CAUTION: Wistful twitterings.....

The usual twoddle must take a rest today, as you'll probably be relieved to hear. I was running again this evening, paddling around the slushly street lamp lit streets with the the slap of my trainers and the odd roar of a passing taxi to keep me company. As is often the case in such situations, and perhaps why I like running, my mind spilled away from the clicking of my knees, and span onto a meandering, somewhat wistful, reverie. I found myself contemplating the last year in sweden, and the fact that the honeymoon is most definitely over. Life is wholly good, but very different from the life I had back in the UK. New arrivals not withstanding, but I am thinking more about the network of people, not just friends, that we tend to take so for granted when we are in one place for a long period of time. K got me thinking about subject this evening when she said 'the times that you really laugh your head off with friends don't happen so often', when we were talking about moving to different countries. This is definitely the case, sure theres people I know and people to laugh with - sometimes uproariously -but never quite as often as with the friends you've left behind, or just don't see so much. As a digression, the sad thing is perhaps, that even when we're in a position to see people most of us -and I include myself here- often don't, couching in front of the television or hiding in work instead. Even the act of contacting people, ironically in a world of increasingly supersonic lightspeed trouser wetting fast messaging still can seem as difficult as when it required 3 days, a man with strong thighs and two horses to send a postcard to the next town.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not moaning here - I'm as bad as they come when its a case of contacting people - but my point is this. The network we have, whether it is the person you nod to when you walk into work, the colleague you have the odd pint with or the best mate whose shoulder you cry on, is absolutely invisible until you leave it behind - even if it is just a hop over the North Sea, and it takes time to build it back up. Thus, the lady who works at the local store who greeted me with a hearty backslap and tickled E's chin the other day, my danish workmate who suggested beers in Copenhagen some night, and the guy who works in the bank, who now says hello and doesn't need to see ID anymore: don't go away - we networkly challenged people need you!

Lewis Carroll - rabbit hole, clocks, etc rather more like wormholes and time dilation I think. And something that the last link lead me to is on a site devoted to diarrhea, what kind of diseased mind comes up with the diarrhea dance machine? And finally, something I noticed in new scientist concerning the internet which can be found here, here, here, and here, but also here as well - one must be the right one surely?