Shut it Off Now or the Blackberry Gets It

We leave for a week of beach time soon and while I'm busy packing and making list after crazy list on all the things we need to bring on this hopefully blissful beach side vacation, I am also in the process of powering down.  Yes, I am bringing my laptop with me while away but I've already set up my work email to vacation status.  The laptop is for short intervals of loading work onto sites and that is all.  I'm busy this week doing the advance work and while I'm away posts will load up automatically, I hope.  Add to the list that I have already been shutting off the drone of the media to get myself ready and I think I will be set for a total mind and body vacation. 

Instead of watching TV on my laptop while getting dressed or listening to NPR or some loud, crass morning disc jockey I've been trying to enjoy the silence. 

H took the girls to the spray grounds the other day and instead of watching TV to relax I just shut everything off and read a magazine in full without interruption.  OK, so a nap interrupted the reading but it was so nice to hear only the sound of the A/C buzzing and not the noises of The City or The Hills in the background. 

I feel the need to do this now so it won't be such a shock to the system when I bring my phone but leave it in my purse almost all week so I can be free from reading Facebook statuses like, "I mowed the whole yard today."  Awesome. Good for you.  I needed to spend five minutes learning that because, why?  Or tweeting that I just ate a gigantic ice cream cone when no one cares, except my thighs. 

All this powering down has gotten to me too, but not in the way you would think.  As H and I watched a show that had literally been in our DVR for a year plus I could hear a gentle tip-tapping sound in the background.  The commercials silently fast-forwarded by and it got louder and more insistent.  He was texting.  There in the dark, while watching this show, every time we had a two minute interval the tippy-tap-tap sound would begin again.  It made me a bit twitchy at first. Then irritable, "Can't you just stop checking Facebook for more than fifteen minutes?  Is fantasy baseball really that important?!" Then I got angry.  I wanted to shout, "If that was me doing that, you would ask me to stop!" And it would be in an irritable voice too, not nicely.  I wanted to chuck the phone out the door and officially cut him off now.   But I didn't. I just quietly seethed in the dark thinking, "If that phone comes out next week and it's not some sort of emergency it might just be making new friends next to some hot dogs on a grill or literally swimming with the fishes." 

Powering Down

I have become what I loathe. Last night I found myself in the middle of girls night with a strong case of Twitter-itch. Not to be confused with jock-itch. I could blame it on my lack of dinner and a bit of wine but really it has more to do with my affliction known as Twitter addiction.

I like me some social media and networking, I do.

Symptoms include:

-Wanting, scratch that, "needing" to check Twitter about every 2.5 seconds. If I can't. It's a big FAIL.

-Believing with all my black heart that UberTwitter is quite possibly the prettiest symbol to don my Blackberry screen. I can extol the virtues of UberTwitter to total strangers. A 'squee' is usually involved.

-The need to be 'in the know' is always at the forefront of my mind. However, all I end up knowing is what is happening on Twitter, that Jon&Kate (a show I don't even watch) are feuding again courtesy of Mamapop and a bunch of other nonsense that no one cares about except about four other bloggers. It's pretty futile and I'm quite sure it makes me a dork.

I could go on but my attention span and writing capabilities are almost nil due to Twitters 140 character limit. Facebook now just makes me cranky. Network Blog um, thingies exhaust me. I'm a member of like ninety bazillion now.

So here is the thing. Starting Monday I will be powering down and logging off from all this stuff and focusing on the quiet. Silence. I will revisit what actually goes on in my brain and the world around me. I think that the idea of hearing my dishwasher hum and the birds outside beats the sounds of Speidi. I'll only use Twitter to send out my posts and other work-related writings. There will be no blog networking sites. No Facebooking. No DVR on while an audio book plays on the CD player and trying to read work emails while sitting in the school car line. I'll read. I'll listen. In 'powering down' I think I'll not only clear my mind but also find I can use it more effectively. Maybe I will actually want to write again.

Either that or I'll crack from the lack of "news" and run crying and gasping for my Tweets declaring my love for you all in 140 characters or less. I'll wager that Facebook will still make me cranky though.

If you want to join me in this week-long challenge. Well, go right ahead. #silence.