Sick In Bed

Woke this morning with a headache at three in the morning. Go back to sleep, I told myself. I tried to relax my closed eyes but clenched them against the ache, bringing it on even more of course.

I woke next at ten to four, headache still there. A not-so-dull aching that pulsed with my slowly beating heart. I remembered signs on the highway saying that if I'm having a stroke say, take me to Crouse. In the midst of a stroke I doubt I'd speak or think so clearly. I drifted deep into that thought.

The alarm sounded at four-forty. I turned it off and closed my eyes against the headache and the morning. My stomach felt clenched. The word swoopy came to mind. What does that even mean? I wondered. I lay there, swoopy, for half an hour, my head beating like a second hand.

Out of bed just after five I went downstairs. The cat said it was time for food. No deal. Learn to read a clock, I told her. She meowed in time with my headache and the swirl of my stomach. I skipped coffee, grabbed my pen, and went down to the basement nook to write my Morning Pages.

I wrote about whether or not I could make it to my job and through the school day. My headache made its argument, my stomach concurred. I finished the three pages, went upstairs to the computer, wrote and sent in lesson plans.

That done, I returned to bed with the computer thinking I might write. I got as far as the title of this then, squinting at the screen, felt myself sliding, maybe falling. I set aside the computer, lay down, closed my eyes, and tried not to count the beating of my pulse through the ache in my head. Last I saw, the clock said 7:55.

Then it was eight-thirty-something, then quarter to ten, and finally ten minutes to noon. The headache had mostly dissipated. My stomach was still off balance. I got out of the bed, changed out of pajamas into khakis and a sweater. I went down and ate a toasted bagel, drank a cup of decaf, sat on the couch and read for an hour and a half.

Then I picked up the computer again. I had the urge to write something. Who knows what? It wasn't this. This came much later, after dinner, when the headache had begun its return. I wondered what the point of it was, the long writing I had done in the afternoon, this shorter piece at night. It had me thinking of the Morning Pages. My 1,735th day in a row of doing them. That number has to mean something. Maybe with a clear head and stomach I would be able to say what that is. Probably not, but when I'm feeling sick and so unsure, it's nice to think that all I need is a clean bill of health and the mysteries of the world will open enough for me to write them down.

Until then, I'm going back to bed.

Luddite Living

It wouldn't surprise me if I come off as a Luddite. I've written about unplugging and disconnecting. In teaching, my primary technologies are pen, paper, the printed book. I'm listening to The Pat Metheny Group's "Song For Bilbao" on my turntable. And if you were to catch me writing by hand, I would be doing it with a fountain pen in a notebook. Even on the computer, I'm using a minimalist editor -- Writer from bighugelabs.com so I'm not distracted by bells and whistles. In the last week I've read articles about dumb gadgets being better than smart ones, getting news from actual newspapers, and paying attention to the moment. In school, I tell students I'm intrigued by their willingness to be slaves to phones. On my desk is the paper planner with which I replaced Google Calendar. 

Yeah, you could say I'm a Luddite so long as we agree they weren't anti-technology or afraid of it. Rather, they didn't like how technology was being used to disenfranchise and hurt common workers. If we're talking in those terms, then you bet your ass I'm a Luddite. 

I've taken the last week off Facebook. I wonder if Facebook went away, would I lose or gain? A bit of both, but not in equal measure. This week I have realized I spend about an hour a day on that site. Ew. It would be okay if it made me happy, but that's mostly not the case. 

What does Facebook provide me? A conduit but for what? When I was a kid, Mom called the television The Idiot Box. A box full of idiots and watched by idiots. Sure, that's harsh, but Mom is an all or nothing kind of girl, and I tend that way as well. Facebook isn't completely worthless. It just feels that way.

My plan isn't to swear off Facebook, my phone, or the computer. I just want to ask questions. Are these things making my life better? Am I using them well? Am I being used by them? No, no, and yes, but only because I let them. 

Months ago I turned off notifications on my phone. Just now I deleted Gmail from my startup tabs on the Chromebook. I'm learning to turn my phone off part of each day. All of this is a response to my dependence (addiction?) to the technologies. 

The only casualty of these maneuvers has been posting to this blog. I've written very little on the computer to post. I'm glad to be back at it, especially in this stripped down editor. (Get a Writer account and customize it. I use a dark blue, Open Sans font on a light yellow page in full screen.)

I want to keep asking questions. I'll check Facebook again soon but maybe with a timer counting down five minutes. I want is a better life and the questions are turning, slowly, into a system to achieve it.