Hi. My name is Jules and I am a technology addict. Admitting it is half the battle, right?

I had suspected as much for a while, but these suspicions were confirmed on Wednesday, when there was an area-wide cable outage. Now, I get my home phone, TV, and Internet through my cable provider, so this outage left me dead in the water. No blog, no Netfix, no Juice Cubes or Bingo, no ability to call Mom (which, fortunately, I was able to do just prior to the world ending, errr, outage), no reading my Kindle, because I hadn’t downloaded my next read at that point. You know what I mean, right? I mean…I’m not alone in this, right? RIGHT?

Fortunately, my smart phone is 4G, so I was able to log onto our provider’s site and chat with someone to make sure it wasn’t the wiring under the house flipping out, again. It wasn’t. I’m betting my data usage is up this month, lol…but is it bad that I knew to do this?

I swear, it was the longest day two and a half hours of my life! I thought about working out, but all the music on my Mac in the studio is via Spotify (I haven’t gotten anything new on iTunes in about forever, because I just Spotify, anymore), but with no Internet, there would be no music, and where is the fun in that? (And before anyone blurts out, “Radio, duuuuh!” let me just say our neighborhood is in an FM broadcast dead zone.)

We’d had kind of a bad day that day, and I was mentally and physically wiped out, and all I really wanted to do was whine uh, blog, and read blogs. My WordPress family has a way of lifting my spirits, and I couldn’t even do that. I know, I know… #FirstWorldProblems, right?

So I plugged my phone in to make sure I had enough battery, changed into running clothes, leashed up my best girl, Belle (who is my dog, just to clarify), fired up my running app, and went for a two mile run. Ok, there was some walking involved, which was made obvious by my 13 minute mile pace, but whatever. I still got out there and did it.

By the time I got done, the outage had become nothing more than a bad memory.

You may recall my being down with the crud last weekend. Because of this I was only able to get a couple of hours in at work Monday, so Tuesday, while still feeling blah, I played catch-up, and returned home tired, so I got in the recliner and that is pretty much where I stayed. I wanted to blog, but just couldn’t make myself do it. Sleeping was just soooo much easier, lol. I’m a firm believer in full recuperation; relapses suck!

I left work early Wednesday to go with the hubs to the gastro specialist (which had a heavy hand in how our day turned out), and the doc wanted to send him to the hospital for an endoscopy to see what was going on with all of the abdominal pain. They told us to be there at six-thirty the next morning, and no food or drink after midnight, so I was making a late supper during the time I’d normally be online. I was experiencing further withdrawal symptoms, by this point, because I knew the Internet was back and I just couldn’t get to it. I know…I’m pitiful, but at least that was better than being a worry-wort about what all the tests would show the next morning.

So, yesterday went by in a blur. Up at 0-dark-thirty; let the games begin. Endo showed no ulcers, but the doc also ordered a gallbladder ultrasound, since he already had an empty stomach. The preliminary report showed no problems. Then the magic word came up: biopsy. What? I guess I am a medical trendsetter at our house, huh? Everyone just feels the need to follow suit. Haha. Follow up and results are next week. My husband is actually quite funny when doped up, lol! His Darth Vader impression would have been fun to get on video.

During the hospital festivities, I kept thinking about my next blog, and when I would be able to get to it, as well as where the storyline in the current short story I’m working on is going. Yeah…my name is Jules, and I am a technology addict.

Can I help it if blogging is more fun than journaling? I mean, no writer’s cramp, or anything! In my own defense, keeping my mind on that beat the alternative, which are those dark and scary recesses that my mind tends to go during times of duress. Don’t judge me. I was able to pass a lot of the time spent in the waiting room by keeping up with my friends on FaceBook, courtesy of the hospital’s WiFi. Is anyone else seeing a trend here?

What can I say?

Solitaire on the tablet out on the deck is great, as the cards don’t blow all over the table when a breeze comes up. E-readers are perfect by the pool because they are light, and I don’t need to wear my glasses because font size is adjustable. Email and instant messaging are instant communication gratification. No stamps, no waiting days for a reply via snail mail. What’s not to love?

To further drive the point home, I apologize if the formatting on this post is wonky. I’m working from my tablet using the mobile app because I am not somewhere my laptop needs to be. (No, I am not on the can. Even I have my limits.)

What was basically unheard of twenty years ago is so commonplace now that we don’t even really think about it until it’s not at our disposal for whatever reason. Fortunately, I am old enough to remember what it was like to have no cable TV, have to go outside to play, have your cards blow across the picnic table, etc, etc. Our kids, on the otherhand, or even some of you, perhaps, only know life with all this wonderful techie stuff.

That said? Before you ask me what the hell I would be doing if I didn’t have all of this electronic goodness, let me state for the record: I would be doing exactly what I did before any of this came about. Back in the day you could find me with my nose buried in a book, writing in my journal, sending handwritten letters to my family and friends all over the country, typing short stories on a Smith Corona (snaps to you if you know what that is), and waiting for my film to be developed. Basically? The exact same things I enjoy doing now, only more slowly. I am also saving money on Liquid Paper. This techie stuff just makes it soooo much faster. My only lesson learned is to keep any and all fiction I am writing on a flash drive as well as in the cloud…just in case.

So if you’ll excuse me, I have some Dexter waiting for me on Netflix.

Until next time…