A few weeks ago, I downloaded the Scrabulous application into my Facebook page, and immediately got involved in a couple of games with local friends.
Working alone, at home, at an Apple computer with a big-ass screen, I do constant, all-day, epic battle with the internet, as it attempts to distract me from the tasks at hand. I once was a journalist; the digital age has relegated me to the role of pro googler, which means all day I’m only a few keystrokes away from turning my screen into a video game, encyclopedia, movie theater, newspaper, or dark portal into worlds my mother might weep to know I visit.
i only played a few turns of Scrabulous, but it was enough to show me I’d soon be in trouble if I continued. How many hours would this consume? How many times would I return to the same game, to brood over my next turn, to consider and reconsider the seemingly encouraging and yet ultimately heartbreaking combination of three Es, an R, a V, and two Ls? And what if I started playing multiple, dozens of games at the same time, like some hardcore Scrabulice? What would happen to my productivity? My income? My life? Please, lead me not into temptation and deliver me from E-V-L.
Let me say right here that my sudden withdrawal from the dangerous world of Scrabulous had nothing to do with my two initial adversaries jumping out ahead of me, in points, in only a few turns.
I do miss the board game Scrabble, the one I played with my Mom and sisters in a hotel by the beach on summer vacation, the one which culminated in a midnight turning of the tides, when Mom used her last tile and everybody’s remaining tiles were used against them and Mom suddenly realized she’d won and whooped for joy and my sisters and I howled with despair and indignation and my Dad walked in from the next room in his pajamas to inform us that this was a hotel and we weren’t the only ones staying here. Now that’s Scrabble, not this digital crack cocaine that certain somebodies are trying to push on me, knowing well my weaknesses for words, procrastination, and computers.
So that’s why I’m bummed I missed the Jackson Hole Writers Conference’s Scrabble Tournament last week at the Hard Drive. I hope they hold another one. And why I’m bummed I turned down another real live Scrabble game before that. I think I need some Scrabble. With other humans, all of us actually in the same building at the same time. Talking, thinking, and trying to prove oneself the reigning sesquipidalian in the room.
Although, if you’re a Scrabulous addict, we’ll have to give you a handicap. Fair’s fair.
me, you, melanie, jim. it’s on
I’m there. I’ll bring the tequila.
when you write this amusingly about scrabble, in whatever form (”Please, lead me not into temptation and deliver me from E-V-L”), clearly you have already lost the battle against the dark forces. resist no longer. your brethren beckon you – and they won’t hold it against you that you quit the game they were winning.