Denial is a river in Egypt…

After nearly a week off from work I found that maybe I was hanging out on Twitter a little too much, even mentioned it on Monday. Seems that habits, even short-term, are hard to break. I couldn’t understand why I was being denied access to my desk computer, then realized that I was using my Tweet username. 

Despite my protestations to the contrary, and my seemingly sincere pretense of cutting back on my Internet activity, I must concede that my addiction runs deeper than I care to admit, and that I am ensconced deeply in denial.

For those of you who also claim you ‘can stop any time you want, you just don’t want,’ you might have a serious problem if:

1. You stay up until at least 2 a.m. on a weekend night so you can be the first to sign into the Mr. Linky thingy, or worse yet, have trained your internal clock to wake you up so you can log in at a certain time.

2. You log onto Twitter for just a few minutes then four hours later realize you forgot to eat breakfast/lunch/dinner/ or go to sleep/work/pick up your children.

3. You dream in Greenwich Mean Time, and instinctively know that your UTC is -5, -6 off Daylight Saving Time.

4. Your story is that you joined several photography memes to force yourself to practice your skills, but the reality was to keep typically low weekend numbers up. The extra pix are icing.

5. You automatically know when you’ve said more than 140 words, and unconsciously stop talking.

6. You think in acronyms, or have actually said L-O-L in every day conversation.

7. You get all twitchy if you go longer than two days without posting, feeling you’re letting people down.  

8. You spend money you really can’t afford to splurge on a solo trip, by plane, staying in a luxury hotel in a major US city just so you can meet some of the other bloggers you’ve been stalking the past two years.

9. You have personal business cards made with your name, e-mail, Twitter page, Flickr page and blog address on the off chance someone would just have to have all that information in a convenient compact form.

10. You become an outrageous flirt online even when you’re nothing like that in reality.

11. You have a second blog that no one sees on account you might one day NEED it for some yet unknown purpose.

12. You post twice in one day because you can’t wait to publish your awesome writing tomorrow and have to share NOW ~ it’s THAT good.

13. You have honed your ‘I-am-ignoring-you-while-acting-like-I’m-listening’ skills so you can maintain your attentive mommy/wife facade as you blog/twitter/read/comment.

14. You won’t say it out loud, but your feelings are a little hurt when someone stops leaving comments on your blog, and you fixate on what you could possibly have done to drive them away ~ while doing the same with no concern for the bloggers you’re crossing off your own Reader list.

15. You get virtually apoplectic if denied access to the Internet/computer/Blackberry/iPhone for longer than eight hours ~ okay, four.

16. You freak out a little if you go on a vacation knowing that there will be no one to update your blog. So, you either schedule posts to look like you’re still around or find ghost writers to fill in for you because heaven forbid your space lies idle for a few days.

17. You think the letters MAAR are a sign of the Apocalypse.

18. You unashamedly commit the No.1 sin of blogging about blogging.

(There are more, but I’m running out of battery power and am too lazy to get up and plug in the charge cord. Feel free to add your own Denial Tributaries.)