memory and time

Every now and then i'll get a note from someone that completely contradicts my understanding of a situation. For instance, most days most people say things to me like, "Seriously. Do you ever stop talking?! And if it's dialog in text form then it's things like, "Jesus. You type as fast and MUCH as you talk!" And I absorb this as just, I guess, the TYPE of person that I am, because I think i've always been this way.

I think back. Back Back Back. I'm a kid. I'm 10 years old. I'm in Goffstown, New Hampshire. I'm in the 4th grade. It's 1980. My first "DECADE". My favorite pretty girls are Heather Farrell and JoAnne Kula. Everyone else is in love with Dawn Chakis, and of course she's beautiful too, but I mean, come on, this is the 4th Grade. Wait till you see Cheryl Sutherland in 2 years, or Cecily Feick. I mean, this town's about to explode with new hotties and I'm not even in Junior High. It's going to be fine. My phone number is 497-2068, and I live right on Elm Street in the HEART of it all. My house is midway between the grammar school and the middle school. I'm not like, "the popular kid" but you know, I've got my groove. I'm the skinny nerd kid with the good grades. I have my hair parted in the middle and feathered. I'm wearing tear drop raybans with gold frames, like Ponch from chips, but not tinted, because well. I'm in the fourth grade. But after school, at night, I'm on the phone. We have a phone on the wall in the bathroom, and that's where a guy can get a little privacy. I mean, my sister is peeking through the skeleton keyhole in the door, but she's little and not much of a bother.

I can remember being on the phone with the girls from school talking about anything at all. "So and so got a gerbil. Do you have any pets?" and "I heard what's her name got a chinchilla. They must be RICH!" and so on.

When I got older, and I needed MORE privacy, I would go to the payphone in front of the Town Hall on Main Street, or Mast Road or whatever it was, and I'd call girls way the hell out in the sticks at their 529 numbers and talk for hours. They could call me back at the payphone and i'd chat with them all afternoon while straddling my faux bmx bike. (BMX was still a brand new bastardized form of the hand me down cruisers we had, that as 20 year olds we'd go bananas over at thrift stores if they were "original" or NOT all BMX'd out.)

Older still, done with college, nice 2 bedroom apartment in Santa Rosa, I had the vintage style. Listening to sinatra and swing music, have the rotary phones all over the house, and even then i had a plantronics stereo headset like those people taking orders over the phone on TV, but with a 100 foot cord so i wasn't tethered by a short leash. I could talk for hours and pace and clean my apartment all the night long.

I always had jobs that kept me on the phone talking to people, all day long, and then finally they invented the fucking internet. Man. I was all over it. emails, chat rooms, all day every day. And before the internet i was forever writing letters, making envelopes, writing writing writing to friends.

So it blows me away when a friend of mine posts a comment, "you never write, you never call, you never email, WHATEVER!" I try and think how this is even possible. I mean, I always write. I mean, i'm writing RIGHT NOW! I could be lying on my couch reading a book and listening to Indie Pop Rocks! on SomaFM, but i'm not. I'm writing. I'm thinking outloud. I'm communicating. Even when i'm alone and the time i'm most likely to TRY and be quiet, there I am, writing. talking. Forever writing and forever talking. I couldn't understand it. I went through my folders. SURELY i've written to my friend. Surely i've emailed my friend. I know we've even talked. Video Chatted. And i find it. I find the little folder with her name. It's true. Since the day I left New York, I've written with her back and forth more than 26 times. I left NY on March 16. It's only April 12. I figure that's a little more than twice a day we've been in touch since i left, including the time spent on the road getting here.

I just wanted to set the record straight. I don't want people thinking that i just ditched. That I just disappeared. That I suddenly stopped writing, suddenly stopped being there. I'm always here. I'm actually a good person. I mean well by most, and I want people to know that i care. That i'm thinking of them. That even if they "think" i'm quiet, somebody, somewhere is wishing i would shut the hell up for just one second.

Good Times,
dTown | Listening to Datarock | 56˚ clear blue overhead.