Morning Ritual

Every morning upon waking, I promptly disentangle from blankets, husband, and cats in a frantic search for my phone. Half blinded by the light, and yet to achieve verbal coherence, any outside observer would categorize my existence as that more closely related to any number of burrowing, slithering organisms as I groan and ineffectually throw my mass at the direction of my bedside technology. When I have, by determination alone, grasped the phone and unlocked the screen to look into the depths it can reveal to my hungry, information-starved brain, I'm so exhausted that I fall asleep again. My fingers wrapped gently around the device as I pass into slumber.

Every morning.

It's so ingrained, so automatic that it's passed into the realm of near ritual. I can't get my post-sleep nap without going through all this. My mind worries at it like squirrel with a nut. Or me with Myst before I realized there was an Internet with walkthroughs on it. (Lies. I didn't figure out the walkthrough trick until Riven.)

And this whole thing makes me deliriously happy. I'm now even unconsciously making decisions that lead me to my eventual full-technological integration. I may look ridiculous with my HUD goggles, and I may move awkwardly, laden with too-many technologies. But I'm going to live in the future, dammit, and it will be awesome. Also probably lit in blue.