Machina

I have a confession: I don't trust machines. Our relationships have always been dysfunctional. After years of misunderstanding, and all those failed attempts at intimacy, it's really best for me to keep my distance.

I owned a car for exactly 6 months (a rusty Honda Prelude I bought from a priest in 1988). We were a terrible mismatch, and when a mechanic agreed to buy it as a birthday gift for his son, I gleefully turned over the paperwork.

I don't have an iPod, a Blackberry, a Wii, a scanner, a shredder, or a digital converter box. I do have a cell phone, but my plan gives me exactly ten minutes a month, and I often forget my own phone number.

And that's why my attachment to this number borders on the pathological.

Some of you already know what this is. Some of you recognized her in a heartbeat. Some of you dread long periods away from home, because you'll have to get through nights without her. You know who you are: My fellow insomniacs, my kindred spirits of nighttime agitation.

For those who aren't familiar, this is a white noise machine. No babbling brooks, no croaking frogs, no gentle rain here, though . . . just the dull whir of constancy.

And when your bedroom window faces a road with screeching tires, thumping boom boxes, honking horns, car alarms, barking dogs, and the occasional street fight, there's no better place for an addled brain to land.