There really is something mesmerising about watching a flash mob get going.  Loads of people all moving in unison, it is amazing.  There must be some genetic reason that our eyes get glued to this (matching armies make you fixate in the same way).  Anyway, here is a selection of flash mob antics from YouTube – ENJOY…

EUROVISION 2010 – takes a while to get going but stick with it (the heavy handed bouncers at the start are classic!) PS London flash mob contribution rubbish in this video – ho hum it just matches the TERRIBLE last place performance of the UK this year!:

BEYONCE SINGLE LADIES (100 OF THEM!) – sound not great but brilliant dancing:

A MEGA-MIX FROM BONDI BEACH – camp as hell amazingness:

OPRAH AND THE BLACK-EYED PEAS:

So why the absence?

Well I had to make a conscious decision over the Christmas holiday to take enforced leave from social media engagement (especially about getting my pants in too tight a virtual bunch about the state of a restaurant’s loo).  It was all getting a bit too all-consuming (I was spending up to four hours a day on it) and what with home and work it all got overwhelming.  So I decided to take a break.

As I forced my brain to avoid laptop-based words I rediscovered reading fiction – you know, the old type, in books (including the Stieg Larsson ‘Millennium Trilogy’ which is very addictive).  So by fitting in book reading my lack of free time was even further exacerbated by access to less waking hours in my day…

Since the start of the year I’ve become sleepier than I have ever been before.  I just cannot wake up in the morning and this isn’t vintage Crump behaviour… for at least the last decade I have been someone who wakes up before the alarm clock, between 5 and 6 am, seven days a week.  Now I can sleep until midday and am really struggling to get out of bed every morning. So why the change?

My friends it’s all down to (lack of) nicotine.  Yes, I am delighted to report is that I have managed to stop smoking (since the second week in January). After 18 years of smoking I’ve stopped and it really is brilliant.  I feel so much better (despite having gained 5 kgs – the appetite is back!).  I used to (embarrassingly) smoke between three to five fags (plus a couple of glasses of diet coke) for breakfast. So the fact is that my body isn’t craving nicotine (oh and awaiting a jolt of caffeine) and forcing it to wake up to get its fix.

So lack of nicotine stimulation means that I get up to three more hours sleep a night (a morning!) creating a big squeeze on my time to surf, blog, keep on top of my google reader and generally engage.

But guess what, I’ve missed my tapping away on my laptop, my google reader, and my tweetdeck.  I need to formalise a plan for managing it all but its back on my ‘to do’ list.

So the things I’ve learnt in the last three months:

• Being smoke free is genuinely liberating
• A few extra kgs (with a plan for removal with a bout of cycling) is not all that bad
• Getting more sleep is ace (and I hate the alarm clock with a passion)
• Reading words which aren’t backlit (on paper) is fab
• You need to plan to do stuff that you enjoy (i.e. wittering away right here)

:+) x

There are times when you cannot beat being horizontal – in this bodily orientation I get to do some of my favourite things:

• Sleep
• Lying on the couch listen to music / watching a movie on TV
• Sunbathing with a book (normally under an umbrella)
• Floating on a lilo in a pool
• Lounging on the grass after a picnic

The best horizontal moment of the day is when you first get in bed (especially if the sheets are brand new), you get in position, nuzzle with the pillow and feel the day drain away as you drift into unconsciousness – perfect.

Thankfully for me sleep arrives very quickly and unless I have something pressing on my mind normally I go to sleep in under 60 seconds (normally less than 30).  My definition of insomnia is sleep that takes more than 2 minutes to come – if this happens there is something huge in mind and its best to get vertical again and get out of bed (horizontal and over processing a problem in bed is the only time that horizontal is not good).

I just thought that being dead involves a lot of being horizontal – so that is actually probably the worst type of horizontal and is generally best avoided.

There are lots of great things about being vertical – but being horizontal is definitely my favourite.

PS: I actually wrote this post while laying on the couch!