BOSTON - Americans have generally avoided things not worth doing. Americans have also generally overdone those things that are worth doing. And they tend to revel in overarching themes, which perhaps explains their fixation with all things large and ubiquitous.

Even their dreams are as overdrawn as All American. One never hears All Australian or All Armenian of anything. "Oversize it please," extends beyond culinary earnestness. Lawsuits for example. And this time against God, the "ubiquitousest" of them all. I am referring, of course, to the gentleman Donald Drusky who brought this
said lawsuit (not only against God but against all states and every American citizen) demanding "God return his youth and grant him the guitar-playing skills of famous guitarists, along with resurrecting his mother and his pet pigeon." As if!

With the Internet all around us, we now live in the most "ubiquitous" of times. But the Internet is different in that its ubiquity threatens America's "ubiquitousness." People have started casually saying "Your URL is?" There is now a dotcom to reassure me that my egg is proportionately rich in Omega-3, the fatty acid good for my brain and my blood pressure. Additionally, I can even confirm if the chicken laid the egg that I am about to eat in a "liberated" environment, able to "roam free, feather to feather, in 300 foot-long well-lit barns." Visit www.country hen.com or email [email protected] to confirm.

Americans are sufferingly sensitive. Which of course, is what makes this country great. Ask the chickens. But Americans are also becoming more and more abbreviated. Ubiquitously. First it was with their diet. Fat Free. Cholesterol free. This free. That free. Freedom. And then. Abbreviated workforce. Abbreviated garden space. The Internet has instigated a plethora of abs. LOL (Laugh Out Loud), BRB (Be Right Back), TTYL (Talk To You Later). People laugh hehehe and hug {{{}}} and kiss *** and kiss more lovingly *** ***. The most unsettling is the abbreviated smile : ). When people start smiling sideways you know something is wrong with them.

Even within households, people are communicating via email. "Chester, I have left your food in the freezer. Microwave when you're ready. Luv. Mom. P.S. Don't forget to do your homework. M."

"You have new messages" is the elixir even for exist-entialist dilemmas. People are having sex in text which is leading to elaborate polemics on infidelity. Friends are known by handle numbers. Life is becoming increasingly, abstract like faceless faces in a room of mirrors.

Even Barbie, propped up with the new appellation of "Hacker Barbie" can stare at a computer screen (without blinking and without food and drink) for 16 hours at a time. She can even say "Bummer! Your kernel must have been trashed." The idea, if it must be explained, is to redress the categorisation of women as "numerophobic" and "computer-illiterate". The sensitiveness of this country is intense. The notion of the open, gregarious and ubiquitous American will be clicked away. The Internet will claim to make up for it.

Growing up in Kathmandu, we never had the luxury of an All Nepali dream. As a nation, we were still sorting things out. And still are. And even in America dreams are not in text. Because there continues to be something deep about real picket fences. Because home-made pancakes remain different from Starbucks Frappuccino. Because the sense of competition is not to win the next sweepstake. Because Dear Dad and Mom do not mean DD&M. Because to miss home is different from missing http//www.home.com Because a rose is still a rose. Because we never smile sideways.

Ranjit Rauniyar is a graduate of Bowdoin College, USA and can be reached by email at [email protected].