loyalty

So many sensible people are giving up Facebook and other Things Like That for Lent that I've been vaguely unsettled that it never occurred to me to pursue such a course. I do spend a fair amount of time online but its pretty concentrated to particular moments in the day and for particular purposes. I would never categorize myself as Needing To Give It Up.

Anyway, my real guilt lies not in the amount of time online nor in the substance of what I'm reading/viewing, but rather in the deep sense of betrayal I feel I have committed against my, as Marigold would say, Own Wittle Waptop--the laptop given to me, no less, by Matt after Gladys poured tea on the lovely little white one. This current laptop was the smallest and fastest he could find, purchased by him out of love and necessity. I have taken it everywhere, done everything that needed doing--blogging, editing pictures, reading books, watching movies, beating the children off my back from thinking they could touch it at all....

until, a few days after Christmas, I found myself holding in my own hands an itsy teeny wittle iPad mini with a bright soft red cover. I have been rapturously in love all these weeks without thought or care (you know that love--the loss of thought for self, the floating around on clouds of euphoria--or something like that anyway) until a sharp pang of guilt and disloyalty swept over me last night as I heard myself say to Alouicious, 'Sure, you can play a game on my laptop. Just don't carry it all over the house. Try to stay in one place.' Even now, as I sit here laboring away on this little tiny iPad keyboard, my laptop carefully hidden behind a tower of books and paper, averting my mind's eye from its reproachful smudgy presence, the guilt and love roll mingled down into rationalization. 'The children can use the laptop for school.' 'It will be so much safer now, me leaving it in one Central Location and it being used as needed for Educational Purposes.'

Still, this little tablet is such a pleasure to use. Matt and I have synced (is that even a word) our calendars so that we are no longer shocked and horrified by the unfolding discovery of the other person's day. I have been listening to an interesting array of books read to me by people who took the time to read them out loud. Marigold has been playing Bob with the Bob Book app. I won't list everything. You might go away and do something else besides reading the Internet, a true tragedy. But so that I don't find I need to Give It Up Entirely, I will go do something else myself, for a while, but will probably very shortly be back.....