Textual relations

3000 texts.
That was my count for last month, an average of 100 per day.
!
Smart phones have changed the way we all talk to each other and I'm pretty happy about it.
I can have all-day conversations with friends, little snips of chatter--haaaay, how you bb, meetings grrr, brb at the dentist, oh jeezus just ran into P!!!--and sometimes it's not words at all, just a smiley or frowny. It makes me feel connected, like I know the barometer of somebody's hours, their days, their life.
Old people sign their names to texts. They use good grammar and full sentences.
Sometimes I have to urban-dictionary my nieces' texts.
That said, sometimes these brief little digital snips are confusing.
You misunderstand, misinterpret, miss one here and there.
I've been broken up with over text.
One of last year's amours freaked out over a phrase--it was more than the phrase, but the phrase, texted, was the tipping point, and we were done.
These days, if my phone rings, it takes me a minute. I stare at the screen.
Who's calling me? Why didn't they just text?
$
Today's soundtrack is Shad, a Kenyan-Canadian charmer who tore it up at last week's block party.

Everyone is a citizen of my world

At the turn of the millennium, the Washington Post asked readers to summarize their lives in 100 words or less. Read them all (increase the count in the url to move ahead). The truth according to WaPo and a hundred citizens.

• Use your pain. It can be a great teacher.
• My life, like most people's, has been filled with compromises.
• Bigotry and ignorance are defeated one decision at a time.
• I represent a forgotten segment of society; I am an inmate in prison. My whole life consisted of other people's opinions and evaluations of me. I fathered two daughters, but I was never a dad. I've never voted. I've never owned a new car. I've never attended a family reunion. I've never attended a wedding as a guest. I attended my brother's funeral in cuffs and chains. I never went to Disney World. I lived a wasted life. I never lived.
• I am an atheist…I have hope: I hope I'm not late for my next class; I hope I get home in time for soccer practice; I hope Dad's making spaghetti for dinner.
• It is dangerous to have only one dream.
• I do not have to worry about the future because this is it.

what i saw

From the weekend, what I saw...

nothing is

Nothing is as I expect.
Why is this continually surprising?
Why don't I learn?
It makes no sense.
I want to write "life makes no sense" but who cares about such a sentence?
Such a sentence may be true but it's impersonal, a generality, connected to nothing or no one, the way a blockbuster movie has no relationship to real life or a McDonald's burger is nothing like real food.
*
It's been a week of intensity and disappointment and pleasant discoveries.
I had some late nights. I took naps.
Started a new story and got insightful comments on an old one.
I found out who took my dollar store sunglasses.
I dominated at ping pong.
Friends shared their pain and we raised a glass and managed to laugh.
Rancho Bravo corn on the cob changed my life, at least for a minute.
A friend shared a Pop Tart.
I'm alive, I'm feeling, there's music and gin and a sunny vacation in my future.
Nothing is but nothing should be.
*
Today's soundtrack is old school:

double dutch

A friend invited me to check out double-dutching at a Seattle park last night.
He brought along his boombox, freshly loaded with jams from De La Soul to Prince to Chromeo, and the jump-ropers (rope-jumpers?) freestyled for hours--hipsters and oldsters and a dog and even a couple of drunk people.
Flatchestedmama posted the video to her Youtube channel.

what am I, what is, do I?

I have so many questions, still.
What am I doing?
*
What’s the space between stasis and chaos?
I don’t know the answer to this one. I swing between feeling buried and untethered. For writing I need both, and yet most of the time, I feel so afraid.
*
Do I deserve goodness?
*
Last night eight-year-old Hammy Smackbooty said, You know, you can’t ever get there. If you get there, then you’re here.
We laughed, but it seemed profound.

June--make that July--graffiti

Shoot, I meant to post this a week or so ago...as seen around town.