leaning forward and tapping me on the knee. I’m guessing he assumes I’m completely blind.

“Yeah?” As I answer, I feel an urge to check my email on my phone so as not to focus on this conversation.

“Where you goin’?”

“I’m going to the drugstore.” I lie, hoping this man will get off the bus before me.

His breath stinks of alcohol, and his iPhone keeps receiving text messages in his pocket. He goes on tapping me as he talks. “That’s good,” he hoots.

I dig my Nokia out of my pocket, sorely tempted to check my email. Instead, absently, I open and close menus. I look to my right to see if I notice any familiar landmarks whizzing by. Instead, I see a gorgeous face. First, I notice bright, brown eyes that seem to drill into my soul with a piercing intelligence. It takes all my willpower to take in this man’s other features. His face is smooth. He looks like he was granted the gift of charm by a fairy godmother. A warm, inviting smile completes his features. His hair is cut short, emphasizing his thin cheeks, full lips, and somewhat large ears. My gaze trails down his face to rest on his long, lean arms. Then, it passes down to his big hands, which are firmly gripping a red and white cane with long fingers. His short-sleeve shirt shows off his average-sized muscles. These features are so entrancing that I take a few minutes to open my mouth in an effort to utter something intelligent.

“Hi,” I croak as if I haven’t had water in years.

The man flashes a smile that gleams in the sunlight. The more he speaks, the more I forget I’m on a bus with other people. His voice feels like arms wrapping around me to pat me on the head. It’s gentle and silver-tongued. He sounds sure about everything he says while seeming incapable of hurting a fly.

“Why, hello there, young man.”

I gulped back some saliva before simply replying, “Hi.”

“Hello, young man,” he says again, warmly.

I shudder to be under such a potent spell from just a few words. Yes, I’m entranced. I totally forget where I am. I forget my own name.

“Hi,” I repeat. I fight to keep myself from telling him how dashing his voice is. “I’m Robert Kingett.” I extend my hand and then wonder if he has more or less sight than me. As our hands glide over each other, I deduce that he’s a total (that is, completely blind).

When we finally shake hands, I can’t help tickling his palm with my fingers. I hope this flirtatious question is welcome. I hope I’ve read him right. To my delight, he tickles me back, and I beam.

“Wonderful,” he replies, though I’m not sure if he means my tickle or my name. “I’m Travis.”

I swallow my saliva before any falls out the gaping chasm of my mouth. A few seconds later, I’ve composed myself. I try speaking again. “So,” I cleverly begin, “you’re on a bus, huh? I am, too!” I’m sure this conversation is the most intellectually stimulating he’s had in his life.

He giggles, and my skin tingles. His laughter is even more infectious than his utterly hypnotic voice. “Yes, I’m certainly on a bus. So, where are you really going, hmm?”

“Uh.” I respond with aplomb that would pride a professor. “Um. Uh. I’m going to the library to get some NLS books and DVDs.”

“Really? Budlong?”

“That’s right. I ordered some regular audiobooks and some NLS books, and they’re waiting for pickup.”

“I’m going for the same reason. Shall we walk together?”

His word choice delights me. “Oh, my god! Yes, we shall. We certainly sha—-”

“Ahem!” an older lady snaps, kicking me. “Pipe down.” Under her breath, she mutters, “Fuckin’ faggots.” I thwack her back with my cane just to have the last word.

Soon, the bus has stopped. Travis and I step off the bus and walk together. He’s easily six feet tall. Leaving the bus, he’d had to duck to avoid the display for deaf passengers, which displayed the street announcements that the blind heard instead via a feminine voice.

Travis grabs my elbow, and we soon set off. Our canes tap the sidewalk as if we’re troops marching onto a battlefield. We don’t have much time to talk because the walk to the library is short. There, we have to part ways since we’re getting different books and items. I do get his last name: Cornell.

On my way out of the library, I scan the entrance for Travis, but he’s nowhere to be seen. I double back inside, and I see him checking his books out. I peek at the audiobook in his hand.

He smiles, realizing who’s approached. “I see you peeking. Wouldn’t it be way more fun if I just told you the name of the books I got? You could have fun guessing the plots for a few seconds.”

Oh, my god—-Travis is a dreamboat! I cross my arms, feigning a pout as he follows me out of the library. Our canes tap out an ironically killer rock beat.

“That would be more fun,” I say. “But I’m an inquisitive soul, so I wanted to ease my inquisitive nature long enough to focus on you.” I grin confidently after that weird sentence.

He laughs and sinks down onto a wooden bench beside me. “All right, Mr. Speculative! What if we just exchange digits? Deal? The stutter doesn’t bother me —- at all.”

Normally, I’d feel exposed if someone pointed out my stutter. But he remarked on it so acceptingly that my heart leaps out through the skylight along with my spirits. I hand him my cell, and he passes me his iPhone. We enter our digits.

Then, we have to part ways again. He’s headed somewhere else, but he texts me all the way home on the short ride on the same route. I tell him he shouldn’t text and walk. He tells me we shouldn’t have taken away Pluto. I giggle, grinning even after I’ve stepped off the bus.

It’s safe to say I learned a lot today. The library isn’t as far away as I thought, and surprises can come in very strange packages and at even stranger times.

I’ve texted Travis throughout the day, though we’ve both been very busy. At night, I manage to have a nice phone call with him. This certainly is a different way to get to know someone, asking them questions, rather than looking them up online. But I’ll write more about that another time. I’m tired, and I’ve had quite the day.

It’s 10 p.m., and I haven’t done a single thing today but write, read, play video games, and talk to Travis on the phone.

I’m fascinated by Travis and my procedure to get to know him. Since yesterday’s encounter was so brief, I didn’t even learn his age. (He’s 35, btw.)

Talking to Travis has been a huge eye-opener. Without the internet to look him up I had to prepare questions before we got together. They seemed silly to me, such as asking about his favorite hobbies, because all that information would be on his Facebook page. I worry before finally calling him that he might get mad and tell me to look him up online. People get snippy when asked about their hobbies when they’ve posted their answers online.

But, when I do call, he doesn’t tell me off at all. He doesn’t even ask about social media or request my email address to send me links to his profiles so I can read them before calling back. Instead of short answers that would leave me wishing I hadn’t called, he fills my ear with declarations and explanations. I respond in kind —- even though Travis has already read about me online. He likes hearing what I think and why from my own lips. I admire him for it. I’m equally enchanted by his art. He tells me about the songs he writes, as well as his skiing exploits, his battle with losing his sight a few years ago, his mastery of the computer, his sadness for dogs that die in movies, and his love of the card game Magic: The Gathering. I enjoy hearing about all these things.

The more he talks, the more I’m swept up in his sentences. He tells me about the time he saved a puppy from a car and raised it to be a guide dog. I gasp when he tells me he loves Star Wars. I groan when he tells me he likes vegetables more than fruit. He interrogates me, too, even about what he’s read of me online. I wonder how many followers I’ve lost on Twitter because of my absence.

I notice that three hours have passed, and we’re still arguing, agreeing, speculating, flirting, and laughing. Soon, we both have to go, but we agree to meet at my place or his in the near future. Even after we say we should go, we keep laughing. I don’t think either of us knows what we’re laughing about, but it keeps us on the phone a bit longer. Finally, I hang up first, but immediately, I want to call him back.

My experience with dating and relationships has been primarily online. If you’re gay, eventually, you look for dates online because some people are on the “down-low:” They’re not out. Some are too nervous to say in person what they’ll say online.

I view online dating as an evil utility. I know it helps people, but a guy has even pretended to be gay so that he could take me out just to win money from a bet with his friends. So, you’ll forgive my bitterness on the topic.

Since then, I’ve prioritized meeting people online first. The problem with this approach is that it’s a Catch-22. People don’t know how to display their personality. If anyone tells you they know how to be themselves online, more than half of them don’t.

I’m amazed that so many people just don’t know how to write what they think —- or even how to think about what they write online. With such an information vault at our fingertips, I’m shocked at how little personality is on dating sites. To be honest, I don’t miss the profiles that say the same thing in different ways. Some don’t even say anything at all, with short emails to boot. There are so many men to pick from, but without the benefit of photos, one profile can hardly be distinguished from the rest. A few times, I’ve seen different profiles of men who are articulate and expressive. But most of the time, it’s hard to believe so many people can have the same idea.

This reflection has me thinking. If I’d met Travis online, would he have written in very short sentences that left me bored? Would I have blocked him from my life without giving him a chance? Possibly. That would have ruined a great connection since I’d never have seen the real him. On the phone and in person, there are no delays as thoughts trickle out of you. Travis could show me who he was without even trying. Online, people try their hardest to be smooth and funny, and they often fail. I’d like to know why. Do they just type something quick and hope people will ask about the rest? I don’t know. None of my profiles are like that at all. I guess people just don’t want to feel like they’re writing for school, so they don’t write much or try to express their exact thoughts creatively with words.

This hurdle is even more complicated when you’re gay because the world isn’t always safe for us to be open about who we are. The online world has a filter that allows gay men to really be with other gay men, but it’s also a trap of perceived deductions.

Talking on the phone with Travis has been so wonderful that I think I’ll call him again before going to bed. I’ll lie in bed and read a book soon. It sure is nice not to wrinkle my face up at another profile saying, “I want a man who treats me right!” or, my personal favorite, “I’m gonna have a relationship with sum1 who is true to me.”

I’m glad I met Travis offline. The internet can teach you many things, but today and yesterday, I’ve learned that it can’t show you everything.

I’ve been thinking about the news today because I’ve been in a morning-long battle with an old FM radio, complete with an external antenna —- something I haven’t seen in years.

The elder geek who gave me the radio provided a high-tech radio without the internet. It even has a flashlight and an alarm that sounds like a police siren. The radio is portable, white, and square, with a big dial and a micro-tuner. The big knob is used as the equivalent of a station scanner —- just something to get a beat on —- while the smaller knob strengthens the signal. I still hear bits of static, so I’ve been trying to find a station I can totally tune into. I want this radio to sound as clear as an internet radio station.

I’ve never used an FM radio. I didn’t have to with podcasts, internet radio stations, the Web itself, YouTube, Twitter, and everything else that trumps FM stations. An FM radio just didn’t factor into my life —- until this morning.

I’m on the floor, stretched out and slowly turning the dial. I’m amazed to hear so much static. The signal was clear just a minute ago. Everything I’ve used has had an internet connection for so many years that I’ve almost forgotten what FM static sounds like. Soon, I prop the damn box on my bed and start wiggling the dial like I’m unlocking my high school locker. Why is there so much static? Finally, I stick the radio out the window. Soon, though, I pull it back for fear that I’ll drop it. The static invades my ear. I don’t want to hear it when I’m trying to listen to the news. Nor do I want to hear whatever songs are playing now or some commercial for car insurance. I want what the internet can give me, a choice to focus on the content I want while filtering out what I don’t want —- all without the need to move an antenna resembling a javelin. I realize as I kneel on the floor, jiggling the antenna like a gaming joystick, that the internet has totally spoiled me.

With Spotify, for example, we don’t have to worry about CDs skipping. We can select any song from any album and even build our own music collection. Podcasts have made downloading content that pertains to our interests beyond easy. Meanwhile, internet radio has provided us with connectivity, clarity, and fewer interruptions. We can all listen to the same type of content in different ways. These developments have made my life convenient; I won’t lie. I’m used to the World Wide Web giving me exactly what I want when I want it, which shows as I battle this damned radio.

How did people live with such spotty ways of listening to music? Didn’t the everlasting static get on their nerves? More importantly, how in the hell do I get some technology news? Also, why is there no disability news on the radio?

Desperate for sound quality, I walk around my apartment some more before sticking the radio out the window again. I take care to hold it tightly by the handle. My headphones are plugged in, and I feel silly doing this, but the signal drastically improves. Now, my next step is to find an FM station talking about the news or technology. They’re all playing music. I wait another minute and flick the dial again, eager for some news. Instead, I hear song after song. Soon, I tune into an epic country song, fighting to not pick up my Victor Reader Stream and connect to the internet. Of all the things that could end my challenge, I didn’t expect FM static. But the pull of the news is disrupting my logic. I remind myself I’ve gotten this far, and I decide to enjoy the song.

I grin just as the signal cuts out and static streams into my ear again. Extending the antenna even farther out so that it resembles a deformed traffic light, I gape as a clear voice fills my headphones.

“And good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Jake with WKL FM in the morning, your source for news and views in Chicago! We have time for one more song, and then we’ll detail a—-” Static. I retract the antenna and lay it on its side. I don’t know what else to do. I’m totally lost. Someone, somewhere, is laughing at me. I’d be laughing, too.

I’m amazed, though, that this radio gets the BBC. I don’t know what station it’s on, but turn the dial away from me, and it’s the last signal I get. It isn’t clear unless I keep the radio in my bathroom, next to my toilet. And that’s where it stays.

It’s the only station playing the news, which I’m hungry for. I tune in to briefly hear something about a gay group being illegal because it included the word “gay” in its name. Soon, this station plays music, too. I want to know what’s happening in the world, but since nothing is being talked about, I tune into a nice station that plays soft classical music. Calming and inviting, it allows me to realize that, since I didn’t move the radio, I’m getting this station in internet-quality sound.

I wouldn’t mind listening to classical music for a few more weeks. It may be the best thing I ever do for my writing —- and my mental health. Plus, I’m stoked about the radio’s flashlight and siren! Sometimes I wonder if the pre-Twitter generations had more creativity.

The landline phone is a strange and mysterious device. For something so far behind internet technology, it offers a mixed bag of mysterious happenings through its wires, like its better-quality sound compared to, say, my Nokia or even Skype. It provides a stable handset that can’t do other confusing things, like send tweets or alert users of new emails. Within a simple handset, the landline hides a monstrous secret. It can royally confuse internet-fed youths like me when setting it up.

A host of friends and I are in my apartment this afternoon. We’re playing a healthy dose of Halo on the Xbox when I have the urge to check for a package. Back in September, I ordered a talking landline phone that cost me $125, and it didn’t even have a phonebook. I figured I could use Google Voice as my permanent address book and place free calls that way since the facility where I live charges for outbound calls to anyone not in the building. I’d use a landline here a ton, so I went ahead and bought the handset.

I walk down to the mailroom to see if the phone has arrived. I wonder if I should check my mailbox while I’m downstairs but decide against it because I’m on a very important mission, and I’m a man who always completes very important phone missions.

The package has arrived, and I’m so giddy that I send a picture of the packaging to my friends and even a few coworkers.

“You’re weird,” one of my editors writes in response to my smiling message.

“I know!” I boast.

After I lug the phone up to my apartment, my young friends gape as if it’s a new iPhone. All three of us open the box, which has tiny print even though the phone is supposed to be for the blind and the visually impaired. My two friends stare at the inner packaging, and I look around for something.

“So, do you want to set it up now?” Dwayne asks me, fumbling around in the box.

“Yeah,” I say, wondering what’s happening in the blind tech world for no reason at all. “Yeah. Let’s hook it up.”

We get to work —- or, I should say, they get to work while I look for a manual in the box. I’m not one to try something until I’ve read the manual thoroughly and multiple times. I like to know about every facet of what I have. I can find things out on my own, but that often leads me to mess something up, and that’s horrific. When I mess technology up, I mess it up horribly since I’m such an advanced user.

As my hand searches inside the box, I listen in on what my other college-educated friends are doing. They both have different cords and are saying, “I’ve got this cord!” and “I have that cord here!”

Finally, I find the manual and lift it out of the box. I expect some sort of large print or even braille, but ironically, it has tiny letters and small drawings I can’t see.

“Wait! I’m totally lost!” Jamaal says to Dwayne, who’s setting up the base of the phone. “If this is the outlet cord, this long prong shouldn’t go in the phone jack, right? But if it’s hooked into the phone jack, will it still work?”

“Let’s wait on Robbie,” Dwayne says. He looks up at me with a very sexy smile and raised eyebrows.

Jamaal groans at this flirtation. “Look, dawg. He’s cute, but I’m still confused.”

I look down at the manual again, trying to decipher something, anything. I don’t even have enough sight to make out the sections. The book fits in the palm of my hand, and the text isn’t boldfaced. I’m squinting and straining to see a character in the booklet, wishing more than ever that I could use the internet. If I had the internet, I could just open a PDF and zoom in as far as I needed, or I could have had NVDA read it to me.

“Dude, dude, dude!” Dwayne’s yelps jolt me out of my thoughts. “What does the manual say?”

“I don’t know,” I reply sadly. “I can’t even read the darn tootin’ thing.”

During a pause, my friends exchange glances.

“He’s definitely a country boy,” Jamaal whispers to Dwayne, who’s looking at the remaining cords spread out across my apartment floor.

“All right!” Dwayne exclaims, and we look up at him quizzically. “We don’t really need the instructions, eh, guys? After all,” he points to the three of us, “we have a totally huge and diverse group of experts. Our perseverance will beat this setup! So, we can definitely do this. Look, guys, we’ve got an engineer, an accountant.” We stare as he continues giving a Hollywood speech like we’re in Independence Day. Finally, he gets to me, beaming, “And a journalist, so boo-yeah! We be rockin’ this hardware snag.”

We cheer, and my friends keep hooking the wires up to the walls and sockets. Then, I step forward to try to use the handset.

I’ve never used a landline phone except in hospitals, so I keep looking at the handset, searching for the power button to turn it on. The phone doesn’t have a screen at all, so I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to turn it on. Is it on? Do I just put it up to my ear? I don’t know what to do, and since I can’t read the manual, I’m even more lost. I decide just to try. I feel a bit foolish as I press the receiver to my ear.

“Does it work? Have our collectively epic brains conquered the phone?” Dwayne asks.

“I don’t think so. I don’t hear a dial tone.”

“Really?” Jamaal, the engineer, asks. As if to prove me wrong, he listens to the receiver as well.

“Told you.” I smirk.

My friends go back to replacing wires and connections. Meanwhile, I wish I could be yelling out instructions from the manual on my computer. Since the booklet is so small, I can only glance longingly at it, as if it’s a straight guy who’ll never glance back. I wonder if it’s worth scanning it.

Just as I’m about to place the booklet onto the scanner, Jamaal taps me on the shoulder. “Okay, cutie, you’re all set up.”

“Smashing,” I declare. Then, I happily pick the receiver to bask in the dial tone. Since the hard part is finished, I blurt out before regretting it that I’ll be fine from here and that I don’t need them to read anything to me.

Because they have tests to study for, they leave an hour later, giving me time to fiddle with my new phone. It has huge buttons and very distinctive ringing sounds, but something’s missing. I wonder why the phone isn’t talking to me.

I’m sure the answer is in the manual somewhere, so I sit at my computer. I try to scan the manual and have it converted to speech. Scanning the manual is a nightmare. It takes me several tries to get a good scan of a single page, and sometimes the text isn’t even in complete sentences because it includes illustration captions.

Finally, I make it to the end of the manual, but it doesn’t say anything about talking features. I look at the FAQ section and learn, after ten scans of the page, that the talking features must be turned on using a switch in the back compartment, which my sighted friends hadn’t seen. I vow not to give them any of the good candy this Halloween. I relent and call Dwayne to come back. He does, and he fixes the phone for me before leaving for good, tripping on the air as he exits my apartment. We all have degrees in one specialty or another. The world should be nervous.

Finally, I get the phone to work. I keep fiddling with my handset, playing with the buttons to figure out which does what. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’d never have to do this if I could use the internet. But what about the people who are blind or visually impaired who have no choice but to read manuals that won’t scan perfectly? What if they don’t have any sighted assistance?

Online, we can make any document at any time accessible via screen readers. The sheer fact of having the internet gives blind and visually impaired people the tools for more significant independence. I want to be clear: independence is what people make of their own lives, and I’m still independent now. My independence isn’t diminished by seeking help. Yet, without the internet, in many cases, information is sacrificed as well as power.

I’ve been adapting to this new way of living, relying on humans more than the net to get things done. But a human isn’t nearly as vast, knowledgeable, or available as the World Wide Web. I feel powerless, relinquishing the control I used to have to another human being. I don’t yet know how to fully accept this level of trust.

I’m missing my freedom. Before, I’d say proudly that I didn’t need help with certain things because I could use the internet. I could use servers to get the information I wanted where and how I wanted. It’s difficult to describe this level of independent living to someone who hasn’t had or needed it, but after a while off the grid, I feel as if I’m losing facets of my independence.

I’m certain this is how people who lose their sight later in life feel. They can do things like driving, so they have the world at their fingertips. They can get anything from anywhere because they have the built-in tools to see whatever they want to see and get where they want to go. When they lose their sight, they must learn how to trust and adapt to a completely new way of life. People can try to adapt in a million ways, but these efforts require a huge amount of trust in someone else. They don’t know anything about this way of life, so they cling to people who’ve already been blind, like me, for support and guidance.

I think I finally understand how they feel.

I want to trust again in a host of connected servers that I can manipulate and control to fit my needs. I want to go back to being the master of my own information. And I want my friends to spend their time being my friends, not providing functions that society could provide.

I don’t know if sighted people fully understand how much blind people depend on the internet. Without it, we’d still have to do various things with the additional assistance of another person. With the internet, a laptop, and a screen reader, I can shop for anything I want, and I don’t need anyone in customer service. I don’t need to invite someone to my apartment just so I can get the daily newspaper read to me.

And while I’ve learned today how valuable National Federation of the Blind, NFB-Newsline’s phone service is, with internet services, I don’t have to focus on navigating phone menus or a sweaty ear from holding the phone for so long!) With the internet, I can bookmark pages and websites super easily, accessing the exact information I want when and how I want it.

NFB-Newsline is a service that hosts magazines and newspapers in various accessible formats with markup that are available online and via the phone. Its online functions include its website, podcasts, the new Victor Reader Stream (which has built-in wireless access), and online editions of papers through an accessible web interface and the NLS player (downloaded from the Web).

NFB-Newsline is accessible to people in the United States and to US citizens living abroad. Other countries have their own newspaper and magazine services, but they’re usually tied to the internet. Bookshare, a similar application in the United States, requires an internet connection to download periodicals from a website.

Yet today, since I’m offline, I’ve been lying in bed and navigating NFB-Newsline by phone. I’ve realized how important this service is. There’s something very liberating about listening to articles by phone. I’ve never used this service over the phone. In earlier days, I’d access what I needed as a podcast feed; I’d listen to newspapers or have papers and magazines sent to my email every day, such as the New York Times and a bunch of Illinois publications.

But I can also pick up a phone, call a local number, and enter some credentials that NFB provides. Then, I’m reading —- or, rather, listening. Basically, the service is a sprawling recorded menu that I can navigate via touch tones. I can add WIRED magazine to my favorites with the single press of a button or read articles from my state. Since I’m in Chicago, I’ve saved a host of newspapers related to the Windy City in my favorites. I wonder why the Windy City Times, one of Chicago’s premier LGBTQ newspapers, isn’t in this listing.

For this service, I’m using my old Nokia with TALKS on it. It has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, complete with yellow symbols for numbers in the center, where the home row rests. The phone is so small that it even fits inside a crevice in my shower, and it’s much smaller than some phones I’ve seen.

The only problem is that I can’t remember my Illinois log-in information after dialing the toll-free number. This morning, I’ve been reading news from my home state of Florida, where oranges make up a bigger population than humans. Just kidding.

I have no option to have the system tell me what my Illinois log-in is, so I hang up and log back in with my Florida credentials. I navigate to my favorites, which include everything from Crain’s Chicago Business to the Chicago Tribune. I enjoy reading the news even though, every minute I’m using this toll-free number, a trickle of cents is depleted from the NFB.

Toll-free really isn’t toll-free. It certainly is for the person who’s calling the number, but the person who holds that number is charged, depending on the location and even the phone carrier. I don’t know how much the NFB is charged for calls to its toll-free number, but this little bit adds up.

The NFB believes this cost is a small price to pay for access to information. NFB-Newsline is the only service in the United States that offers national and even international news in many accessible formats —- even a phone option. The National Library for the Disabled NLS, doesn’t offer newspapers at all. However, it does offer a dozen magazines and even more novels. I love novels, but news is important.

As I lie here in bed, using NFB-Newsline, I’m thankful every time I end a call. I’ve just read about a man who found a creative way to interest kids in reading. He dropped books off in a little lending library and encouraged the kids to take them out.

Stories like this make me think. A little library. What’s that like? It probably doesn’t have audiobooks, so it’s probably not for people like me. But how does it work? What if someone can’t find a book? Does the little library have librarians? How little is it, really? Without the internet, I can speculate, but I can’t look these things up. I picture a tiny, red box on elevated wheels with a slot to pick up and drop off books. I wonder if sighted people ever trade audiobooks through this little library.

I’m missing the convenience of online tools like Bookshare, but I appreciate the ability NFB-Newsline has given me to keep up with news and magazines from this beetle position in bed with a wonderful cup of iced tea.

Has anyone really thought about the word comments? A dictionary would try to fluff up the word as if it were a trotting horse who’s just misunderstood. A dictionary might define a comment as a verbal or written remark expressing an opinion or reaction. If the writers were feeling gutsy, they might call it a discussion, especially of a critical nature, of an issue or event.

I typed in the word comment and looked for synonyms. I found pronouncement, judgment, reflection, opinion, view, note, annotation, footnote, gloss, commentary, and explanation. I’m not sure what the internet defines as a comment, but everybody knows online comments. They’re everywhere —- on Facebook statuses, YouTube videos, blog posts, tweets, Facebook photo uploads, and news stories.

Someone who doesn’t use the internet might believe it keeps comments as simply comments, but they’d be wrong. Without our even realizing, the internet has changed the definition. If anybody were to look it up in an online dictionary, I’m sure they’d see a new definition that I’m not seeing. If it hasn’t been changed yet, it’s bound to be.

I haven’t seen an internet comment in weeks, and I’m grateful to leave those atrocities behind. The internet comment wasn’t meant to drop gay or racial slurs or to spread ignorance and hate. In the early days of the online world, comments suggested new ideas and lovely, constructive criticism. They provided feedback that people could use to build even better images, products, or ideas. “This is a fascinating idea! But this would go more with that subject because...,” said a comment in the early days of the internet.

Picture this scene if you will. A teenager bounces in from school. Her ponytail’s flying, and she’s grinning wildly. She doesn’t have any homework because she finished it all a few days ago. She’s a naturally good student who aims to be an artist, and she posts many of her amateur drawings on a social network for artists. She sits down at the computer and opens her emails. She reads that she’s received two new comments on a painting that shows two women seated on opposite sides of a pink petal. Their arms are stretched toward each other, and their faces evoke desperate pleas. Eagerly, she opens the comments, wondering what she’ll see.

“This picture has a lot of depth to it. I like the love that’s displayed by this symbolism.”

“This picture is very thought-provoking, though I really enjoyed your scenic pictures more —- you know, the ones where you paint and draw landscapes and scenes? I don’t like these kinds of pictures, but this one was well done.”

Now picture what would happen today. The girl is called lesbian slurs, sexually harassed, demeaned, and threatened. It’s hard to describe these kinds of internet comments to people who have never used YouTube before.

Today, I stroll around my building and ask people what a comment is to them. Since my building houses blind people of all ages, I meet with a variety of opinions. The older said that a comment expressed an idea. It was a discussion, a type of constructive criticism. The people my age and younger said it was a place to “exercise stupidity.”

The internet feeds intellectual hunger, but it also breeds banality and cruelty. I’ve been thinking about why this is so. It may have to do with online anonymity. Being anonymous makes some people comfortable being the worst online. There are no consequences —- at least not immediately. These people hide behind screen names so long that a serpentine fingernail would stare in bewilderment.

The internet is a place to learn and interact, as well as create, but it cloaks us. I shudder even now when people say they’ll give me feedback. That’s how far we’ve strayed.

This month, I’ve wavered between yearning for the internet and gladness to be away from it. This juxtaposition is strange. When I consider reading the comments, I’m glad not to be exposed to them for at least a little while longer. For a little while longer, I can play any game I want, read any news articles I like, and smile, knowing I’ve avoided internet comments while reading actual content. That’s what I call bliss!

I worry I’m thinking too much. I’d love some hot chocolate right about now.

I wonder if people know that one of the scariest places to venture into, aside from a new technology store or an Apple store, is a place people go to every day. They might assume the scariest place would be inside someone else’s car or a doctor’s office. Certainly, those places are all very scary. In cars, for example, you can see a person’s life. The evidence of their lunch may be on the floor by the backseat, stashed like codes to CIA files. Documents they should have put away a lifetime ago will be lingering in the glove box, performing different kinds of greetings, depending upon the person. Other treats might even leap out at you, like melted chocolate bunnies. A doctor’s office is just as scary, especially the epically bad magazines that await you. They’re enough to make anyone run far away.

But there’s a place whose fear factor greatly surpasses those others. It’s something everybody sees and uses, whether at home or in the workplace: the work desk.

On my desk is a smorgasbord of objects: headphones, pens for sighted people who always ask for them, audiobooks stacked like war trophies, a box full of cards I can’t scan into my OCR program, and a box with nothing in it but flash drives, where I back up ISO images of Microsoft Windows, CDs, and documents I want to share. And, of course, it holds the crumbs of cookies people have brought me.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been keeping everything on a flash drive. I’m someone who uses cloud storage sites way more than anyone should. Someone might ask why I use Dropbox, Evernote, Google Drive, and the like. My answer would be that when my files are in the cloud, I don’t have to worry.

Cloud storage, I’ve noticed, started popping up early in the ’00s. I joined the crowd. Who wouldn’t? If you’re any kind of writer, musician, or journalist, or in a similar profession, I think you’d need at least one service like Dropbox to back up your data without a second thought. If your computer crashes, you don’t have to worry —- the file isn’t lost.

Until this month, I’ve used Dropbox as my Web flash drive. It’s a syncing application. You download it onto two separate computers, and then whatever you keep in the Dropbox folder will sync to both devices. You can literally access this file from anywhere in the world.

Some people have even gotten into the habit of using cloud storage creatively. Businesses use it to keep their records, doctors use it to update patient notes and files, and people like me use it to quickly send stuff to editors.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: There’s email for that. That’s true, but Dropbox offers less hassle and is clutter-free. I can just invite someone to my shared folder, and they can see and interact with anything I put there. If I were to place an article in that shared folder, I wouldn’t have to email it. The editors with access to that folder would be automatically notified, and then they could click to see the file and even interact with it.

I use other apps for simultaneous collaboration, like Microsoft Office Online and Google Docs. These platforms let people update their files at the same time together.

Cloud storage can save your life —- unless you’re offline like me. Then, you need to use flash drives.

My desk looks like a hurricane hit it. I know where everything is, but a stranger (my future husband with a zesty car and a wonderful smile, for example) would have to dive into the unknown with a map, a helmet, and a flashlight. Behind the headphones is some loose change. I put it away in yet another small box. My audiobooks rest on top of a stack of open boxes. I use them to remember to review certain works or just to keep things nearby so that I won’t have to get up from my desk.

This space isn’t intimidating to me. I’ve written here, cried here, gasped at sad movies here, and flirted here. I know every inch of this desk. So, now that I need a flash drive, my hand rises from the keyboard and flits to a familiar box just diagonal to my monitor. It holds my library cards and flash drives. My hand dips into the sea of portable drives and grazes over several that feel familiar, but they’re not the one I’m looking for. Then, my fingers touch a Kingston drive and a Triton drive. Both have ISO images burned into them. One image is a copy of Windows 7, which I’ll keep until I’m forced to upgrade, and the other’s a copy of Microsoft Office, just in case I tire of open-source software. I don’t expect to, but it’s always good to have options. These backups let me be ready for anything in the land of binary code.

The flash drive I want, however, isn’t here. I’ve been working from it since I went offline. It contains the articles I’m writing for various publications and even some documents I can’t back up with Evernote. I keep everything on the drive because I juggle computers throughout the day. Other flash drives have slightly older copies of files, but today, I can’t find them either.

My hand pats the drives in the box. In case I’m having a memory problem, I slip the portable devices into the USB port and check them anyway. They have music, YouTube videos, and ISO image files, but none have any documents at all. I don’t see any of my projects on these drives. I look at my computer again. The red X indicating no wireless connection seems to mock me. “Haha,” it says, “I’m blocking you from backing up your files!”

I’m obsessive about backups. Even though I save documents every few minutes with the auto-save feature in LibreOffice, I also set the application to save every minute to my flash drive —- the drive that’s missing.

Frantically, I open Firefox and type “Dropbox.com.” I get an error message. I don’t know why, but I keep trying to go to the website. I want to see my revision history! When one tantrum ends, I have another as my hand plunges into my box of drives. I fling them all about as I feel again for the one drive I need.

Oh, no! I think, wildly. What if someone took it and read what I had written? I’m especially concerned about my bank information. Oh, my god! Oh. My. God!

I clutch the box before flinging it onto my bed. I toss the drives aside as if they’re deadly. Now that they’re scattered on my bright orange comforter, I undertake a tactile examination of each drive. For good measure, I race to the computer and stick them all the ports at the same time. Still, none of them have what I’m looking for. Oh! My! God!

Without Dropbox, I hadn’t realized how conscientious I had to be about saving my files. As I’ve said before, the internet has made my brain complacent in some ways.

Soon, I flop to the floor as if I’m in a war and the troops are rounding the hill. I crawl on my hands and knees, patting my carpet like a totally blind toddler exploring his new home. I don’t care how stereotypical I look, patting the floor like I have a new puppy nobody else can see. I gotta find that flash drive.

The hunt is on. My hands and feet move about the apartment, patting in search of the missing drive. I throw away trash, and I even look under the bed. I toss out some old papers that were covering a bunch of audiobooks I need to send back to the library. I clear some dust from under my bed as I move some boxes and a backpack out from underneath. I search under everything, pat under everything. I don’t feel anything resembling the missing flash drive. Dashing over to my sink, I toss some old advertisements out, and I gawk when I still don’t feel the flash drive anywhere.

I know I’m panicking, especially since my apartment isn’t big. I can clean every inch of it in ten minutes, but still, there’s no sign of my quarry.

My cleaning spree/scavenger hunt takes me through the entire apartment, even to the corner of my closet. When I’m done cleaning, I call someone with perfect vision to aid me.

“Hi,” I squawk as soon as one of the other young residents picks up.

“Hello.” His voice suggests I might be too much to deal with right now. Or maybe he was about to take a nap.

“Can you come over here? This is urgent! I’ve lost my flash drive, and, well, I want to use your vision since mine sucks.”

“Will do! Be there in a few,” he says.

I tap my foot as I wait. I search yet again, but still, I can’t find anything. When I hear a knock, I spring up to fling the door open, nearly knocking my neighbor off his feet.

“Oh, thank you,” I cry. Slapping my thigh emphatically, my fingers brush against something in my pocket. I freeze.

“So, I see you’ve already looked in your apartment. Are you sure you’ve lost it?”

“No,” I say softly.

“Really? Neat! It sounds like you found it. Where was it?”

“Right here.” I hold up the drive. It’s been in my pocket this entire time.

Ever since my manager at the paper told me the company couldn’t afford to pay me, I’ve been on the job hunt. Today, I landed an interview.

Job hunting is beyond easy online. It’s so simple that the job sites even offer ads by people who don’t intend to pay their workers at all. If you ever go to a site, let’s say, for writers, such as Elance.com, you’d find a dozen openings and even more opportunities. And that’s only scratching the surface. Craigslist is a hoard of these kinds of one-time jobs that don’t even promise a steady contract. Many job ads are so poorly written that, when a writer like me looks at them, they just nod, shake their head, and say, “Oh, yes. You certainly do need a writer!”

I’d never trust making a living off any of these sites, but many people do. Yet, a quick look at all the job ads listed for the current day will tell you a lot of people just want free work from jobseekers. Quite frequently, a capitalized heading will catch the eye of a jobseeker, who will read the ad. At the bottom, as if in a laughing undertone, they’ll find the words “No pay but great experience!,*”* as though this employer were Ronald McDonald, offering people an endless pension and interest to boot. That lone sentence tells you: “I want to have you, yes, you, do all this free work, and I want to string you along like a marionette. I want to yank you this way and that way and send emails only because I won’t have to deal with you or allow for an opportunity for a lawyer to contact me. You’ll gain extreme experience, though. And, oh, of course, I’ll write you a letter of recommendation! It will be so riddled with errors and holes that even Swiss cheese will take note.”

I hardly ever use these job mill sites. I want steady work, and I want to build a network of magazine editors I can pitch to. I want to build a solid magazine database and pull from the magazines that know me or pay me well. That way, I can always have money coming in from somewhere. Granted, I didn’t learn to do this overnight.

I’ve crawled Craigslist like a looming spider, digging for that permanent position. After I graduated from high school, I started applying to guest-write blog posts so that I could build up my portfolio. After a while, I didn’t have to guest-blog anymore. Papers started taking the stories I pitched. Magazines took my movie reviews. They’d write me, asking me to cover events and interview people in Chicago. They’d ask for my personal cell number so that they could send me out on assignment or ask if I wanted to take certain assignments on. I’d seek out more magazines to write for.

Today, I have a career. It isn’t steady by any means, but I write different things for different kinds of magazines and newspapers. The internet has made searching for magazines and projects looking for writers beyond easy. Since I don’t have that luxury now, I must call editors to see if they know anyone who needs reporters. In short, some of them took days and days to get back to me with a sorrowful no. Meanwhile, others said they would let me know when their buddy over at this paper needed someone quickly.

Yesterday, I got a call as I was eating dinner. I was masticating a salad while experiencing an uncanny urge to watch Netflix.

“Rob! My main guy!” Jerry booms in my ear just as tomato juice splashes the inside of my mouth. I try to swallow quickly so that I can boom back a response, but I end up choking instead.

“Hi,” I wheeze, “have any news for me?”

“I do!” he said. He sounded as if he would tell me he’d won the lottery. “I got you an interview with an editor at a local paper on the North Side.”

“Oh, my god!” I squeaked, causing the other residents near me to look up as I choked again, on lettuce this time. I gasped into the phone. “When’s the interview?”

He told me the date. I thanked him for another fifteen minutes, managing to keep a constant stream of air flowing into my lungs.

Over the next few days, I prepared for the interview with a print portfolio, something I’ve never used since my resume is a Google Docs file with links to various other archives on the Web displaying my special skills, education, or employment history outside of journalism. I had to develop an offline resume for this employer. I had to dig up letters of recommendation from the recesses of my hard drive, print them out, and slip them into a physical binder. I couldn’t access my Google Drive folder full of such letters from editors that I would have happily shared via email. Employers had gladly accepted this new way to view letters; they didn’t have to open a sea of attachments. Moreover, my resume includes a link to another Google Doc, which lists my contacts and links, in turn, to recommendation letters. This approach is easy on employers. Plus, everything is always available, and I don’t have to keep updating files.

I had to approach the process differently this time. I wished I had some chocolate. It makes everything better.

My next task was to look up the company. I wanted to learn what kinds of articles they published. Instinctively, I opened Firefox and typed the name into the search bar. When the error “there is no connection” appeared on the screen, I deflated like a balloon. How was I to learn about the company? I didn’t even know where to begin. I picked up my phone and dialed the toll-free Directory Assistance number, navigated to an operator, and waited on hold for a few minutes.

“Hi,” I crowed. An operator hurriedly asked me for the city and state I wanted to search.

“Yeah, it’s Chicago, Illinois, and I have a question to ask.”

“What’s the question, sir?”

“I want to know about a company. Can you tell me about it?”

“Sir, the automated system will tell you the name, number, and address of the company.”

“Oh, I know that.”

“So, then what do you want to know?”

“I want to know about the company. Like, I want to know about their history, what kinds of articles they publish, how long the editor has been in his current position, things of that nature.”

“Well, sir,” the operator said, explaining in drawn-out syllables, “Google can help you out with that. What you do, sir, is go onto Google and then type in the name of the company. It will bring up the website—-”

I interrupted him. “I don’t have internet access.”

He paused. Then, as if I’d drained him of all energy, he intoned, “Please hold for the number.”

A few seconds later, the number repeated in my ear and popped into my text message inbox. Its 773 area code made me wonder if they would tell me about their own company. Surely yes because other people in Chicago wouldn’t have internet access either.

After I’d dialed in and navigated through a recorded menu that looms larger than the Willis Tower, a young receptionist picked up. “Good morning! How can I help you?”

“Hi,” I answered brightly. “I’m actually calling because I want to know a lot about the company, like what you guys publish and everything like that, and who the editor is, among other things.”

“Sir, we have a website,” she said hurriedly. “Everything’s on the website.”

“I don’t have internet access,” I said.

“I have to go, sir.” She gave me the website’s URL. “Everything’s on the website that you’d want to know. I’d especially encourage you to look at our ‘About’ section.”

“Thank you, but I don’t have—-”

“Sir, I really have to go. Thank you for calling!” she rattled before hanging up.

Nothing has demonstrated the benefit of the internet to me more than my attempt to learn about this company. As I ask people for help, they repeat that I must have internet access before directing me to use it. I wonder: does everyone really have steady internet access? I know —- ironically, from articles I’ve read online —- that they simply don’t.

Eventually, I encounter a willing operator named Kaitlin. I listen to the jingle of her rings and bracelets across her keyboard as she reads me sections from the company page for almost two hours. Meanwhile, I record her onto my Victor Reader Stream. And with this step done, I’ve prepared for my interview.

I dress in a lovely white shirt with a collar, jet-black pants, and black sneakers —- an adaptive pair I’ve had for over a year. I’m sure they’re not the best-looking, but the rest of me looks astonishing. I even twirl in my bathroom mirror before slicking my hair back with a comb and assistance from some other gay men. I touch up my nails and everything else. Soon, I’m standing in the paper’s main lobby, clutching my portfolio, and hoping everything I heard over the phone didn’t leak right out of my brain. I sit in the lobby and read a book that I’m reviewing after making my presence known to my prospective employer.

The interview seems to flow along like a Google Car. The interviewer has an inviting and calming air. Somehow, I recall everything about the company that I heard over the phone, and I answer the questions well. The interview drags a bit when he says he’ll send me some documents via email.

“I can’t access emails at the moment,” I say. This explanation makes me feel like I’ve missed an important lesson in a dream about school.

“You don’t have internet access?”

“No, not at the moment, sir,” I say. I feel even more foolish because everybody should have internet access. I’m getting a sense that the internet is a requirement for me to work here, and my suspicions are confirmed when he stares at me for what seems like forever.

“You can fax me the documents, though,” I say, feeling somewhat hopeful. I have a fax machine in my apartment.

“A fax could work,” he says dubiously, “but when do you think you’ll have internet access?”

For the first time in this experiment, I confess. “Next month.” Yet doubt hangs in his voice, and his eyes dance over me, marking me for a swift takedown as soon as I leave his office. He’s sitting so close that I can see his brown irises jump around, but I can’t quite tell what he’s looking at. Is he comparing my attire to my apparent lack of internet? Perhaps I don’t have this kind of attire in my closet since I don’t even have the internet at my house, something he probably uses every day to watch Lolcats videos.

“Are you regularly employed, Mr. Kingett?” he asks.

Stunned, I nearly burst out laughing. He’s already forgotten my resume, which he glanced over at the beginning of the interview. I slide my portfolio back to him, tapping my resume to emphasize my words. “As outlined in my resume, I’m a loyal employee of many magazines and—-”

He interrupts me. “Did you fax in your last assignment?”

“Yes,” I lie uncomfortably, but I’m aware that my journalistic experiment relies on not providing an explanation.

“Give me a minute,” he requests. Then, he reads my education and qualification history like a father who’s just stumbled on their son’s diary. He looks at me intently after the cross-examination. Then, he smiles, possibly to himself. He blinks before asking me what kinds of stories I write. I slide my portfolio over to him, tapping the headlines of published articles in the newspaper that laid me off.

“I wish I had more time to read these,” he says wistfully. I nearly face-palm. I hadn’t faxed him anything, but I should have. My first impulse had been to email him my clippings, and I’d assumed he wouldn’t have a fax machine in his office.

“As you can see from the clippings, I’m a very thorough investigative reporter.” I try to explain. “Some of my stories stir up some conversation, and others are enlightening, heartfelt, human-interest stories.”

He flips through the portfolio. Then, he gazes at me frostily. “They’re all very good,” he notes. “I have a confession to make, though.”

“Yes?” I feel awkward, as if he’s going to blurt out that my haircut’s bad.

“I don’t have a fax machine in my office. To be honest with you, I don’t even know where a fax machine is in this building.”

I have no clue how to answer. My mouth opens before my brain can tell my uvula to shut up.

“Have you tried having a scavenger hunt for it? You know, break all the departments into teams?”

He laughs heartily before looking back at my resume with an even bigger grin. “I was just planning that this afternoon!”

“Oh, good.” I’m smiling, too. “Then we can publish it as a headline: ‘The fax machine has been found!’”

He laughs again before neatly placing my resume back into my portfolio, along with my clippings. His tone becomes serious again. “You’d have to actively use an email address here, you know.”

“Yes,” I reply briskly. “I know, and I will. I’ll have access next month.”

He sighs and leans back. Then, he leans forward again and smiles. He stands up slowly and holds out a hand for me to shake. As I shake it firmly, he says, “I’ll be sure to follow up with you regarding this interview.”

“Great!” I say, though something tells me I’ve lost this one. I stamp a grin on my face until I’m outside. There, I let it deflate into a frown that lasts all the way home. I picture the interviewer happily shaking hands with and hiring someone else before cheerily asking the new worker, “Please, sir, can you tell me your email again?” The new worker smiles at his new boss, and then he rattles off something he made years ago, possibly thinking the address sounds cute to his friends and snazzy to employers. His new boss will beam, knowing he won’t have to buy a fax machine to communicate with one of his staff members. I picture these two colleagues marching into the newsroom the next day. They open their email clients and connect to an IMAP server instead of a POP server in order to save hard drive space. They’ll see the subject line of an email from a younger employee who likes to send jokes to people. The subject reads, “The fax machine scavenger hunt.”

I’m sure both men will briefly look at the joke before deleting the message. The interviewer will reflect on my interview very briefly, and he’ll feel a brief sense of doubt. Then, he’ll take a sip of his coffee and wonder who in the world needs fax machines anyway.

Destiny is the newest blockbuster game on the market. It came out last month, around September 9. I haven’t yet played my Xbox 360 copy, and I’m looking at the box that it arrived in a month ago.

Today, I’m browsing my Xbox 360 game collection after having to repeatedly sign out of all internet-related accounts on the device. It hadn’t occurred to me until today how forcefully the game console relies on internet connectivity. Some downloaded games won’t even load because an update needs to be installed. All my saved games are in the cloud, and I didn’t back them up on the hard drive. I don’t have many CDs. In fact, on the Xbox, I only have two games on discs, rather than digital copies: Destiny and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Because I have Destiny on a CD, I’m sure I’ll be able to play it even without an internet connection. I pop it into the tray and ready myself to dive into a brave new world.

I don’t know much about the game, partly because if I’m reviewing a game, I take excessive measures to avoid any research prior to playing. October has been a spoiler-free month because bigger news outlets won’t cover video games, so I’ve been safe from reading about the ending of the worst game ever, according to forum users who no doubt type in all caps. Possibly these people don’t have puppies. (Everyone should have a puppy, just as everyone on forums should eat mint chocolate chip ice cream.)

Before I try to dive into the game, however, I scroll through my list of downloaded games on the hard drive, some from as long as a year ago. A few I play for some downtime, fighting games like Tekken. Others, such as Max Payne 3, I actively play and try to beat when I have time. A lot of them won’t start at all without an update. A dialog box pops up with a single option. It’s like a scolding parent wagging a finger at their confused child. “Couldn’t start this game,” they say.

Other games prompt me for a download option. Every time I hit No, my view shifts back to my collection. Most of it is completely inaccessible to me without some sort of network connection. I even try titles randomly that I have no enthusiasm for. I’m shocked when one opens and plays.

Bully is an older Rockstar title that’s extremely fun. You play as Jimmy, and you’ve been dumped at a boarding school for bad kids. Soon, your involvement in a few events and aiding different school factions guide you down a path of slow but prominent domination over the school. In this sandbox game, the world seems open-ended, but you’re limited to a certain location: the school where you’ve been dumped.

I remember the days before this console. Back then, I didn’t have internet access at all on the first Xbox. I thought I’d never be able to experience the wonderful pastime that is Xbox Live, a service people expect in their games now. The first Xbox promised this revolutionary breakthrough in game communication and friend interaction. And I marveled at all the neat features, which seemed astounding. People can talk and play two separate games at the same time? People can gather in chat rooms and play games together? People can download extra content for their games? These options are amazing!

I think it’s even more amazing how those features have morphed into industry requirements. People must be online; if not, their consoles aren’t as useful as they could be, and their experience won’t be as revolutionary. In my online days, I didn’t play in this vast world of online lobbies. I was and still am a single player who occasionally downloads patches and hops into a party that’s limited to friends or people I know very well online. I don’t play CoD (Call of Duty) at all because I believe there are better games to play. My game collection spans a wide array of genres that excludes sports and similar themes.

When I load Bully and start a game, I expect to jump right in and get to work on the story. Instead, a white box pops up, asking me to sign into my Xbox profile. I close the dialog, but another message pops up like an eager child looking for a pat on the head. “If you don’t sign into an Xbox Live account, you won’t be able to save your game. This means you won’t be able to load a previously saved game. Are you sure you want to continue?”

I tap the Yes button as if it would dispense candies. Then, I wade through two more confirmations. I feel like I’m signing my life away.

I play Bully for a bit, but I want to try Destiny. I exit Bully and pop Destiny into the disc tray. Company logos fade in and out before the start screen appears. Again, it asks me to sign into my Xbox account to play. I tap No and expect to be taken to the start screen, but a glaring alert message stops me.

“Destiny requires an Xbox account.”

The most interesting facet of the error message is that it’s glaringly easy to read. All the letters, even the smaller ones, appear in boldface, their pixels twinkling as they scold me. “This is how it is.” This very visible message talks to me as if I were just now learning about the World Wide Web. The message is short, and it includes a URL at the end in case I need technical support. It doesn’t include a phone number.

In case I missed an option somewhere, I restart the disc. But I reach the same dead end. I decide to ask someone to tell me if there’s a number on the back of the box. There is a number, but it’s so small that even the sighted person helping me, who has 20/20 vision, squints at it.

I dial the number, wondering what kind of hold music to expect. I’m taken to a recorded menu. I navigate to the customer service section before waiting on hold for an hour. I could be playing Bully or another game that works without a connection. In regular intervals, a feminine-voiced robot tells me I’m number 67 in line, then 34, and then 32. I’m trying to dance to the orchestral hold music. I start doing other things like writing and throwing trash away or making sure all my music plays in Winamp.

I’m beginning to wonder if anyone will ever pick up or if I should let the hold music soothe me to sleep tonight. Then, a brisk man invades my ear with a voice that booms so loudly that I jerk the phone away from my ear, suppressing an urge to shout, “Help! He’s after me!”

“Good afternoon, and welcome to Bungie. May I have your email address, please?”

“I don’t have internet access,” I say.

“Sir, may I have your email address, please?”

I give the man my email address. Finally, he asks what my problem is after confirming that I don’t have a Bungie account.

“Well, sir, I can’t play Destiny offline on my Xbox. An error message pops up that says I need to connect to an Xbox account.”

“Did you do that, sir?” He sounds as if he’s asking if I use a condom during sex.

“No, I can’t. I don’t have internet access.”

There’s a long pause. Then, he rattles off what I’m sure is a script. Possibly it’s printed just above his monitor. I’m sure it starts with a smiley face.

“Destiny requires an internet connection and an Xbox account to play,” he recites, “at all times.”

“Are you sure? For all times?”

“Yes. Destiny requires an internet connection to play.”

“But why?” I ask, showing my tremendous maturity with this important question. “I mean I don’t have internet access. I can’t play your game because I don’t have internet access?”

“That’s how the developers made the game,” he replies. He sounds as though he’s trying to explain magnets to a toddler.

“They made it so that people without the internet won’t be able to play at all?”

“Yes. In the future,” he adds, possibly looking at a left-justified script in size 20 font with response options A, B, and C. “All games in the future will require the internet.”

I point out that GTA V doesn’t require the internet to play.

In his monotone, he says, “We didn’t make GTA V. We’re Bungie.”

Outside my window, the sun is setting in Chicago as if reflecting the progression of this call. I listen to the Bungie rep a little more. He tells me about the games Bungie has made and where, on the website, I could buy them. Possibly he’s trying to satisfy my need for games without an internet connection.

Sighing, I look out the window again. I feel bad for this man. He sounds much older than me. I don’t want to get into a debate with him about DRM and the like. And I don’t want to end his day on a low note by arguing. He’ll forget about me anyway when he leaves the office. So, I thank him and hang up.

The world has been becoming internet-centric for a while, but I hadn’t noticed how many things had migrated to this new mode until this month. I wonder what the tech support guy thinks of this constant online expansion. Perhaps he’s never thought about it before since he’s so connected to it. When his shift ends, I’m sure he’ll return home to his glowing computer. It will be on and ready to go. Maybe he’ll log onto WOW and enjoy its universe, which is always connected. He probably has a daughter, a son, and a wife; maybe they play online with him. Who knows? Perhaps in his bedtime stories and thoughts, he imagines a future where everyone in the world is connected to each other, never separate, always within range of someone who’s a million miles away. Perhaps he’ll drift off to sleep wondering about this future. A flicker of doubt might never cross his mind, knowing he’ll always have these connections with the changing times.

But are these connections always a good thing?

How important is information to people today? How valuable? When I used the internet every day, my brain was like an intelligent sponge. It was always figuring out what it absorbed. It gave me a sense of power to know that the answers to anything rested at my fingertips. After almost a month offline, I think that power is getting channeled into something else.

I wonder what someone sees when they encounter blind people on the internet. I wonder what they believe we do. Likely, the blind users are on a blind-specific website, like Zone BBS. But naturally, just as the world has opened for the sighted, it has opened up to us. Since the internet is much more accessible than some other sources of information, people shouldn’t be surprised that their disabled neighbors know where to find random things on the World Wide Web.

I was a desk warrior. My fingers pounded out search strings in Google or DuckDuckGo. I spent hours looking things up and cross-referencing, so I learned how to look up specific queries from sheer practice. But the truth is that most blind or disabled people are sheltered in some way. They need a constantly changing outlet to keep their minds sharp. And the internet gives them exactly that. It provides opportunities for everything from reading to playing games and working. It’s no wonder almost every disabled person is an expert at navigating the internet compared to a non-disabled person. They don’t have a choice. Few other things are accessible to us, it’s a classic case of “desired difficulty” learning. Basically, as I see it, disabled people must understand the internet to get by in this world. I used to cling to it, always looking things up and making new discoveries.

Now, though, something is slowly shifting inside me as I complete this challenge. I care less about learning the facts surrounding mundane things.

A gaggle of friends and I are stretched out on the floor of my friend Amber’s bedroom. We’re all wondering what we should change our gaming profile handles to or whether we should even change them at all. Somehow, the topic swerves to the Harry Potter books.

“I can’t believe the first book was published way back in 1990,” Amber muses. Her bright pink hair flutter from a breeze that drift in through the open window.

“What?” Jamaal interjects. “Naw! It wasn’t.”

“Listen to me.” Amber chides him. “It did come out in 1990.”

I know what’s going to happen before they start whipping their phones out as if they’re pistols in the Old West. I stand up and back out of the room as iPhone screens light up the dimness. Both friends have very modest data plans, so it will take a while before their phones connect with their respective 4G networks. I hurry out of the house and down to a fast-food joint across the street. I sit there for a while before I spot a guy in a T-shirt with the Harry Potter logo. I get his attention, eager to ask him a question. It will be fun to go back to my friends with his answer.

“Hiya,” I say, grinning. “Nice shirt!” I gesture with my cane to the jet-black tee.

The guy looks down at my cane and then back at me. Slowly, he responds. “Yeah. I got it on sale.”

“That’s wicked. Where’d you get it?”

“Some thrift shop. Dudes in there always sell stuff cheap.”

“So, is it near here?” I venture. Man, am I one heck of a conversationalist.

“Dunno,” he replies.

“I actually have a Harry Potter question if you don’t mind,” I warble like a complete weirdo. “Well, you see, a group of friends and I were wondering when the first book came out. I thought you’d know because you have a Harry Potter shirt. Besides, I’m just too friendly for my own good!”

A huge grin splits his face.

Then, a taller teen, apparently his brother, approaches us. He looks down at me before snapping, “Mom’s here. Let’s go. Now.”

“But I just got here,” his brother protests.

The taller boy scrutinizes me carefully as if I’m going to steal something out of his brother’s pocket.

“Hi!” I proclaim. “I was just asking him a Harry Potter question.”

“Fucking nerds,” the taller brother mutters.

I pretended I didn’t hear. “I was just wondering what year the first book was published.”

The taller brother spins back to me. He shouts at me as if I’ve asked whether we are, indeed, in Chicago. “Jesus Christ, man! Fucking Google it, dude.”

I nod and wave as they leave. Now that the moment has passed, I wish I had asked what his favorite character was or even if he liked Harry Potter, not just about a publication date.

Back at my friend’s house, the gang is still looking up the answer. Someone found a blog that revealed a “secret,” and all bets are off. I look around the house for the first Harry Potter book just so I can stop their arguing.

A month ago, I would have still been on that floor, interjecting with what I found online. My laptop would have been open, and I would have been on Google or another search engine. Now, I realize it doesn’t matter in the greater scheme of things. What will come out of all this passionate energy?

I can’t find the first book, so I start playing some PS4 games in the living room. Soon, I forget about the whole discussion.

I notice that I have a larger attention span for conversations now. My need to know every detail of the universe has diminished somewhat, which I believe is a good thing. Before, when I’d be talking with someone, I’d have one ear on what they were saying, and the other would be listening to my phone for new emails. Now, I simply enjoy things more. I enjoy being with people more than emails. I relish understanding that I don’t have to know everything or even look anything up. I can just sit and listen as people relay their stories, wishes, and dreams to me. It’s refreshing to find myself locked in conversations like a vice, unconcerned about when the next email will slide into my inbox.

Still, there’s one area in which you can’t disconnect when you’re blind. When I’m with other blind people, I hear phones all the time. I’m disconnected, but other people aren’t, and our phones speak to us with each notification and update. When I’m talking to someone, there are always the sounds of new emails, and the person always looks down at their phone. Often, the emails, website updates, or other notifications are read aloud. I know others can’t help exposing me to this noise because I’ve done the same thing to many people —- even people I’ve just met.

It stems from the need to keep busy. I think some older people don’t understand why we young folks can’t hold conversations anymore. It’s not that we don’t know how; it’s that we’re trained from an early age to do many things at once. We’ve learned to allow interruptions, rather than asking others to wait for their turns. One thing can’t hold our attention for a long time because the internet doesn’t work that way. We’ve grown up trained by the internet. It teaches us that our brains must be split. Since we’re online for so long, even the idea of playing a game without talking to someone about something unrelated is uncomfortable. “You mean I have to do this one thing?”

The internet has also taught us that we need to be powerful. Knowledge is certainly power, but people my age now crave the internet. It’s encouraged us to look things up but not to retain what we’ve just learned because the information will be there later. Why should we remember phone numbers, for example? Every phone today has an address book. In a few years, why will we need to know how to get anywhere? Google cars will drive us. Older people perceive this tendency negatively. They don’t understand the kind of training we’ve had to endure since schools and nearly everything else has internet access in some capacity.

Along with my changed attention span, I’m adapting differently to communication in general. Phone conversations are longer, and so is everything else I do in person. I feel like I have all the time in the world to do things. If I just work slowly and steadily, eventually, things will get done. I’m more focused as well. I’m reading more. Everything I do involves a depth of concentration that I’d never have been able to muster a month ago.

Before this month, information was something that I needed. Now, I put conversations first. When I talk to my friends, they ask me questions that require informative, short answers, rather than long stories. These questions often require a definitive answer from me, as if I’m Cortana or Siri. When I’m around my internet-connected friends, I feel like I’m search engine, not a human being.

It’s different when I talk with Travis. Since we haven’t learned about each other online, we have the kind of conversations I want to have. I want to listen to his stories, like the time his cat leaped on the table and knocked over a glass of wine before falling off, the time his sister drew a heart with his brailler and gave it to him or Valentine’s Day, or the time when his cane got stuck in a crack and he needed three people to extract it. I’m at home when I listen to Travis’s stories, and he loves hearing mine.

I can’t just say to Travis, “Read this,” and then send a URL over the phone so that he can learn about me. I’ve noticed I did that a lot when someone asked me about myself. I think people identify with their online profiles, as if the internet defines them. What they’ve written on Facebook is enough; they don’t have anything more to say. But Travis and I can always tell each other more. Talking with him and with some of the older people here in my apartment complex allows me to learn more about them than I ever could from Twitter or Facebook. In conversation, there’s always something new to learn —- something unexpected.

The best part of talking with Amber and the gang is that the first Harry Potter book’s publication date isn’t even on my mind.

The call comes in as I’m singing in the shower.

I love singing in the shower. I’m sure the entire Chicago populace is lined up outside my window every time I open my mouth to deplete the ozone layer with Skillet lyrics. FYI: I can’t sing at all. When I sing, deaf people cover their ears.

I’m singing so badly that the water rushes past me, and my house phone rings, sending me sprinting to the receiver. I have this habit of answering phones when it isn’t convenient, and I don’t know why. As I stand here, completely naked in my apartment, I wonder what kind of call I’ve received. My heart swells when I realize it’s Amber.

“Hello, my boy wonder! I decided to call you since you’re off the net. Why? I’ll tell you.”

“Make it fast,” I urge. “I’m naked.”

“Really?” she fakes interest. “That’s really hot! Pale, nerdy kid standing in his apartment, talking on the phone. The same fellow who managed to choke on milk only to project it out of his nose when he started laughing at a Dungeons and Dragons joke. Yup, that is hot.”

“Fine. No wizard chess for you, then.” I threaten her as I walk back to the shower, turning the water off.

“That’s just not going to be fair at all, especially since I’m about to provide you with an epic internship opportunity.”

“An epic —- did you just say ‘*epic’*?”

“No, I didn’t. A kick-ass internship opportunity. Are you getting dressed?”

“No. You interrupted my shower.”

“I’m going to tell that elder geek in your building not to give you any chocolate. In fact, I’m going to eat some as I do it. So, can my pink hair and I divulge this wicked opportunity?”

“I’m all naked ears.”

“Great! Okay, so, you know NPR, right? If you don’t know NPR, then you’re not Robert Kingett. Anyway, NPR is having an internship for a website blogger, and StoryCorps has an internship, too. You can select many different internship programs at the Chicago office.”

“That’s totally epic!” I squeal, slipping on a bar of soap. The phone flies from my hand and bounces off the wall before falling to the floor. I grab my shower bar to keep from hitting the floor. I pick up the phone, and Amber continues as if nothing happened.

“One problem.”

“What’s that?”

“You need to either send an application through the website or email an application to certain people. There are no offline ways to apply.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I don’t believe that.” I walk to my bed, where I sit until I remember my window is open. I race back into the shower. “Give me the numbers.”

She does, and I hang up. Then, I call both places to ask about the internships.

“Hi. I’m Robert Kingett, and I’m interested in the internship.”

“Look on the website,” says one rep.

“Send an email, please,” says the other.

When companies say “no calls,” boy, do they mean no calls. They won’t even take faxes. Without my own internet access, I’ll have to use the library’s. They won’t take my resume any other way; I have to go through email or the websites.

“I don’t have internet access, though,” I explain as patiently as I can to both reps.

Neither budges nor makes an exception.

“When’s the deadline?” I sound as if I’m expecting them to tell me my death date.

One says “October 26.” The other says, “October 31.”

“Can’t I just fax my resume over?”

Both say no —- even after a few attempts.

“If you want to have a job today, sir,” one rep tells me, “you need the internet. It’s a requirement.” I don’t know how to convince her otherwise, so I hang up.

I wonder why companies have stopped taking calls about jobs and internships, and I wonder why people need online accounts to apply. Is it really so important? Is it the quickest way to tell a lot of people no?

I understand that people love the World Wide Web because it makes things easier. But what do they do if they don’t have internet access and want to apply for a job or an internship? To me, it seems like discrimination. I only have a few days left offline, but some people lack internet access every day. Have we made the internet more than a tool? Has it really become a requirement? I almost feel like I have a newfound disability: the absence of the World Wide Web. And this realization takes me back to the point I was musing on with Marcus in the park: if the internet is so necessary, why doesn’t the FCC classify internet service providers as common carriers?

In a way, I’m of two minds about this situation. Don’t get me wrong. Being offline definitely has its perks. But the truth is I need the internet. People need the internet. It’s become a utility whether we like it or not. To some, it’s evil. To others, it’s essential. I think it’s both.

People today don’t know how to utilize what they’ve been given. Many have said the internet is bad because kids play games on it all day or that Facebook is a distraction. Yet, they don’t understand that it’s a tool that you operate as an individual; therefore, you can use it to interact however you want. The internet gives a lot of power to the people, but they don’t know how to use it most of the time.

I wonder what I’ll find when I go back online. I wonder what Twitter has in store for me, what new people await me in my Facebook friend requests. I wonder what new books have been added to NLS and how much the Victor Reader Stream’s price has gone down. I need to go Christmas shopping soon. And so, I will turn to that wondrous utility once more!

I want a cookie.

I doubt whether any online maps are accessible.

I’m thinking about this late at night because I’ve found an old map. I kept it after graduating from high school. It’s a completely tactile map of the school, complete with parking lots. I have no idea why I’ve kept it all these years and even brought it to Chicago with me. But I’ve finally found it after tearing through nearly my entire apartment. It turns out that I brought a lot of things I don’t even remember packing from Florida. I’ve also found a yearbook from my graduation year.

I take the map out slowly. I marvel as it slides out from the bottom of a box I haven’t unpacked, even though I’ve been in Chicago for a year. It’s easy to see, displaying different buildings in different colors. Every inch is tactile. As my fingers trace the building’s outlines, classical music plays softly from my FM radio. The tactile map is epic simply because it’s the first I’ve seen in years.

The Web conveys everything to the blind via speech or braille. A screen reader reads everything on-screen when keyboard commands are entered. To the blind, the many different keystrokes we use to navigate are, just as a car is familiar to sighted people when they drive. We drive along the Information Superhighway with speed and confidence that are totally alien to some sighted people. The only sighted people I know of who can operate screen readers are AT (adaptive technology) specialists.

But I’ve never come across a fully accessible online map. On the Web, maps are entirely graphical. On sites like Google Maps, text options require us to know where we want to go and where we’ll be starting from. Sighted people can look at a print map and just explore, but we can’t do that so much. It certainly isn’t easy.

I’ve never used Google Maps since I use paratransit (a bus for the visually impaired). I don’t have to try to see my surroundings. All I need is an address, and the next day, a driver will take me there. I think that’s why I’m learning Chicago more slowly than most. I’ve let the internet dictate Point A to Point B, and I haven’t even wanted to explore or thought to try.

I’m not sure why I spend about an hour exploring my school map today. I feel every inch of the school, and I even find some buildings I had no idea were on campus. It’s so easy to explore this map. Everything’s laid out in front of me. All I need are my fingers and time. By contrast, when I try to search Google Maps, possibly due to my few attempts to use it, I’d need to use keystrokes I hardly remembered just to navigate around. It wasn’t as easy as freely exploring with my fingers.

When I go back online next month, this map will still be here, tucked away in my closet. It will remind me that sometimes things other than technology and the Web are more accessible. They don’t need downloads, installations, or even configuring. I only have to experience them.

I’m amazed by how much spam is in my mailbox. Without the distraction of new emails arriving, I figured it was time to tidy things up —- digitally and physically.

I’m up in my room, scanning old documents and files on my computer. I’m cleaning my hard drive out more thoroughly than I have in ages. A pile of journalistic invitations sits on my bed, and a few items to review are also scattered across my comforter —- books, movies, and technology. Invitations to events and games are stacked up, though I don’t even know who the Chicago Bulls are. Each letter is in small type, and I don’t have my scanner to read them all. For the moment, the letters linger on my bed, reminding me of a pool of money I’d love to lie in. I feel satisfied that I was able to carry this giant stack of envelopes, letters, and other packages up from the mailroom using just one armpit.

About that. This morning, I realized I hadn’t even bothered to check my snail mail all month. Without emails, I’ve been so busy with other things and writing pieces to be published in November that I completely forgot about my physical mailbox.

Before I go downstairs, I feel a braille calendar to see how many days I have left offline. Two days left. Then I can go back to using internet radio and sending party-hat smiley faces through instant messenger. I dance a jig in the shower, rocking out to the song “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I forget some of the lyrics as I’m fixing my hair. I begin to wonder if I should take up a hobby like art or painting. Or maybe I could study to become a blind pilot. I’m not sure what’s made me so happy today, but I think it has something to do with Green Day playing on the radio. Also, I’ve finally figured out how to make my new landline phone work, though it doesn’t have a phonebook or any nifty features, like Google Voice. In a few days, I’ll be sure to connect my landline with Google Voice.

I burst out of my apartment with renewed vigor, as if I’ve found the husband of my dreams and am off to tell the masses. My strut draws other blind people’s attention as I walk past. I’m sure it has nothing to do with my Darth Vader deodorant that smells like watermelon. People turn and tap their canes confusingly as I whoosh past. The spring in my step is also noticeable to the sighted staff in the area.

“Are you getting married?” one jokes.

“You bet!” I boast, causing even more community members to throw me worried glances. “In a few days, I’ll be online again! I’ll have Spotify back. I’ll have Pandora back. I’ll have Facebook back. I’ll have Netflix back.”

A few elders shake their heads in bewilderment. They whisper as if I can’t hear them: “You know? I’m beginning to think the internet is like public school education. There’s so much of it; people just don’t have a clue what to do when it’s gone.”

I don’t have time to reply. The talking elevator whisks me down to the lobby. I make my way into the mailroom and approach my box. I expect to see and feel a lot of things. I expect to feel a small bulge in the box from everything stuffed inside. I expect to see the door come off its hinges, buckling under all the strain. When I stick my key into the keyhole, I imagine my mailbox popping open. Papers assault me as I’m laid low by a flurry of white envelopes, packages, and yellow envelopes stuffed with telemarketer ads, asking if I want to use AT&T. A smothering array of ads for food and colleges I didn’t even apply to follow in their wake.

As I open my mailbox, the reality isn’t so dramatic. Papers and a few envelopes leap out onto the floor. I have to take my mail bit by bit because it’s completely stacked. The pile of mail is so huge that I divide it into smaller piles on the floor before scooping the bundle up, to other residents’ astonishment. The bundle feels like a stack of textbooks. It’s so big that I can’t even use my cane; I have to leave it in the mailroom. I’m sure the other residents who can see are wondering what in the world I could have ordered to make such a huge mountain of mail.

As I trudge out of the mailroom, I debate with myself. I could take everything up to my apartment, where I could scan each envelope, achieving the independence that blindness groups cheer for even if it means having to scan the envelopes more than once and even though my scanner can’t read checks or envelopes, so I won’t even know who’s sent me what. Alternatively, I could be less independent —- which would get some blind people tsking. I could have the front desk receptionist quickly open the mail and skim out every piece of junk.

The choice is mine. Independence, even if it means scanning the same item multiple times, versus conforming to the stereotype that blind people can’t even read their own mail. I could finish the task quicker (and get a glimpse of the handsome receptionist) if I chose the second option. For me, the choice is easy. I march off to the receptionist’s desk.

He greets me with a smile, though he looks tired. “And good morning, Sir Robert. How are we doing today?”

I heave the stack of mail onto the desk. A few envelopes from the top of the stack bounce across the divider. I grin at the receptionist as I gleefully announce to the entire lobby, “I have a lot of mail!”

“Yes. Yes, Mr. Kingett, I —- uh. I see,” His voice creeps over the wall of papers and envelopes. “Do you need some assistance glancing over these? You know, snail mail is very important. You can’t let it go to waste.”

“Oh, I know,” I reply to the stack that blocks his face. “I just didn’t get around to it yet.”

“Uh-huh,” he mutters. A hand reaches up to the top of the pile. “Shall we get started?”

“I’m all ears!”

Sure enough, my mailbox has been flooded with many ads, including some from pilot schools. Some ask if I want to go on vacation, but only after completing a survey. Some come from more schools that make no sense to me, like a driving school. There are a few checks and many large envelopes, which I assume hold magazines about talking books and news about being blind in Illinois. There’s an invitation to a Cubs game that’s already passed. It includes free tickets since I am a journalist. Soon, the trash can by the desk topples over with the weight of the mail it’s been fed.

The receptionist’s assistance doesn’t bother me at all. I guess I have a different way of thinking. I’ve been legally blind my whole life. I attended a school for the blind, and that experience taught me a very important lesson that many other blind people forget: I’m blind. I adapt any way that I know how. I don’t have a choice. I don’t want to have a choice.

I don’t want full sight simply because I wouldn’t have any idea how to live. Some people believe schools for the blind provide a kind of cushion before one deals with the big, bad sighted world. My school had the opposite effect on me. Having always been legally blind, I’ve learned a different kind of mindset. I knew that, when I left the school, I’d have to learn to adapt to the real world. I’d need to actively work through scenarios to find solutions to whatever my disabilities prevented —- even if it meant having sighted people tell me the exact information I needed.

This experience has made me a better problem-solver. If I weren’t disabled, I wouldn’t be as resourceful, and I wouldn’t know how to even try to be resourceful. I’m ready to adapt or figure out how to adapt because I’ve learned I need to do this every day to survive. I consider this trait an advantage.

I’m a little peeved, however, when people tell me someone isn’t independent simply because sighted people read their mail or handle certain aspects of their lives on their behalf. A blind or visually impaired person who asks for this information or service, such as someone in supportive living, makes their own choices. The disabled person who consciously decides to ask a non-disabled person to relay information or perform an action is no less independent than others because of this assistance. They request it; therefore, they are adapting.

I know many blind people who haven’t learned how to do so yet. They wear their inability to ask for help like a badge. They’re content to wander the streets if they get lost and wait for people to tell them what to do, what technology to use, and what job to get even though they’re capable of handling these things themselves. That’s not independence.

Independence is in the mind, and everyone on Earth needs help with something. It’s up to the individual to ask for what’s needed or wanted.

If people feel empowered to make the choices that shape their daily lives and advocate for their other needs, then they are independent.

During this final night, my phone rings. I expect Bob Barker to be calling. He’d be coming out of retirement to tell me, “The price is right. Now, go check your email early.”

When I eagerly answer with a squeal, I almost believe my fantasy will come true, but Travis is on the other end. He asks me over to his place for dinner. Since I’ve never been to his house —- and since this moment is fairly monumental, after all —- why should I stay home?

I hop in the shower after sending in my invoices. I’m singing (what else?) “My Brain Says Stop, But My Heart Says Go!” The song is fitting, especially since I can still hear my Twitter feed begging to be read this close to the end of my challenge.

I sing so badly that I should be arrested, but my spirits are high, and I sing on. When I’m dressed again, I gather up my phone, my Victor Reader Stream (since I’ll download books later), and my cell. I’ll send a mass text out at midnight.

When my cab arrives, I race out to the driver and leap inside. Rapidly, I recite the address as if the information had been pre-loaded. Soon, I’m off to a memorable night.

Travis and I are sitting in his living room. It’s almost November 1. A soft fire is crackling in a hearth to my left, emphasizing the calm atmosphere. Yes, a real hearth. The walls are a blinding white, a stark contrast to the dark wooden floors. The space is visually-impaired-friendly because every surface is high-contrast. The countertops are black with a white sink and a white stove. All the stove’s buttons feature braille, and the knobs are huge and multicolored. The fridge is white with a black handle. In the living room, the coffee table displays dark artifacts that make them easy for me to see, even from a distance. Although I haven’t seen much of the place —- just the bedroom, the bathroom, and this living room —- it all appeals to my visually impaired eye. I’m even more amazed that Travis chose to have his house this way simply because he’s a total.

“Why wouldn’t I design it this way, silly?” He asks after I’ve declared him a genius for his interior decorating. “I have blind friends, too, you know.”

As it turns out, a few of his interior decorator friends had come to arrange his place this way at no cost to him. I can’t help but admire the sights as I lean back into his arms on the couch. Above the entertainment center is a tactile picture of a coffee cup by an unknown blind artist. Occasionally, talking technology from down the main hall announces various information from different rooms. All through the night, I hear how warm each room is, and the time is announced every hour.

Although this house was designed to keep out sound, there’s always a faint whisper of the wind outside, a train thundering down elevated tracks, people laughing as they walk in the distance, plains soaring overhead, and cars puttering along. Travis creates some ambiance as well with soft music through Pandora —- which I still can’t use quite yet. His mixture of classical singles, country hits, and rock one-offs lingers quietly in my ear canal. I venture through the vast home while Travis cooks dinner.

I want to be nosy, so I have a peek at his computer room. He’s running a modern-ish Windows 7 computer that needs some cleaning. I clean out a few registry items left over by uninstalled programs, and I do some minor maintenance on the hard drive as my good eye dances over this tech hub. He has all sorts of technology here, from iPhones to laptops resting on desks to a 30-inch monitor that’s connected to an Apple TV and covers a good portion of one wall. Everything surrounds a queen-sized bed. I can’t help it; I bounce on the bed to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

Just as Travis calls me to dinner, I spot the internet-connected icon on the desktop. I stare at the symbol, which confirms his computer is connected to a wireless network. Dare I cheat at such an important time in my month-long quest? Using keystrokes, I tell NVDA to take me to the start menu, where Firefox tops the list. My fingers deftly strike the navigation keys. The cursor is now on the Firefox icon, which NVDA confirms. My finger twitches, hovering over the Enter button.

“Robbie,” Travis calls. Swiftly, he appears in the room. I wonder if he doesn’t have mind-reading powers. He smiles when he realizes I’m at his computer. With a few keystrokes, he has NVDA repeat which icon I’m on.

“Tsk, tsk. Now, were we really gonna give up on the last day? Is this how you were at Christmas?”

“But I wanna!” I whine. Gently, he drags me away from temptation.

Now, sitting on the couch after eating dinner, we’re watching a few movies and talking about my experiences throughout the last month. We hold hands in the brightly lit living room. It’s 11:59 p.m. The city’s sounds trickle in and out of our conversations as music continues to provide a backdrop. I’m resting my head on his shoulder, at peace with myself and what I’ve done. I know my inbox will be flooded tomorrow, and I know people will finally get to see me tweet again. I almost feel like I’m going home after a long vacation, and the feeling’s bittersweet. In a way, it offers a kind of closure about myself that I never would have thought possible. I can, indeed, survive without the internet —- without Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, or emails. Disconnecting was hard, but I’ve done it, and the accomplishment feels monumental.

The hardest thing about this month has been getting and sending information. I’ve had to submit my work via fax to email addresses. Sometimes, I didn’t even send work in because the fax machine wouldn’t send to an email address.

On the pure white coffee table, I open my laptop and install wireless drivers. After restarting the computer, I hover the NVDA cursor over the Firefox icon, waiting to press Enter. I turn to Travis. He’s holding his iPhone, ready to mention me in a tweet. He really is wonderful. I turn to him and lean on his shoulder again as he wraps an arm around me. In one minute, I’ll have access to everything again.

I wonder what’s changed. How much about the world has evolved in the last month that hasn’t made it onto the radio or TV? Are there flying cars? Is there a definitive cure for HIV?

Travis’s arms squeeze me, and I lean in closer to him. As I look into his brown eyes, the clock strikes midnight. All the talking clocks in all the rooms announce the hour, creating an odd echo effect like in a movie. I look at the laptop and lean over to press Enter. I expect my computer to crash from the anticipation when I press the button. Shockingly, though, it keeps running.

I turn back to Travis.

My cell phone beeps and announces in speech that I have a new message—-a tweet.

“@theblindwriter: Glad to see you’re back online!”

When Travis hears the tweet he’s sent, he smiles. “Well, my little trooper. Are you going to answer or what?”

I lean in closer with a sultry grin. “Travis, dear. Do you really want me to reply right now?”

“Do it, or no more cookies for you.”

“If you insist.” I grin. As the clocks go on announcing the hour, I plant my lips on Travis’s, leaving Firefox unopened on my laptop. Behind us, the fire dances in celebration. I don’t want to pull away from Travis, and he doesn’t want to pull away from me. We’re in our own world where Twitter and things are just bonuses. I don’t have to return to the net just yet. I set my phone down next to the laptop and lean in again, pressing harder against his lips. Finally, I pull back an inch to smile up at him. “How’s that for a reply?”

“LOL,” he says before kissing me again. Before he takes me back to his room, I close the laptop and power off my phone. More tweets have stormed in, welcoming me back online. But I have something else to attend to, and the internet isn’t required.

Four thousand, six hundred and seventy-eight. That’s how many emails I see in my inbox when I log into my emails, and I haven’t even reactivated Facebook yet.

I’m not sure what to do. Should I tweet? Should I explore Twitter to figure out what I’ve missed? Should I apply to those internships even though it’s surely too late? I’m like a kid who’s just gained the ability to drive, with so many options before me. I could open my RSS feed reader and see everything I’ve missed, or I could start on my email deletion. I’m excited.

Coming back to the internet is a bit daunting after a full month away. With Firefox going, I open a bunch of websites —- YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, emails, and a few magazines I like. I jump between tabs like I’m picking different flavors of candy for the first time, eager to sample them all. I want to catch up on the blindness news I’ve missed and the tech news that wasn’t covered on my radio or TV. I want to type “LOL” and a smiley face into an IM window. I want to email someone. The world has opened up to me, but I don’t know where to begin.

I think for a minute before navigating to DuckDuckGo, my favorite search engine —- how I’ve missed you! I type in Illinois online voters’ application. I’ve completely forgotten to apply for absentee voting, so I hope to all the routers in the world that I can still apply online. I navigate the Web a bit slower than usual, partly because everything is so fresh that I want to take it all in. NVDA obeys my every command, but sometimes I have to pause and try to remember a navigation command. Finally, make it to the online applications.

I’m dismayed to hear this message: “Voter registration for the upcoming election is now closed. The regular registration period will reopen two days after the election (one day after the election in Chicago). If you would like to register or update your existing registration for this election, then you may take advantage of ‘grace period’ registration… Once registered, this voter may cast a ballot during this grace period at the election authority’s office or at a location specifically designated for this purpose by the election authority or by mail if no ballots are available at the office of the election authority.”

I download the appropriate PDF, happy that I don’t need any sighted help filling it out. I’m once again the master of my own connected hub, having returned to the World Wide Web. People should be terrified.

Then, unexpectedly, I feel overwhelmed. There’s so much information suddenly at my fingertips. Email attachments seem like a new kind of language. Why couldn’t they just fax me instead?

Seeking something familiar, I race to my Victor Reader Stream. I press the Power On button and turn Airplane Mode off. Everything is updated instantly. I feel as if I’ve gained a ton of experience points in a game. The books I’d started downloading in September continue their progress. My NFB-Newsline feed syncs to the newest editions. I whoop and cheer, repeatedly pressing the button to announce my book downloads’ percentages from NLS. While the books are downloading, I log onto AIM and Skype. I message a few people using —- yes! —- a winking smiley emoticon.

I’ve missed a lot of news. There’s a new update for the PS4 that adds YouTube support. And I haven’t even gotten around to reading emails yet! I realize all the news I have missed —- such as advances in adaptive technology and video game news —- hadn’t appeared on my radio or TV when I’d tuned in. I check AppleVis to discover that a new Mac OS called Yosemite has some huge accessibility flaws. Because this kind of news didn’t make it onto the radio or TV, I’ve been disconnected from my own community’s updates for a whole month. A lot can happen in a month, and a lot has happened. Why didn’t the radio and TV stations consider this news important?

I’d heard nothing about advances in technology that concerned the disabled. I had heard about Apple CEO Tim Cook coming out over the radio. But I can’t help feeling there’s news I’ll never know about because I didn’t have internet access. I feel as if the only disability news in my local paper had come from me. My human-interest stories and coverage of controversies surrounding disabled abuse —- I cover all of it because it happens to be my beat. If I didn’t, no one would report on these topics in the local paper. I think it’s time for a change. Mainstream media must report on some of these stories. Radio and TV stations should have reported on Yosemite’s accessibility hiccups. Radio stations should announce snippets of news from the video games industry. Yet, without the internet, I’d heard none of it. I’m stunned by how much freedom the internet offers, from blogs to Twitter. The radio and TV stations couldn’t provide me with even half of what I’ve missed this past month. Having been cut off from disability news entirely, I’m happy to be back in the game.

Don’t get me wrong. I still have the urge to send people faxes. I now carry around a Kingston flash drive in case Dropbox goes offline or malfunctions. I sit and talk to people more. My attention locks onto their words and meanings with laser precision. I enjoy the sights more now that I’m a bit more disconnected, even though it’s cold in Chicago.

I experience things, rather than just living through them or alongside them. I’ve become more productive and attentive to people. My current events knowledge isn’t sharp, but I’ve developed other good traits. I’ve finished reading ten novels, and I’ve written a few articles, as well as this book. I’ve enjoyed phone conversations more than anyone ever should. I’ve listened to more classical music than I thought possible with an old FM radio that sits by my toilet. I’ve done so much this past month that I feel like I’ve sprinted up the Willis Tower. What will I do now that I’m back online?

It feels like I can do anything in the world. I’m powerful. I’m back in my element, with a browser open and my Facebook page activated. But that’s the thing: I can log on now, but other disabled people can’t. Internet access isn’t cheap here in the United States, and internet providers are scarce. We don’t have as many choices for ISPs as everybody thinks. We’re limited by what’s available, which isn’t much for wireless internet providers. The only two that come to mind are Comcast and AT&T. The internet is a utility, so it should be treated as such. Yet, I don’t know if it ever will be in this country.

Some people can’t apply for jobs offline, especially the disabled. This needs to change. Our country must preserve the net and our independence.

As I reflect on this past month, I pick up my cell phone to look at the time: 7 a.m. I open my call log and scroll to Travis’s number. Sure, I could be reading my RSS feeds, but a month offline has taught me nothing has to be done right away. I can “stop and smell the roses” —- and even touch them if I want to.

“Hey, kiddo,” Travis says. His voice is foggy with sleep. “Has the Web buckled from your presence yet?”

“Not yet.” I laugh. “Hey, you want to go grab some hot chocolate or something? I could even come over, so we don’t have to walk in the cold.”

“That’s the best invitation I’ve ever heard!” He chortles. “I’ll send a cab right away.”

I smile to myself. Now that I have internet access, I don’t want to spend every waking minute online. I feel like I should have an epiphany right now, but all I can think is I’m cold, and I want some hot chocolate. The internet will be here when I return this afternoon. I’m glad to have done this challenge and learned a few things along the way. I’m sure other people are, too. I’m amazed at how much I’ve learned and adapted. I didn’t think I could be so resourceful.

“Totally wicked!” I reply into the receiver. I flash forward to Travis and I laughing as we sip hot chocolate and watch Lolcats together. “But, dude, take your time, okay? Really, there’s no rush.”

“Okay, Robbie.” His voice is soft. He adds, “Are you sure?”

“I have a few emails to delete.”

He laughs again before hanging up. As I open Thunderbird and watch the email counter rise, I can’t help thinking this afternoon will be totally epic. I have Travis, accessibility, and even Lolcats to enjoy. What could be better than that?

For decades, many disabled people who wanted to work from home couldn’t do so, even at jobs where an office wasn’t required, such as coding for big tech companies and similar jobs. Many disabled people were denied this accommodation because their bosses assumed that working from home would diminish their loyalty to the hustle culture we praise over health and happiness. The internet still wasn’t valued until a pandemic in 2020 forced people to work remotely.

March 2020 was a monumental time for many reasons. The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to work from home because this was a virus that was airborne and killing thousands of people daily. Vaccines hadn’t been developed yet. The whole country, most of the world, were forced online.

Suddenly, an accommodation that disabled people have been asking for was no problem at all in the wider American culture. Because non-disabled people needed it, it was no problem to work from home. It was also no problem because big tech companies saw a way to capitalize on the pandemic and make billions of dollars in revenue. It was out of necessity people were working from home to avoid catching the virus, but it was also a wakeup call for big tech companies. The internet was a way they could still make money.

While many other disabled people protected themselves against the beginnings of this virus, we also sighed a little in relief because, for once, society was disabled just like us. Society was hampered by the inability to go to events, to participate in hustle culture, to travel. Society was stuck online, as we were, and it opened many eyes to the realities of being trapped in a world that doesn’t value anybody outside of its capitalistic measures.

Even though society was forced online, I didn’t, and still don’t, believe many understood the takeaway of those forced online months starting in early 2020. When the pandemic was mostly controlled with vaccines, that’s when CEOs and shareholders demanded that workers go back into offices at all costs. Those unwieldy giant buildings had to be used for something, and the upper class certainly wasn’t going to turn them into homes for the homeless, food banks, or anything useful that didn’t make them money. The internet went back to being just a fun luxury, and governmental figures in the United States did nothing to ensure that the internet would be a utility that would be installed in all homes. Nobody made the internet easier to access. The Affordable Connectivity Program created by the FCC and enacted in May 2022 only provided a small credit to make internet bills shrink by a few dollars. Internet infostructure wasn’t increased and, I’m sad to say, I still think this book is relevant today. In fact, I think it’s even more poignant today than when it was first penned.

This book illustrates life before the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe it shows why the internet should be classified as a utility in America. It shows how the internet connects people. It shows how the internet allows us to retrieve information. It shows how the internet allows disabled people a mostly equal foothold in participating at events, by allowing us to travel across social networks and meet new people in and out of our communities.

This book highlights so many facets of the internet that were never allowed to occur. The purpose of the internet, in today’s mind anyway, is to just consume and keep consuming content and buy things. We’re supposed to stop talking to each other and buy things online. Perhaps because of the COVID-19 pandemic, enthusiasm for tech is drastically falling. The internet included. Many are engaging more offline, by choice. Many view the internet as holding very little good in society. To disabled people, this is a new kind of slap in the face we now must contend with daily.

Tech culture has dampened what the internet could be. Social media featured in this book has long since come and gone, or changed hands to aid and enable fascism, aid more people to enact discrimination, or build up hype regarding robots replacing humans all because shareholders wanted trillions instead of billions.

At the beginning of this book, I said that this work might seem outdated to some. That’s true. It will and, probably, as the years continue to climb, this book will fall even more out of touch with society. I don’t believe all is lost though. I believe my work shows all the possibilities the internet could be if we build it right. I believe this book demonstrates concepts that are timeless even if the technology featured within will, one day, become a lost relic.

The connections I’ve made while performing this social experiment are timeless. The conversations I’ve had with many friends I’ve met while embarking on this challenge will linger in our memories for years to come. The social wisdom I’ve obtained about strength and resilience will never fade. I’ve learned very valuable lessons while offline. I didn’t just buy things like the modern internet wants us to do. I experienced, ironically, what the internet could be if we treated it as it should be treated, as a utility that allows us to talk to each other as people, NOT as commodities.