wherefore art thy cellular telephone?

i'm starting to understand how my parents have a hard time with things like cell phones and computers.  i've decided to cut them a little slack and dish out some sympathy instead of telling them over and over how cool unlimited texting is and how bonding it is for large families who live all over the world.  if i lived closer i'd sit them down and give them the "texting and photo sharing for dummies" lesson so they could experience the joy of seeing their grandkids play sports, act in plays and dress the dogs up for an impromptu canine fashion show.  it's not that they're especially retarded (well, maybe just a tad but then so am i and we all know that there is a spider-web thin line between "specialness" and genuis) and they aren't really that old, aren't 60s the new 50s? but for god's sake! they were around to witness the birth of things like the t.v. set and watched cars evolve from big hunks of metal to sleek (even battery powered!) machines. they witnessed the first computer, car phone, cd, dvd and eventually, the cell phone. of course they fought it at first, who wouldn't? they had lived all these years without one so why should they dish out another $80-$120 a month for the "privelege" of now being track-able by any number of folks. plus they had no idea how to use one. that didn't last long though and when the last of their kids joined the verizon cult and were now "in," they caved. so cool, my parents now have cell  phones and while my mom's doing pretty well with hers, my dad has yet to learn to do simple tasks such as check his messages or leave a personal greeting.  the times, as they say, have definitely changed.  i was talking to my kids the other day about records. i heard myself saying, "so ya, they were these big, black, vinyl...um...c.d.s" (for lack of a better description for 10 and 13 year old boys' minds) i told them about the big, wooden, coffin-like console that we had in the living room. how my mom would carefully shake out an elvis album and gently place it on the turnstyle then lift up the needle and set it on the edge. i'd sit on the floor with my ear pressed to the big speaker that was decorated with curlicued wood and listen to the king croon about the poor little boy with the runny nose who played in the street while the cold wind blows in the ghetto. as i strive for simplicity in this age of amazing technological advances i have to wonder if having an i-pod is all that when i can't even manage to find the cord that charges it or figure out how to put new songs on it without deleting my entire existing library. i wonder if i could do without all of these so called "conveniences" now.  would my life would be richer for it or am i just fighting something that's new and hard for my stubborn brain to understand?  i suppose i just need to figure out how to make them work for and not against me. or get a computer-gnome to sit on my shoulder who can hop off and fix anything that needs fixing with a snap of my fingers. it's not that i don't think i can learn.  i just don't really want to. and while i'm passing out breaks for my parents and the others in their age bracket, let me give myself one too. i've had to deal with things as a parent that my parents never had to deal with while they were raising me and my four sibs. i had no cell phone to take away, computer to be dragged off of or monitored, no i-pod or game-boy or wii. nope. if i sassed back i was sent to my room until they remembered i existed or forgot i was in trouble.  i sometimes wonder if romeo and juliet would have been alive if they had unlimited text capabilities. but how would their story be one of such tragedy and undying love without all that senseless drama?  "oh romeo, oh romeo, what for art thoust cell number romeo?" 

edit shmedit

apparently i need to work on being succinct(er). but my head is just a big enclosure for the veritable playground of mazes and asterisks that is my mind and i tend to get lost somewhere behind the jungle gym on a fairly consistent basis.  if i even make it there, that is, and don't end up wandering aimlessly around in someone else's head because i mistakenly took tangent exit 50b instead of 50a.  so why do i feel this sudden urge to work on increased brevity in my writing? because my sister said i should. my sister who is fast becoming a famous writer due to a book i made her read by ariel gore called, "how to be a famous author before you die."  and because i like to think that my baby sister's very existence is because i prayed for her while she was in-utero.  for the entire 9 months that our mother (a.k.a. "the baby machine") waddled around the house making 4-6 entirely separate breakfasts for her spoiled spawn i made it a daily ritual to get on my knees and ask god to make this baby healthy and perfect and maybe, if it's not too much trouble, could she be cute?  plus i groomed her well.  another reason is  that my husband says i talk too much. but he's a man so what does he know? men like to pee on stuff and watch other men in tight spandex get all sweaty and slap each other on the ass. plus it's hard to talk with yellow foamy liquid in their mouths.  i am a woman and i was born talking. my mother said she could hear me in my crib practicing saying words when i was a wee baby.  i definitely wasn't one of those mainstream babies who spout their insuperior verbal skills with gusto, babbling to anyone who will listen, even if it comes out all gibberish. so due to my pre-toddler anal retention i deprived my parents of the joys begotten from silly made-up words. and as groovy and relaxed as i fantasize i am,  i'm surprised by my extreme level of uptightness about words at such a young age. 

but succinct-er (yes, i'm aware it's not a real word) rhymes with sphincter and who needs to be a tight-ass i ask? i love words. worms, roxanne, worms. 

toilet phone

i'm not the first person in history to drop her cell phone in the toilet.  it probably happens to people every day. if there isn't already an entire forum/blog/discussion group regarding this embarrassing situation then i may have to start one myself. 

mine took a dive yesterday while i was attempting to pull down my sweats and husband's boxers i had rolled down on the top with one hand. i was in too much of a hurry to consider actually putting the phone down and it somehow flew out of my hand just moments before my butt hit the seat. it didn't just land in the bowl with a plunk but went torpedoing down, back into the hole of darkness.  a mere nanosecond passed before i stuck my hand in to fetch it. but alas,  it was unfetchable. i could feel the edge of it with the tips of my fingers but couldn't grasp it.  i realized that with each second it stayed immersed, its chances of full recovery decreased exponentially. i yelled for my daughter who, like a good girl, ran right in, laughed at me then plunged her slightly smaller hand into the bowl and brought it out triumphantly. smart as well as good, she immediately dried it with a towel. we looked at each other pensively, afraid to breathe as we watched the little screen turn slowly from black to the faintest shade of grey. we carried it reverently to the couch where we set it down between us and attempted to finish the movie we were watching before the disaster ensued.  a few minutes passed and the wallpaper re-appeared.  it was a black and white photograph of jesus i took in a window in new orleans. my reflection was in the glass, inside jesus if you will,  it was one of my favorites. i smiled at my daughter and we both sighed, "it should be fine," she said, just as the screen started beeping and flashing a series of numbers and letters in fast forward. satanic looking heirogliphics and texts i had saved appeared, "poopie-poopie-poo" flashed over and over, and the numbers 9-6-3. it was possessed. we laughed even though we knew it wasn't a good sign. not good at all. but i wasn't worried, because for the first time in my cellphone history, i had phone insurance!!! calloo, callay, oh frabulous day!  it was by far the nicest cell i've ever owned and it took pretty damn good pictures. i  held out for a long time when camera phones were all the rage, in the beginning when those grainy little badly colored pictures everyone was  sharing, sending and printing. i acted unimpressed and sat erect and proud on my high-horse.  i was, after all, a real photographer. but my goal of always having a camera with me in order to capture those amazing moments that only happen when you don't have your camera was not being met.  and, ok, i was just a bit jealous of even the fuzziest images taken by a phone. so when my sentence,  i mean contract, with verizon was up for renewal i scored the sleek silver 2.0 meg model. and  now i had a camera with me at all times, a camera that took very good pictures and  fit snugly in the back pocket of my tightest jeans.  200 pictures in a few months and my memory was full. once again, i was stuck. i thought about backing up, getting a tiny card...translation: i didn't do shit about it. but still i didn't worry.  i knew i'd get a new phone and i was pretty sure "they" could "find" my pictures somewhere in the guts of it, even if they were waterlogged.

i emerged from the verizon store with a phone number for an insurance company written on a neon green post-it and a dazed look on my face.

my pictures were gone, they said.  "really?" i asked. "really," said the guy who had the newest camera phone and was bragging about how he prints his best photos intermittently, "just for this reason." 

gone. it was hard to wrap my mind around this fact but as i drove home with my brain-dead phone, now just an empty shell of my experiences, talent and a few drunken black-mailing shots, i felt a wave of calm wash over me. hadn't i been wanting simplicity more than anything else lately? and didn't it seem like all of the electronic devices in my life had gone haywire of late?  hadn't my extreme frustration with all the time wasted trouble-shooting, swearing, shopping and exchanging them force me to re-evaluate which ones actually made my life easier and which i could do without? they were just pictures. granted they were really good, some i would even venture to say were stellar. portraits of the kids, self-portraits i had gone hog wild on, make-up, hair, the works, partly because it was "only" a phone and i was still amazed it could take pictures. i joked about booking a wedding and showing up with only a cellphone. but still they were gone and i needed to learn to let go. i took a deep breath and thought about how easy it would be now, how i could have a do-over of sorts, how i would promise to back up every day, or week, or at least every month. i felt light, happy and enlightened. i had let go of one of the most important things in my life. i relaxed into my new lightness.   then i remembered jesus. the jesus on my wallpaper that i took in new orleans when b. and i went to voo-doofest last halloween. i loved that picture. i loved it because it was the first time b. and i went to new orleans together. because i wanted to show him the city i loved like it was alive. i loved that picture for the way it made me feel; happy and thankful and funky all at once. so i cried. then i sobbed. i heard myself blubbering things like, "i want jesus back, i want mary with the braids with my reflection in the window. i want that guy in the suit sleeping on the airport floor in dallas. i want JESUS." and as the tears flowed i started to laugh at my words, at their silliness as well as their profundity. because i had wanted to let go, and maybe i had, but  i never grieved. so i cried some more and laughed some more and tormented myself by consciously remembering as many of those marvelous images as i could. then i took one more deep breath and tried to really let go. i told myself that even without physical proof, i had been in all those places and seen all those things. i would remember the ones that wanted to stay implanted in my psyche. and  i could also ponder the necessity of going back to new orleans on jesus-quest. as i approached my house i passed through the little town of foscoe where  two churches sit across  from each other. in front are the white signs where He speaks to us through His servants who, with black letters, spell out deep and important spiritual things.  some are basic and some are quite funny. i text them to my sister in california when she's at her boring bank job so she can laugh.  "Let Jesus Drive You to Danger," was what the one to my right said. i grabbed for my notebook and jotted it down. i laughed and thought, does Danger know how to drive? does he know where Danger lives? yes, i must admit that i am easily amused. and as of today, just a bit closer to my goals of simplicity and letting go. 

soma coma

i write this from the cushiony luxuriousness of my bed.  not only is it the preferred location, it is infact, entirely necessary. it seems that somehow i am in a coma. i'm reasonably sure it was brought on by the combination of Soma and Nyquil Cough syrup. i wasn't feeling particulary Cobain-ish before i retired last night, i just couldn't fucking stop coughing. it's been going on like this since thanksgiving and it is ridiculous. it's not a big juicy dark green bronchial cough but a tickley scratchy feeling somewhere between the very back of my throat and the top part of my lungs. i'm not congested but there is a ball of snot that seems to reside there constantly and i have more than a sneaking suspicion that it could have something to do with the puppy i brought home from the pound. of course it's the one i love the best.

so now i'm in what i like to call a talking-coma.  i can hardly open my eyes to write this and my words are slurred as i weakly called for someone, anyone to make me some coffee. i need accupuncture. the last time i went they did the little pulsey-feely thing and said my lungs were the culprit. "does it feel like you're being choked by a seatbelt across your chest?" the lady asked.  i mistakenly thought she was referencing my boobs and said, "oh, ya, i need new ones but am waiting for newer technology and enough money to go on vacation in singapore to get them."  apparently with all the little tranny boy-girls needing implants you can score a fabulous boob job for under 2 grand vs. the $9,000 they wanted in virginia.  

no, it's my lungs and i don't even smoke (much).

now i sit, months (?) later, coma-free but relaxed due to the pre cinco de mayo tequila shots i imbibed and the fact that it's already tomorrow. david letterman is talking to robert downey jr. and i'm in love with both of them.

does this blog have any meaning, i wonder? do i dare push the seductive orange button to my left and PUBLISH this verbal diarrhea? what the hell. 

who really reads this anyway? 

i perused some blogs by other strangers last night and came across a christian woman who was writing about her new "man of god" and their proposal and i viewed pictures of their new bathroom and she even said the word "past" (which is not really a word, is it?) i was disturbed. highly disturbed. it brought up so many things from my past: church, religion, submission, hypocrisy, family...the whole fucking shebang. 

i was convinced that it was time to let all the people who i've allowed to vomit their opinions on me all these years while creatively avoiding hearing "my side" hear what i think, once and for all. not in a spiteful way, just in an "eye for an eye" sort of way.

why do we care so much what other people think about us? if we are doing our best to be our best, most authentic selves then why must we hide who we are, what we think, how we feel?

i'm in love with sarah silverman. i admit that i thought she was retarded after i saw her show a few times, but after her stand-up i was hooked. holy fucking shit she's funny and irreverent and hot. i relate to her when they say she dresses like a 14 year old boy. who doesn't love a 14 year old boy?

g'night.