Of technology and insomnia

As happens to me occasionally, my dearest readers, I have been experiencing a recent bout of insomnia. This is not so terrible a problem in a city where people are very frequently out until five or six in the morning. But when you’re at home on your own until the wee hours, it isn’t exactly copacetic.

One does not write much of worth at 5 a.m., nor does one read with particular concentration. The Internet, however, can offer a more, shall we say, low-intensity activity for the insomniac. This would, were I living in the States, be a fine way to pass the time but far away from my native land it can be somewhat dangerous. The ye ole interwebs, as I like to call them, in addition to providing me with fantastic research tools and access to news and information of a wide variety (plus those lovable LOLcats), are also my main means of communicating with friends and loved ones in the Northern Hemisphere–far more so than they ever were when I was living in Los Angeles. E-mail, Skype, Twitter, the blog,* these are the social lifelines of itinerant me. But a bleary-eyed itinerant me, somewhere between 4 a.m. and sunrise, needn’t reach out to that larger world lest she embarrass herself with ill conceived tweets, posts, messages, etc. Emotions run high during those hours of the a.m., particularly if one hasn’t been sleeping too well. (You are all, I’m sure, familiar with the dangers of what is commonly referred to as ‘drunk dialing.’ Insomnia-induced communication via internet, or IICVI, is similar in nature and only slightly less likely to invoke feelings regret and shame once you’ve recovered.)

Needless to say, I have tried put the kibosh on my IICVI before any major damage has been done. (No, I did not send out mass e-mails detailing my irritation at the absence of grapefruit-flavored Gatorade in the United States and my elaborate plan to smuggle in shiploads of the stuff upon my return, but I thought about it.**) The point is, if you noticed typos, poorly constructed sentences, a general haziness in the last few posts you can blame this wretched affliction. And worry not: I’ll do my best to erase any traces of IICVI with my close edits in this and other forums.

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*No, I am not on Facebook. I am not getting on Facebook. Do not send me an invitation to join Facebook. As should be perfectly clear from this and previous posts, the last thing I need is another way to spend (or waste) time on ye ole interwebs. This may make me something of a contemporary Luddite, but I must insist. And, hey, clearly I’m no technophobe as evidenced by, among other things, this blog.

**O.K. LOLCats out of the bag! It’s true. I love Pomelo Gatorade. It is so delicious. I could pay a mule handsomely, if you know what I mean, to transport said beverage northward.