So this morning as my head was all groggy and filled with sad and morbid thoughts, I decided to try and go back to bed. I did that for a bit, but roused awake by the click click typing of E on his little trio thing. I think that’s what it’s called anyways. I am vaguely mystified by all of this annoying technology. I don’t like how impersonal everything has started to feel. My cell phone when it rings often finds me looking at it with a type of disgusted curiosity. Then I switch it off and watch it ring into the mailbox. Most of the time I ignore the little mailbox sign unless it happens to be some sort of text message. More often than not I am not very amused by them anyhow, and whether or not I return them is a matter of where whim takes me that day.

I feel that in this world of complete and utter connection, that people are starting to really lose the human touch. Granted it is much easier to feel less alone when you’re staying up late at night with the monitor glaring in your face, brows lit by the glare of what appears to be toxic light. But I truly feel as if it’s not actually connecting in ways that are productive and evolution inspiring in people. I mean we all know those people who get stealthy flat butts sitting on their asses browsing or doing net work all day long. And their social skills, or lack thereof, are a direct result in being so incredibly contrived in their communication. Think about it, when you have a moment to consider deliberation and intent in what you write and how you appear, certain spontaneity is lacking. Which means to me that the small intonations, the little variations in personality and voice, are completely missing from their expression. Even letter writing seems to get more individual style and exudes more clues to the person behind it than an email could. It’s a similar thing to living in New York City, something I have done since October of 1998. With all of these people you think, how on earth could I feel so alone? But it is exactly that, the innumerable crowds that make the process that much more intimidating, that much more crowded. But not in a squishy hug kind of way, but more in that you are just one face in a million swimming faces. How on earth do you want to make your mark, and is it even possible?

I daydream often of this cell phone/wifi phenomena. Granted it allows me to write like this now. But I secretly hope they realize that is is bad for children to be immersed in the womb in a radio wave infused environment. I don’t want them used anymore. I don’t like the wifi all over, I don’t like cell phones. And because nobody really knows the long term effects of such exposure, part of me wishes that they would discover that everything born of such devices would cause tumors and irreparable damage. Maybe then the prospect of raising a child in a world run by myspace and web technology wouldn’t be so incredibly alarming. I had that discussion with my mother the other day as she is the office manager of my former high school. I told her how irked this whole web technology cell phone shit made me. And she said every generation has its thing. But the things I got into trouble for were really not that far off from the things my parents got into trouble for. The major difference was that sex and violence were shunned so much more when my parents grew up than it was when I did. I graduated in 1995, the pre-boom of the dot com world. I still had used typewriters for school papers. The internet was nothing more than a large access library. Now I feel as if it is the devil incarnate. and even though it makes it easier for me to communicate to my audience of random strangers, I would almost trade it all in for a pen pal or two. Someday I hope to chuck my cell phone into traffic like I did in ’00 and watch the trucks run it over. But this time I wouldn’t pick it up. I would use those archaic machines knows as land lines. And if anyone wanted to talk to me that bad they could leave a message on my static-driven answering machine. And if someone wanted to get a hold of me or send me a cheery note they could stick a stamp on an envelope and insert a letter.

My dog likes to hug like a two year old, paws on shoulders, head on neck. This morning she scratched the shit out of my chest and I have three additional lines running along the left side of my scar (she scratched the scar too of course).  One is brighter than my scar and longer, too. I am really pissed off about it, as if I needed more freakish chest marks separating me from the collective population. I had a mild freak out as I was buying the neosporin for it in the checkout line. I had $13 to my name and thought I picked up the $6.50 package and also picked up two toothbrushes for five since I forgot to bring mine down last night. Unfortunately for me I grabbed one of the wrong toothbrushes and had to return it, grabbed another one and came back. Come to discover my neosporin was the larger $9.99 version and I had to then return the two toothbrushes. My face got hot with embarrassment and I cried because I didn’t have any extra money. I scooted out of the store quick and freaked out on my dog (who has to travel with us because she pees on the basement floor when we leave her alone) because she cost me so much money I did not have to spend. I then cried in the car to E, explaining how screwed up it was that I was making $39,500 as a 23 year old. And now I make $21,000 if I work full time for the spa company. Has my value really decreased that much?

Either way, we headed off to the orchard and went wild picking apples. 35 pounds we ended up carrying, cutting off the circulation in our fingers, costing us $35 bucks. I am excited to do gay things like make apple crisp. And pie. Pie would be great.

I really wish someone would send me a letter, all gay like with stickers even. It would be nice to open the mailbox to something cheerful. Other than bills and things I daydream about shredding in the shredder at work.