“There is a crack in everything,
that’s how the light gets in”

— Leonard Cohen. Anthem (The Future, 1992)

One of the effects of chronic severe illness is that it cuts you off from the outside world.  When I was first ill there was no real internet to speak of, and the only people with email addresses were those at university or in forward-thinking companies.  Connection to other computers was carried out through FTP (File Transfer Protocol) requests and virtual logins. 

At this time, people in the illness community connected with each other via lists of postal addresses and landline numbers.  We sent postcards and conducted occasional and fairly brief phone calls.  But these were welcome contact with something outside of bedroom walls. Continue reading →