It’s Friday, so it’s college day for Adam and the first of three days that I sleep until 8:30 and it has totally thrown me. I guess this is something that I am slowly going to get used to. It’s just I don’t really know what I am supposed to be doing. It was 9:20 before I even took my morning meds, my body and brain arguing with me all the way. I know I will never understand how I can sleep for 11:30 hours without even being aware of a second of it passing, but if my body didn’t need it, it wouldn’t sleep it.

I managed yesterday to finish off setting up my new site, so from today, I am going to be running them in tandem and will do so at least until I have managed to email everyone on my subscriber list. It’s not going to be a one-day process that is for sure. I don’t know what is wrong with it, but Chrome isn’t happy this morning, it keeps flickering and it is putting a high load onto my PC. I am slowly closing down each site I have open to see if it is one of them, if not then I know it is Chrome itself and I haven’t a clue how to fix it if that is the issue. It is beginning to look as at least a part of today is going to be spent on long annoying searches on Google, as this load issue isn’t good for my PC.

Adam and I have been watching a program on Channel 4 over the last few weeks called “humans”. It is set in the future where human-looking robots are common place. In fact, most of the world are unemployed because of them. It sparked a conversation last night about human attachment to machines and if we would really behave the way it is depicted in the program. I think the show is spot on, people are already emotionally connected to their cars, giving them names and often talking to them. I give cars as an example, but I have know people who have named almost everything in their home from the washing machine to their TV and none of them look human in any way. Although I haven’t given it a name, I know for a fact that I am emotionally attached to my PC. It could be because it is my link to life, but I believe it goes a bit deeper than that. I bought it as a combination of several things, starting with its power to carry out all my tasks for work, whilst being connected to three machines in my office at the same time. But to me it was the ultimate machine available at the time and I could justify the cost. Behind it all though was I the fact that I feel in love with it at first sight. She is a she and arrived with the name Aurora, so I didn’t need to name her, but I have never actually used that name. As for talking to her, I do it all the time. Should anything happen to her, I know without a doubt that I would fall to bits as that was exactly what I did when her hard drive had to be replaced. I haven’t gone as far as taking her out for lunch, but if we were both mobile, both looked as though we were both human, well I might. That is with something that can’t even talk back, our emotional attachment to something that did, would be much higher.

It made me realise just how few things there are in my life now. By that, I mean things that without I don’t know exactly what I would do. Adam, of course, doesn’t come into this, as he is already a fully formed walking talking human. My PC comes top of my list, as I said she is my link to life and the majority of my waking hours are spent sat here with her. That was a no brainer. Next my bed, it is actually the place I now spend the majority of my life, so incredibly important as is the third on my list, the TV. There is the world, I have this huge drive to know what is happening out there. If I were to lose the 24-hour news, I would be lost. I now watch more than 4 hours news every day. Listening to the same stories being told by the same people several times as the hours pass. Waiting for a major story to break as I couldn’t bear the idea that I had missed something. My attachment to it has become obsessive, but I need to know as there is no other way that I will know. I don’t have those work colleges who read newspapers and chatter all the time about what is happening in the world. My connection is the one eyed box in the corner of my room. It also brings me education. I love to learn, to find out new things and with millions of documentaries available all the time, I have learning at my fingertips. God bless the BBC, Nat Geo and Discovery, Yesterday and History. Yes, I do watch other channels occasionally but those are my main ones.

Three items, that’s it. Three items that without I would be miserable. Everything else that fills our house is beautiful and if I had a choice I wouldn’t want to be without, but those three are essential. It’s amazing how little we really need and how much other stuff that we collect because we like it, we don’t need any of it. Like it or not, I am emotionally attached to the majority of the things that fill our home. Break any of my crystal and I would cry, break my PC, my bed or my TV and it would break my heart. If each of us were totally honest, I am reasonably sure that everyone out there could bring down everything they own to just a handful of essential items, the rest is all about want. It’s one of the things about being housebound, your life is lived under a microscope. Everything is brought down in size, our wants, needs and desires are concentrated as the options have become concentrated as well. A lot of people have challenged me over the years about my twitter name, Ltd_to_two. When I explain it is a nod to my blog title, “Two rooms plus utilities” and my writing name of “Living in a limited world”, they always tell me that I am not limited. They say things like “you have your PC and your mind and are more attached to life than many who are not housebound”. They might be right in some ways, but in others they are totally wrong.

My physical world is the size of my flat, hence the “Two rooms plus utilities”. That is an undeniable fact, there isn’t a door I can walk out of, well there is, but I would only reach the bottom of those stairs in one way, crumpled at the bottom. As they are made of sandstone, well the result wouldn’t be pretty. Freedom comes through my PC and TV, but they don’t remove those limitations. I defy anyone to not become attached to their freedom. A few years ago I would have seemed the number of hours I spend with them as totally unhealthy, now I see it as totally the opposite. They are part of the reason that I have staved off that monster that many with chronic illness fall pray to, depression.

Give me a sim that reacted to me as a person, talked and cared for me when Adam wasn’t around, that did all the things that I find hard to do for me and I would very quickly attach to them too. Humans are emotional creatures, we will attach to anything that helps us, keeps us safe and emotionally supports us. My three items are my life support system and I couldn’t live happily without any of them.

Please read my post from 2 years ago – 17/07/2013 – Pinning down what is important

Pencilled in for a phone call this morning is once again the doctor. I woke twice during the night first at 11:25 and second at 7:11, both times I was forced to do my impression of running as I was not only needed to go to the loo, but I had no control to help me get there, the final sign of my having a bladder infection. With that now clear, I also know why I have been still wiped despite the lowering of the temperature. I was actually so wiped yesterday that I…..