My quiet little life of writing and drinking too much tea has lately given way to a crash course in social media as I prepare to move my book into the public eye. While I love being in the middle of a creative blitz, the cramming of technology as a second language (TSL) has me feeling slightly stupid, excessively amped, and generally off-kilter.

Spring has officially arrived at our house, heralded by the arrival of yellow daffodils poking up under the walnut tree and six fuzzy, baby chicks peeping away in our bathtub-become-brooder. I am surrounded by Life, by the clamor of two children, eleven chickens, two rats, a Golden Retriever and a newly inherited, deaf, mostly toothless terrier named Henry, and I’m loving it.

My husband and I were recently having dinner at a lovely, intimate restaurant. Seated next to us was a forty-something couple in the early stages of love. They were leaning in and smiling, holding hands the way you do in the early days of romance. Then I noticed the phone in his right hand.