Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I hate the Internet.

Seriously.

I get up this morning and do what I have avowed to do. I am NOT looking at my phone first thing.

Okay. Well I always technically blow that vow since my phone is my wakeup device. In truth, first thing, I “tap to snooze.” That’s looking at nothing so I’m not breaking my rule.

After ten minutes when the clarion revives, I swipe right. But I’m not looking–other than to verify that it is indeed time to get up. I grumble. The numbers are big, so I’m not engaged. Therefore, I maintain that I’m not looking at my phone first thing.

I used to immediately look at email, glance through Facebook and hit up the @Twitters. That translated into significantly wasting much of the activity part of my morning. Time when I should be walking the dog, prepping breakfast and making beauty. So, I stopped the morning Internet.

Except since summer has passed, I look at the weather.

Oh, come on! Don’t be so exacting on my pledge. You know that the weather has been crazy. Shorts on Christmas Eve? Followed by sixteen degrees for the dog walk just one week later? Who would know what to do absent a quick glance. I maintain that doesn’t count as looking at my phone first thing, either.

So I get up and check the weather and pad downstairs. I bundle up against this morning’s sub-freezing temps and take the dog for a working walk. It wasn’t so bad and there was coffee.

I check my phone and I see an email headline about David Bowie. Not a surprise given all the noise about his new LP and freaky video released last week. Except it actually was a surprise. He moved on to the next world after an 18 month bout with cancer.

And I hate the Internet for all the RIPing posts. And I hate the Internet for interrupting my just fine morning with news that another part of the soundtrack to my youth is gone.

And then I love the Internet because I found this.

“I,
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins,
like dolphins can swim”