the tools of our tools

I went with erin this morning to get a new phone. she lost her phone (and keys) in the city last night when her friends left her wandering around drunk and alone. erin told me this morning that she doesn't remember anything between 130a, when she "got separated" from her friends (they're bitches and I know they left her!), and 6a, when she caught the first train back to nj. I was horrified when I first heard this and started imagining all kinds of crazy scenarios. did she go into a dark alley and give someone a blowjob? did she buy crack from a dealer on the street and smoke it with them? did she walk down 5th ave flashing passerby?

then I had a thought--being drunk, even when you don't remember it the next day, doesn't necessarily mean you change who you are and do things you never would. erin is not the type of person that would ever even consider doing any of those things, so what she probably did for 4 hours last night was slump in a boring heap on a bench in penn station. my next thought was that if I was ever abandoned drunk in the city and didn't remember 4 hours of the night the next day upon waking, I would be very, very scared.

I've been putting off a trip to verizon ever since I lost my own phone (left in a maryland rest stop when I was sober; alas, the result of irresponsibility not intemperance), because I know that technology has left me in the dust and the only remedy is shelling out a few hundred bucks for a smartphone and upping my plan a whopping $30 a month. at least, that's what I feared. our assigned verizon helper, a skinny teenager with huge gleaming teeth, verified it. he smiled simperingly as I poked and gasped my way though 4 or 5 little plastic phones. erin picked her phone. "that one's $400??" I screamed. "no, no ma'am," said the teeth. "with the mail-in rebate it's only $299."

the whole time in the back of my mind I was trying to imagine just what a microprocessor looked like spinning a billion times a second. it'd be gold, I thought. I thought about a billion dollars in gold, scrooge mcduck's piles. I thought about a billion of these little smartphones being cranked out of the factory for pennies a day. how phone, cable, radio, media companies have taken the airwaves without cost, profiting at 100%; how the US is switching to digital tv for good with no kickback to consumers, just more expensive plans and devices they can charge us to rent so we can get their cable at all.

I ended up putting off a phone purchase. I just couldn't bring myself to budget it in. why exactly? I can be rather cheap, curmudgeonly ascetic, sometimes denying convenience in favor of the good-enough. but don't I DESERVE to be able to access email/stocks/weather/facebook/youtube/hundredsofthousandsofapps any time while on top of a mountain? don't I deserve to reconnect with technology, maybe get a twitter account?

"these phones are why people are so cut off from each other nowadays!" erin said tonight. she was telling me, over the phone, she'd spent an hour ("of my life that I'll never get back") exploring her samsung fascinate. I felt slightly relieved and a little proud at not succumbing to a smartphone. then I felt dumb and envious again. I suppose I'll vacillate until mama and I, out running errands in the next few weeks, stop in at the verizon store and I'm "treated" to a samsung fascinate of my own.

in the meantime here I sit stealing my neighbor's internet to get online. I can't win...or can I.

exciting times and dumb republicans

I saw this bold ad kinda smack dab in one of the ghettoest parts of danbury, across from a kfc, the entrance to i84, AND a liquor store where, in a holdup, someone was shot and killed a few years ago. I'm not into ct politics yet since I just moved back but I am wondering wtf. republican jodi rell has been the governor of ct since 2004. roland was elected in 1994 and reigned until he was impeached and indicted on corruption and thievery and murder and child pornography charges, whereupon jodi took over. okay, rowland actually only went to jail for "depriving the public of honest service" (yes, that's a federal crime). but still. what the hell does this sign even mean? keith olberman would fill up a lake sputtering about this.

last night's particularly vehement speech about armchair liberals and the enslavement of the human race by republicans, etc. from keith olberman made me turn plaintively to mama, sitting in the rocking chair all the way across the room. we just ordered yesterday a plushy sectional that can double as a bed for dad in times of need, but it's not coming until early next week and until then we spread out around the living room in various uncomfortable pieces of mama's leftover antiquey furniture like lonely sheep. "what if that wife-beater foley guy wins the governor's race," I yelled. mama threw her arm up over the back of her chair so I could see her dismissal. "he's not gonna win. you don't have to worry about that one bit. there's no way he's gonna win."

I tend to be pessimistic about the future of the us in the hands of conservatives, and grumble about tentative plans to move to europe later in life but truthfully, mostly because I've never been out of the country, it's a scary thought. I console myself with the thought of california, which is kind of like another country.

five more days!

just like me

two posts in one day!  and three posts in one week.  mama would say that's just like me.  she wouldn't say it to my face, she'd be sighing about it talking to dad when I wasn't home.  or maybe she would say it to me, joking around, and then get sad, solemn, stop walking, look down:  "it'd be nice if you got serious about something."

I lose interest, burn out, move on, easily.  amazing that it took me so long to burn out as an emt but I don't think that had anything to do with the job.  it had to do with meeting the best friends of my life at crappy ambulance companies/major hospitals, not givin a shit where we worked and being thankful that at least we commanded some prestige.  and when sara and I "stopped talking" (i.e. had a fight that only two intense passionate intelligent women can be dumb enough to have and throw their friendship away over) that's when I lost all interest in the medical field.  my interest wasn't truly even in the medical field, it was in doing something I loved with people I loved.  I suppose that's what all real interests are!  I suppose that's why 2/3 of americans dislike their jobs.

I started this blog because I type about 19 times faster than I write.  I used to keep journals all the time and would sometimes flash pages of them to friends later in life, to show them my handwriting.  they'd always make a grab at the page and say "whoa!  cool handwriting!"  it's not that cool, just small and neat.  in middle school and high school I started writing slowly and painstakingly.  it seemed an elegant change from my scribbled "diaries" of the past, and my new handwriting went well with the emotional purple prose that poured from my sad hands.  oh high school!  nowadays I just don't have time to sit down for two hours to lovingly craft five pages of life's recent events.  I also figured having a public blog would introduce me to other great sites and people (the internet gets really boring when you don't know where to go).

now the public part, however, is beginning to bother me.  I remember one night I was off work and after not having written in a journal for years, I practically forced myself to spend a few minutes chronicling something.  I wrote about grandma and how she'd just died and how death was weird and I missed her but knew she was better off.  it was the dumbest, most awful thing I've ever written.  I think I might have torn the page out and thrown it, I'm not sure.  I felt like I was writing for someone, like someone would be reading and judging for feedback what were supposed to be innermost thoughts and all that.  and keeping a blog on a public website (I even checked yes to the list-your-blog setting!), though I'm sure all of 7 random people are gonna wander up on it, that's almost close to someone reading and judging for feedback.

I either have to get over it, or write a weird stilted blog about nothing really meaningful, that's the alternative.  after all, why am I keeping a blog/journal/diary? not to list sewing patterns or nutrition tips or even because I have a friends following.  because someday years from now I hope I'm glad I wrote to myself and of myself.  it'll be a nice gift.

if I keep it up.  I think I will.  it is like me to lose interest fast and even grow irritated at the thought of doing something because I "should."  but I've gained a lot of humility this year.  not as much as I hope to, maybe, but hopefully enough so that when I have something to say or admit or rejoice in I can write it here.  not worrying about judgment.  and not judging myself.

the best laid plans...gang oft agley

today not much is happening.  I opened my laptop determined to be productive only to while away an hour surfin the net.  while surfing, however, I came upon this page:

http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/msc/ToMsC900/MsC870/thompsontravel.html

not sure how I found it, though I am doing google searches on african masks.  I'm trying to sell a mask mama bought from save the children in westport twelve years ago that for some reason she now thinks is worth ten times what she paid.  mama has always fancied herself an amateur collector and still has dreams of opening a shop on ebay, with me to help her/do all the work.  throughout the 90s she nearly bought out the whole department 56 dickens village collection at hallmark.  the collector's value of victoria station, hard to break because of its size and therefore one of my favorite pieces, has actually gone down since then from $110 (the purchase price) to about $90.  the real value, otherwise known as what you can get on ebay, is about $25.

getting back to the point.  that webpage displays the thompson collection, hundreds of trinkets from all over the world.  dr. thompson and his wife would vacation every year to some crazy country and return with shrunken heads, carved bowls, brooches, nutcrackers, and more, which they would then travel about lecturing on.  where did they keep all this stuff at home, is what I want to know.  the thompsons, states the site, didn't necessarily buy valuable pieces abroad; they bought the most interesting and common/representative-of-that-place things.  that way they were able to talk generally about the country's customs and beliefs as represented by fertility carvings or ceremonial knives.  in an interesting note on a piece, it says the couple visited the same zulu village twice, and upon the second visit 5 years later learned the leader had named his daughter 'california,' after the thompsons' home state.

seeing their collection not only made me want to build an intricate shelving system but ignited my own collecting ambitions.  it also shamed me into running to the bathroom mirror to see how good I look today, and if I could go to the p.o. for a passport pic.  one of my greatest fears is having a bad photo taken, and you know postal workers will have no time or patience for my best-out-of-three pleas.  I just can't bear ten years of awkward phony smile or worse.  I'm passable on my nj driver's license, though only because I was having a good hair day.  they told me to look at the birdie and I hadn't heard that in so long I actually believed there might be a birdie (whatever a birdie is).  up went my eyebrows, open went my mouth: "where??"  snap.  no best out of three.

since my eyebrows need some work, the post office can wait.  getting this african mask sold means I can finance my entire passport application--expedited!  first things first, I suppose.

bane of my existence

I have been feeling hard-hearted lately, and tonight while organizing and arranging furniture in my tiny apartment I decided the giant metropolis poster I got as a birthday gift for my friend beth would not for much longer maintain residence with me, tucked into a disorganized corner or crammed in a closet.  if it will fit in one of these closets.  I haven't tried yet, and I won't! 

I don't know how I found this priceless but onerous treasure, but find it I did on craigslist, a few weeks before beth's birthday, about 7 years ago now.  I had to drive to queens to get it and it barely fit in my rav4.  I picked it up from a guy's windowless basement.  the entrance was kind of under a fire escape in an alley.  it appeared too that the basement was his only actual residence, and it was a creepy gaping shadowy space, but filled with funky furniture and art.  the picture cost $80 and I screamed all the way home, I was so proud to have found such a gift.  Beth was an english major/film minor at rutgers and an adamant movie snob.  I still think to this day we grew apart partially because I thought fellini was boring and overrated.

beth's dad got non-hodgkins lymphoma the year beth graduated and she moved to texas to be with her family.  our friend becky and I and beth all road-tripped down there from new jersey in beth's ass-packed stick shift corolla.  the trip took us 25 hours total (with a stop at waffle house) and a quarter ounce of weed.  We all took turns driving, though becky, trying discreetly to bump coke with her car keys, courteously drove a good 2/3 of the trip.  I remember wondering why anyone would ever want to live in tennessee, though driving through the state at 2am when it was raining probably influenced me.

needless to say the metropolis poster didn't fit in the corolla, and beth has been in texas, gaily finishing graduate school and making no effort to send for her gift.  I've moved this poster three separate times and across two states!  I've kept it in great condition but I'm starting to just get sick of seeing it.  it's beginning to represent my being forgotten, like my gift was forgotten.

I will memorialize it here. within a few days, or weeks maybe, probably, but also probably not, I will put it up on craigslist and see if anyone is lucky enough to find it.  I wonder where it will go.  I wonder who will appreciate it.  I don't want to give it to someone who won't.

sleepless in south river

I've been in jersey the past four days taking my emt refresher and working a few crappy shifts at the wood.  after it was through I realized the refresher was not at all necessary, and was rather a waste of time, even though I'm not going to think about it like that because I firmly believe in everything happening for a reason and no regrets, etc; it was a small class, intimate and kinda fun, and even after almost a decade of being an emt I learned a few new things, like that normal adults produce 10 ccs of cerebral spinal fluid an hour, and that one out of seven people have no palpable pedal pulse.  which is gonna make me even more paranoid next time i get a trauma with leg involvement and there's no pedal pulse. "is he one of the seven??"  I'll be thinking desperately while forgetting about c-spine or splinting.

anyway, my last emt shift was today, a hospital-sponsored lupus walk at rutgers stadium. when we got there at 10 it was nearly underway. the day was bright and the air had the sharp taste that burns your nose breathing in.  there were bagels and bananas and bottles of cold water and a 5-piece horn ensemble that played, strangely, "what's my age again" and "crazy train." I bounced around with my camera taking pictures of the stadium and nearly got run over by some crazy student on a motorcycle taking a shortcut through the parking lot. I realized for the first time rutgers was a beautiful campus (for new jersey anyway) and there was a lot there I probably should have taken advantage of.

the walk was pretty much over by 1130 and no one came to tell us we were clear, which didn't surprise me much since I'd gotten the general impression the whole thing had been organized by a bunch of dumb fluttery ladies and no one really knew what was going on.  we stayed a good two stubborn extra hours in the ambulance, declaring every so often that we better get paid until 3 since that's when the race had been supposed to end.  my partner played game after game on his $1000 ipad while extolling their merits.  "this one will really test your limits! it's called kitchen sink.  you have to let the rotten food go down but stop the diamond rings and gold earrings.  it gets so fast paced!!"  I wondered if the hospital would ever hire again anyone who liked to read or could carry on intelligent conversation.

the day dragged on.  I was assigned to another truck and took an old man who'd almost-fainted to the er.  in the back of the ambulance I looked at my foggy reflection in the shelf doors and felt sorry for myself. I imagined that I saw more wrinkles than ever before. I looked out the window at the same sidewalk, the same doctor's office sign, the same chipped-paint fire hydrant I'd been looking at for the past 8 years.  how much has changed, I thought. yet here I am still in this same place doing the same thing.  am I still growing and learning?

it was a let down of a day in a let down of a place. my whole four days here has been a let down, not in a disappointing way but in a ghastly dull way. I spent 8 years in this state and I can't stand the place. I can't stand the people. I can't stand the traffic lights every two minutes. the almost complete absence of autumn cements it. here and there on the borders of the highway a tree jammed into a cement crack shakes its sickly leaves. if traffic isn't bad on the bridge and I turn my head for a full second I can see a wave of dark dirty forest lurching up out of the raritan river, muddy leaves and bare stick branches.  I left nj a litle more than three weeks ago and being back here for four days already makes me feel weary and desperate.

next time I come back I am at least going bowling.  I don't think I'll stay working at the wood much longer.  in a lot of ways it's a great place to work and I get the sad sense that to finally put in my notice is to give up so much opportunity--the benefits!  the networking!  the free medic school sponsorship!  the pay, even (which is why I haven't put in my notice quite yet).  working there now, wearing that uniform, I feel awkward and slightly ashamed.  there is no future there for me.  I am tired of the hierarchy and brazen ignorant sneer of the medical field.

I go home tomorrow and monday will fax paperwork to ct state oems so they can certify me as an emt in ct.  I'll apply for a per diem spot at a hospital, but I am through doing it full time for money.  it'll be nice to be an emt for fun instead of a paycheck, and I'll make friends.  in the meantime I will prepare myself for a sales job.  and also keep trying to become a housewife or win the lottery.

good luck to me!

screw them

eh, screw the online world.  for now.  I haven't much felt like writing these past two weeks.  or socializing for that matter. I've shocked myself by turning into a tight-jawed mindless laborer, attending to box after box, methodically folding sweatshirts and tossing unwanted clothes in a pile for goodwill, pulling out shampoo bottles and arranging them neatly in a cabinet.  I thought I would have so much trouble unpacking but it's almost done and almost everything has a place!  there's this incessant urge to get it done, keep at it, even if I'm out at stew leonard's with mom or at home (my parents house will always be "home") relaxing on the couch getting a foot rub.

then there's dad, dying away.  Two weeks ago he was walking three miles a day, rather tight-jawed himself, but with a droop to his gait and hollow eyes.  Then he "pulled something," or the cancer growing into the bone near his pelvis is finally beginning to affect him, we don't know which one.  I'm inclined to think it's because he turned into a walking fiend after the diagnosis and, walking like 1000 miles in 2 months, probably DID tear something.  but being medical and a dire skeptic, I think that's a generous assessment and he's really just gonna get worse and worse, and worse.  at least there are pain meds!  then pain patches, then intravenous pain management!  and at least dad is an upper middle class government employee with damn good health insurance.  too bad the prevailing medical establishment doesn't know how to treat cancer.

I mean, treating cancer shouldn't really be the goal of all these anti-cancer groups.  preventing it should be.  everyone's getting cancer these days and still no cure in sight.  how about we protest more often high-fructose corn syrup and blue #40 lake and sodium laureth sulfate going into things we ingest and smear on our privy parts by writing to companies and complaining to stores that stock products containing these ingredients.  tell your congressman!

it's 4 am and I still feel that urge to do, organize, sort, clean.  make everything easy and everything in its right place.  I want to go sleepless until that urge is gone; it drives my appetite away, it imprisons my imagination in a loop of anticipation.  I think to myself, I know I can get through anything.  I just wish I could do it at my leisure, with confidence.

the online world?

I'm 28 and like many my age, grew up sneaking the main house phone line to get onto AOL. specifically the chatrooms (a/s/l??).  the metaphysical chatrooms were the best by far.  you'd think there would have been old people talking about their souls journeys or something in there, but it was really a bunch of smart kids that wanted to chat with other smart kids.  not even any cybering! 

anyway, that's not my point.  my point is that I'm moving to CT in one week and won't have any friends (except my mama) there.  for approximately 2.4 seconds I thought about match.com, but for a number of reasons (and some involuntary shuddering) forgot about it.  There are only 3 decent people on match.com within a 50 mile radius at any time.  Plus I'm cheap as hell and there's no way I'm payin $30 a month to meet (mostly) horny weirdos.  is that too harsh?  (if YOU actually have a profile up, mad props.  I just don't have the balls, really, and I'm not that desperate...yet)

match.com isn't for friends anyway. it's not even for metaphysical smart kids.  starting a blog seemed like the closest thing I could get. I'm always thinking things I want to share with someone or post somewhere, especially when I'm driving on the turnpike and there's traffic for no reason or I'm watching a TV show and think of something immensely clever.  I know I should get with the times and spend an arm on a fancy internet-connecting cell phone, then join twitter.  in my paranoid mind, however, twitter is untrustworthy, especially after that worldwide virus scandal last week.  and that 180 character limit? I have enough trouble trying not to write 3 page text messages.

hopefully if I'm creative enough I'll get comments, friends and fans even!  a fancy internet-connecting cell phone is coming soon, because without one friends and fans are impossible.  of course, a fancy cell phone is impossible without money, so for now I shall be poor and lonely.  to console myself, I'll close with the funniest picture I've ever seen.