Still Sleepless in Chicago

I wish I could tell you that after my no-good-rotten day yesterday, I'm now making like Patti LaBelle with a New Attitude. But I'm not. I'm still grumpy. And once again it's because of crappy weather (a dreary, cold, rainy day that's flooding my street, to be precise) and technological tomfoolery that led to another bad night's sleep.

The same "wintry mix" that resulted in my alarm system's malfunction on Sunday is continuing to mess with me. Our satellite signal was all jacked up last night, causing parts of the 20/20 special on the Royal Wedding to black out while I was watching it -- THE HORROR! For those of you thinking, "Good God, woman! Haven't you gotten enough of all that hype yet?" I respond, "No, actually, I have not indulged in ANY Royal Wedding-related hoopla except for reading two articles about Kate Middleton in Us Weekly earlier this month, thank you very much." I've completely avoided all other coverage so far -- not on purpose, but simply because I never catch the news and have a strange lifestyle that revolves around watching and/or reading about movies -- or tying to keep up with the latest and greatest shenanigans in the financial services industry -- almost 24/7.

But I'll write more about the Royal Wedding some other time. Today I have to share that the bad weather has not only caused satellite and alarm system mayhem, but it's also resulting in a spotty Internet connection. I don't know why exactly -- all I know is that everything had been fine, and now for the past 48 hours my wireless signal keeps going out at exactly the wrong time.

See, when your job revolves around writing on the web, it is kind of critical that you have a steady Internet connection. Otherwise you might, say, LOSE A TON OF WORK when you hit "save" and the connection drops. You're probably thinking, "Haven't you learned to save frequently?" To which I say, "Yes, my dear friend, but I am the fastest typer in the world (seriously, I am -- will eventually dedicate a post to this amazing fact) and what I can churn out in 15 minutes between saves is substantial. So there."

What's this have to do with another bad night of sleep? Let me tell you: 1) My dog paces constantly when there's a storm, so I was hearing him prowl around all night -- clicking his nails on the wood floors, sighing, groaning, banging around as he went in and out of his crate... etc., etc., and then, when I finally drifted off... 2) I had one of those "this seems so real -- is it actually happening?" nightmares ... about losing my Internet connection! An honest-to-god NIGHTMARE about it!

It was like something out of Transformers 2 -- which is probably my most-hated film of all time. I was in a house that vaguely looked familiar, but I think it was from a movie. Now that I'm remembering it, I think it was a house featured in the sci-fi thriller Children of Men starring my man Clive Owen (whoa! I actually found a picture of it!). Anyway, Clive wasn't in the dream, so that was problem #1. Problem #2 was that I was in this house and was sleeping (yes, sleeping within my own dream) and was jolted into consciousness (in the dream) by this huge evil machine that started crashing through the walls with gigantic metal claws, searching for my modem. I was almost killed by the claws, which eventually found what they were looking for... and as the huge mechanical creature lumbered away with my Internet connection, I saw the AT&T logo stamped on its massive frame. I kid you not. AT&T has infiltrated my dreams. This is how sad my life is right now. I am having nightmares about losing my Internet connection -- literally losing it to an evil AT&T Decepticon. And to make matters worse, I probably just gave Michael Bay the plot line for Transformers 4. So now I'll have no one to blame but myself when I inevitably have to suffer through a migraine during its screening in 2013.

- e

PS - As I am about to send, it just started LIGHTNING AND HAILING OUTSIDE, and my dog is going nuts and my connection icon is flickering like crazy. I don't want to resort to drugs, but I think I have no choice but to make a date with Lunesta this evening.