"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care"

I do not rise slowly from Morpheus' restorative embrace like a wary but excited child but am instantly awake in a new phase full of the unfocussed creativity of the erratically alert.

Words, images, ideas spring effervescently from the meeting place of Id, Ego and Super-Ego. The wire in the blood is already fizzing its exciting dangerous zing, part energy source part burning fuse. I'm ready, always ready to start great things with the alertness of Bambi and the focus of the substance addicted. One eye on potential predators the other on the fabulous futures that wait not too far off. And have waited for half a century.

There is a Henry James story about a man waiting for an incredible event or fortune to land at his feet. His anticipation is so great, his want so strong that he neglects the present and misses the good he has within his grasp. He has lost the fabulous future by looking forward to it and not considering that it could have its genesis in the past and the present. He is, like the users of Blackberries etc, unable to be anywhere because there is always a better somewhere else, something else. Unable to be fully present in his desire not to miss out. Here is simply the place we wait for our next txt msge, our next FB status update, our next tweet.

I thought of Twitter as I administered to sick daughters this week. What if instead of discarding every used tissue, every sheet of toilet paper, every sprayed sneeze and trail of drool they tweeted them? So all their followers, their facebook friends would be up to date on the status of their various irritated mucous membranes? The responses might suggest that that they're not Samuel Pepys but Paris Hilton's chihuahua's pedicurist. Or not - their viruses might go viral.