Twitter Outage Ambivalence

I often whine about losing access to the internet when I stay with my in-laws over the holidays.  This year was no exception, except that my forays to Starbucks was more limited due to a nasty cold that still plagues me.

This year I am more ambivalent.  I am still very much driven by the fear of missing out on stuff-- my self-diagnosed most significant neuroses.  Being off the net means that I am missing stuff that is going on--conversations on facebook and twitter, news at various places, silly stories at the usual websites, etc.  On the other hand, I was kind of glad not to be sucked into some discussions (whether civil-military relations applies to the NYC cop situation).  I do find myself being weak--being easy to troll, having a hard time avoiding engaging in arguments that I see in my feed.

Having a technological barrier that imposes costs (no wifi at the in-laws) can both be boon and bane.  I read and reviewed all the papers in the volume I am co-editing.   So, there's that.  I also plowed through a bunch of Michael Connelly mysteries.  But I missed my snark outlet.  It was nice to be able to tweet this morning this:

Does he start with himself? RT @CanadaNATO: Putin outlines threats to Russia’s security: http://t.co/FFm1TwIgqJ #FT
— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) December 28, 2014

Of course, the big bane is that I do enjoy being connected to my friends, and hate being disconnected.  If I was healthy and could spend time at brew pubs over the holidays, maybe that would have lessened this sense of disconnection.  Instead, I was stuck.

Anyway, I am back, and ready to think aloud on the internet again.  Probably not a good thing ;-)

Happy New Year!