by Annie Oakley
I was thinking of writing a medical book called Hand Jobs: How I Got Carpal Tunnel, and filling it with a bunch of short stories completely unrelated to the title.
. . . or Christine’s boyfriend, who thought she was leaving home each morning to work at a jewelry store; or Brielle, who looked like a midwestern cheerleader and scolded me one day for wearing my Skivvies into a session, and who bought into some kind of conspiracy theory which compelled her to shoot guns in the woods every weekend, in case “they” were coming to get “us” (I was never sure who “they” were, but I was pretty certain that I was not included in her version of “us”); or Brian, the wealthy Republican, who volunteered at the local animal shelter and cried when they euthanized his favorite pit bull; or John, the very tall, very quiet poker player who would come to see me after every big win . . .
Stanley broke his leg in the backyard when I was chasing him! Why is the answering machine on? Is anyone there? . . . I just talked to Emma two minutes ago. What is going on over there? Well, you two better be in session. Do you hear me? . . . Bob! Don’t carry him like that, don’t you know what kind of pain he’s in? . . . Is anyone there? Brielle, are you there? Well if you need me, I’ll be at the . . . Bob! Show some humanity for Christ’s sake . . . his leg is dangling! Okay, well, just so you know, Mary’s client broke a table last week. And if anyone else breaks a table over there . . . Stanley, oh my god . . . well, I am not paying for it, is all!
. . . or Mary, whose client broke the table; or how no one ever answered the phone when Margaret called to “check in” and how her phone calls always reminded me of an NPR version of Animal Cops; or how we were responsible for putting a spell on her boyfriend by having a certain set of candles lit at all times or else; or how her husband Bob brought me some unbelievably bad lesbian porn so that I could examine the authenticity of the sex; or how I neither wanted to burst his bubble nor clue him into my world and told him “this is exactly how lesbians have sex” . . .
There is a serious gas leak over here. It’s giving me a migraine. Can you please send someone? Yes, I cannot work like this. You know I’m already dealing with my candida right now and I’m really just trying to make it through my cleanse.
. . . or how Samantha got the shits when she was on a threeweek raw food diet and could not work, but came in anyway and slept all day on the huge, leopard-print couch; or how we consulted the tarot one day to investigate whether we were being watched by the cops and though neither one of us really knew how to interpret the tarot, we managed to determine that we were on the precipice of a preemptive catastrophe (which never happened); or how Mary just didn’t come into work one day because she decided to move to Ohio to become a teacher and how I was going to follow her example, but just kept on folding pink towels . . .
Did you know that colonies of birds, just before they are ready to migrate, get really quiet. They call that “dread.” And penguins carry their eggs on their feet. Did you know that? There is no way to really carry eggs on a pair of red hooker boots, is there?
. . . or Diane, who dreamt of having an office job equipped with a desk, which would serve as the resting place for a framed picture of her daughter; or Lynn, who had been on the “Geek to Sleek” Ricki Lake Show and thought everything the clients had to offer was “chump change;” or the hippie house I worked for where the girls set up a gigantic altar in the middle of everything and were constantly creating “sacred space;” or how once the curtains caught on fire, because Lily and I were trying to sage the “negative energy” off of each other; or how the very next week Stuart, the owner, closed it all down because he could no longer afford the liability we had become.
anacam
Ana Voog
Ana Voog was the second ever 24/7 home webcam on the Internet, starting in the fall of 1997. Today she is the net’s longest running cam. Her site has included a daily journal, a 30-second-refresh cam picture, chat rooms, bulletin boards, email lists, endless photo archives, and at times a mobile cam that she takes out into the world. It quickly snowballed from a small experiment to a site with thousands of members worldwide and a busy online community centered around her cam. Following are screenshots and excerpts from the journal (called ANAlog) she kept during the first year and a half she had the cam, at a time when the whole world was trying to figure out what the technology meant.
SEPTEMBER 4, 1997
i’ve decided to write journal entries about my webcamness wrrrld. this is my 1st ANAlog. i’ve been on the net now for a week. it’s a freaky and cool thing! i don’t know if i should pay attention to the cam or not. today i’m not because i just need a break and to finally get caught up on some email. and my house is going to the pits! i have so much laundry and dishes to do! eek! i can’t even get connected to my temperamental server now anyway. i keep crashing every now and then.
after the 1st 4 days of being on cam, i went on vacation for a week, and it was so weird ‘cause for the first few days of trying to unwind i kept seeing the monitor of myself in my head as i’d try to go to sleep. it was so crazy. y’know how things get all surreal and thoughts make no sense right when you’re on the verge of sleep? well, i was pulling down menus for my thoughts! and i was moving pictures over in my mind with a cursor and resizing them! i’d go out to dinner and all i could think of is “wow, that ketchup bottle would make a good cam shot!” or “too bad i don’t have the cam to show how the light is hitting those rotating pies in that display case!”
i hope after awhile these thoughts will just settle down. the technology of all of this is so astounding, mindblowing, yet so incredibly archaic at the same time. people staring at computers all over the world waiting for minutes for a picture to refresh. it’s endearing and insane. i like it. i’m glad to be a part of this whatever-it-is.
it’s eerie to sleep with the cam on you. i’ll wake up and see it shining and blinking at me and it’s like a dream.
SEPTEMBER 7, 1997
3:40am, wow, it’s cool to take a shower and not worry about what picture the cam is going to snap of you! it’s a completely different vibe having the cam off. aaaah, my “old” life! someday i might get used to the camera and just forget it’s there, but not yet! i still feel pretty self-conscious. i wake up and put on lipstick right away or else i look so washed out.
it sure is quieter in here with one computer shut off, too. i find it interesting that so many of you want to watch me sleep. i sort of feel like you’re all watching over me, protecting me.
i really want to get a cam in every room. and be able to take the cam outside with me. i think it would be just hilarious if people saw me do absolutely everything. it would be so over-the-top and ridiculous. it’s kind of like i live in a “camcage.” my house is getting messier and messier.
SEPTEMBER 10, 1997
i haven’t gone outside in days because of my weird schedule and this cam. i hope i make it outside tomorrow for awhile. i really want to lie on the grass. oh, man, just thinking about it, i could cry!
and before i go to sleep, i have one last request, will SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ADAM ANT TO CALL ME? IT’S IMPORTANT!
SEPTEMBER 13, 1997
i’m glad i started some controversy over the “pussy causes war” pix. i’m finding this cam a very powerful medium to reach a lot of people in trying to demystify the body of at least ONE woman! i want to try on every female stereotype and archetype and shatter them all.
and i want to do this in a humorous, fun and real way. i am still just at the beginning stages of exploring this medium and searching for what i’m “trying to say.” perhaps what i’ll say will be an accident. done in some small menial thing i do. i don’t know. i just want to break down barriers of all kinds, race, sex, time zones, countries, morals, rules, language, etc. etc. etc.
SEPTEMBER 17, 1997
i’m feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything at the moment. it will pass, but in this moment. . .augh.
trying to find where i fit into to the webcam. all of a sud
den i am so close to me that i cannot see myself anymore. my life blurs into entertainment, and i wonder if my microwaved dinner is entertaining enough. i don’t know when i can just be selfish and not think about the cam. i think about the lighting, when is the best time to take a shower. i feel guilty if i sleep all day because people will think badly of me. and it’s hard when you look or feel like shit to be on cam. if i don’t do something interesting i feel i’m letting you all down. if i get too down, i feel like i’m letting you down.
SEPTEMBER 28, 1997
a lot of people worry about me that i am so antisocial. but i am just that way. and i like it that way. i think i’m getting more and more antisocial all the time, which is pretty ironic since i’m communicating with more people now than i ever have communicated with before.
it’s been very very windy the last few days and it gets me a bit excited ‘cause i know then that change is coming. weather to me is always very symbolic, but in a very literal way. as is everything to me.
OCTOBER 3, 1997
i’m noticing that a big issue that is crawling under the surface of this live cam thing is CONTROL. some people like the fact that they have no control over my life, they seem to like the aspect that they don’t know what will happen next. but some people go BERSERK over the smallest thing like my lighting. they say “move this way, move that way, your lighting is too bright i can’t see you, your lighting is too dark i can’t see you, your hair is messy, is that all i’m going to see? you are always asleep! you never sleep! why don’t you smile? wave at me, change your caption!”
OCTOBER 7, 1997
my cam has turned black and white due to the fact that i’m frying it by leaving it on 24/7. i think if i turned it off then turned it back on again it would go back to color. but i’m enjoying the black and white. i did some groovy “film noir pin-up” stuff the other night
OCTOBER 8, 1997
some changes have happened in the chatroom because of trolls coming in there and wrecking it for everyone. and i’m just drained from it and it’s distracting me from my life and my happiness. 1st of all the chatroom called #anacam is now a place where only i can speak and everyone else cannot speak. think of it as a radio of sorts where i can broadcast in my thoughts as i’m thinking them. and you can listen but i can’t hear you. it’s much more peaceful for me this way. for those that wish to speak there is #analove (where you go to talk about happy things) and there is #anaslam (where you go to bitch about stuff).
i’m #1 on Kat’s Kam Konnections again. woo woo! i think ‘cause maybe i was cleaning the cat poop off the floor in the nude.
AnaFone cards will be available starting Friday October 10. you can call and talk to me directly. The following denominations are available:
$6 for 3 minutes
$10 for 5 minutes
$20 for 10 minutes
$50 for 25 minutes
NOVEMBER 21, 1997
i’ve been writing in my new bulletin board (bbs) so much that i’ve neglected writing a new ANAlog. the bbs has been AMAZING and chaotic. it received over 500 posts from around the world in the 1st few hours it had opened! WOW! and it’s been fun in there, and intense, and angry, and gleeful, and just about every emotion with a myriad of subjects from the war against women to pimento loaf. from alien abductions to depression to sex with midgets. it’s been insane. even god has posted many times!
NOVEMBER 25, 1997
EXPLOITATION? ya, that’s just it, i’m just “exploiting” myself SO much that there is just no way anyone could exploit it further. i just want to take it BEYOND the point of exploitation so that it all becomes a great big joke on “the exploiter” and therefore it cannot even exist anymore. i mean, there IS something really funny here, like it’s all getting turned inside out. and i can post here about “them,” the exploiters. whatever “they” do to me, is done to them. because i’m live 24/7, any way they affect me, anything they do, is reflected right back at them via my cam, via the net, via posts. there’s nowhere u can hide anymore. the net is just a symbol that we are a telepathic race. that we are all pulled into this together.
NOVEMBER 30, 1997
many times when i am just blankly staring at nothing it seems, i am in fact listening to such nice music, i am surfing the net and looking at fabulous things, i am talking on the phone to all my friends. i have people over ALL THE TIME and you do not even know! because some people that come over don’t wish to be on cam. keep in mind you are only seeing 120 split seconds of my life per hour. and this is from one narrow camera angle, without sound. i have a whole house and much goes on. i try to convey as much as i can, but the medium is limited, as is language. all you can do is speculate about me.
i have lived as this person now for 31 years. this cam has been on only for a few months. i worked very very hard to get where i am now. i worked in many factories, as a housekeeper in hospitals, as a stripper, dancing 14 hours a day in high-heeled shoes. most of my life i have worked for minimum wage. i have done hard labor and pushed heavy things around in big dusty factories for $4 an hour, i have washed the floors of many a place, i have cleaned up the puke and urine and blood of sick people. 120 seconds per hour is merely a peek into a much bigger life.
DECEMBER 7, 1997
i was interviewed by a music ‘zine called CAKE and they took my picture, too. there is a link to CAKE in the ANArchives. i’m excited to see how it will turn out. whenever i give someone an interview, i don’t know how they will choose to interpret what was said. sometimes my sentences are taken completely out-ofcontext. i also took my picture for a german magazine called MAX. i am REALLY excited about that! woo! AND the coolest thing of all is that a very big german computer magazine called KONR@D voted me #1 most interesting site on the net!
JANUARY 2, 1998
my 1st ANAlog of the new year! my new year’s eve was sure better than xmas, i can tell u that! xmas couldn’t have sucked more. i went to my mom’s and she just freeeeeeeeeeked on me about the cam saying that my life is more destructive than if i were shooting heroin, and i’m a prostitute, and it’s like i’m dead to her now. so . . . ok. i cried and stayed in a room with pooka. it was just a terrible xmas. and that’s all i have to say about that.
there was a little article on me in The New York Post
and i found out that Willian Gibson, author of “neuromancer” (he also coined the term “cyberspace”!) watches me from time to time!
FEBRUARY 11, 1998
well, i called my dad today. he is a lutheran minister from a small town. the local paper here that reaches across this state made it to my dad. and he is not pleased, to say the least. in fact, i have never heard him so displeased with me since i quit high school.
last night i dreamt that i pushed the button that sent a bomb to china to blow it up. this bomb went straight through the earth leaving a hole, which caused 1/2 the earth to flood and the other 1/2 to dry up. i wandered the earth looking for shelter and trying to gather a few of my belongings to save. i came across my water-logged stuffed animals and started to cry because i thought they were dead. but i wrung the water out of them and got them back into shape and tried to sew them to my jacket so that i could carry them around with me that way, but i had no thread, only a needle.
i also got an email from my old sunday school teacher that contained a picture that i couldn’t decipher and it said“ i am disappointed but i’m not surprised” which i thought was really really mean. was he saying that he is not surprised that i am disappointing? i wonder what the picture was. and if he is so upset, why is he watching me?
FEBRUARY 27, 1998
so it’s hard for me to convey what goes on with me right now. i am sick of explaining myself and talking about myself and looking at myself.
i just feel poked and prodded. film crews, interviews, interrogations. all screaming at me “are you valid?” how can a big fake-titted bleach-blonde so-called faerie queen x-stripper cam grrl net “porn star” call herself an artist?
in trying to get together my thesis on my validity and value . . . i have ignored myself, and my household and am finding myself rather depressed.
MARCH 10, 1998
pleez help keep anacam up and running by becoming a member of ana2!!! and thank u ana2 members for being such a great support! u r truly a pleasure 2 interact with !
i’m having spring fever in the worst way. being stuck in this tiny apartment in snow with cams on . . . is it the 3rd already? or is it the 2nd? i can’t even believe it’s march! next month is my birthday, on april 18 i’ll be 32!