I’ve developed some new sleeping habits lately. For some reason I do not fathom, I sleep about four hours or so at a stretch and then wake up. When that first happened, I lay in bed and tried to go back to sleep. For days I tried that approach. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Then, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I began getting up and doing various tasks—finishing some writing, perhaps starting something new or working on a mundane task such as balancing my checkbook. That seemed to work better. I got valuable things done and simple tasks completed, felt much better about the world and was able to go back to sleep.

There turned out to be another fringe benefit—better internet access. A month and a half or so ago I obtained a new method of accessing the internet, by means of a compact little device that worked off towers such as are used by cell phones. Turn the device on, let it locate signals from a tower and—voila!—internet accomplished. There’s only one drawback. The tower signal where I live is weak; that results in a slow computer, often disgustingly slow. However I found out that the signal strength is greatly improved in the wee hours of the morning. I’m not sure whether that’s due to some technical details having to do with atmospheric conditions at night or simply because fewer people are on the internet at three o’clock in the morning. I really don’t care what the reason is. I’m usually up at that time, the internet’s better, problem solved.

It’s funny how things work out if one lets them. I could have gone to the doctor to solve my sleep problem or gone out and bought some over-the-counter sleeping pills and never discovered the answer to my internet problem. Serendipity, I believe it’s called. Yet I still have an unsolved problem, that of rearranging my daily schedule. I used to rise at seven o’clock or so, but now, with my work period wedged into the middle of the night, it’s some time around nine thirty before I get up. Well, no worry. One thing at a time. Perhaps it will work out serendipitously.