In a Buffalo Bills jersey with a case of beer
Michele will sometimes forward me texts from her mom - about the lives of her 7 dogs, or how Jennifer Aniston is a horrible match for John Mayer. To me it's hilarious - to her, annoying.
I remember going weeks in college without talking to my parents; before I had a cell phone, phone bills were one of the college expenses I prided myself on paying with my own money, so I would usually only try to call home once a week, at a time when everyone would be home and the phone could make the rounds, bounding up and then back down the stairs from person to person till I had talked to all 5.
The first semester, I called home more because I was convinced I hated everything except what was back in Los Angeles. They wouldn't call me because I think it was pretty obvious after each call that I needed to get off the damn phone and go meet the people I was meant to start meeting.
After I started liking college, it was always my sense that they didn't call me a lot because they wanted to give me space - space they were sure I wanted since isn't that the only reason someone would move from California to Ohio to go to school?
I call my parents more often now that I have a cell phone. For about three years they would always ask, first thing, if they should hang up and call me back so it wouldn't be expensive. I've never been one of those people who runs out of their daytime minutes, but I guess when you're a parent, the umbrella of things you worry might happen to your kid extends to "a terrifyingly, slightly large phone bill." Anyhow, after a while, I guess they believed me when I said with a cell phone you get charged whether you're the caller or the callee. Or maybe one of my other brothers with way more friends got a phone and they rightfully turned their attention to him.
This makes it sound like my parents aren't technologically savvy, which is partially untrue. My mom hates most things with circuit boards, but it is pretty fun to talk to her on instant messenger; for some reason she handles the format better than I think most people her age would, maybe because whenever she talks in real life there are always 2 or three conversations going on at once. And my dad basically knows everything about anything with a liquid crystal, a battery, an LED or an amplifier. I'm always amazed at how modestly he lives, gadget-wise, when there are so many guys I know, my age or slightly older, who blow hundreds of times more money than he does on stuff they claim to be "into" even though they have no idea how it works.
Text messages saved on erstwhile phone that I will miss scrolling through when
(1) bored on a bus without a book or
(2) pretending like I am receiving late-breaking correspondence when I'm in a bar/at a party having a miserable time:
(these are mostly inside jokes but sometimes a blog is a diary so whatever)
"I'm trapped in a fondue nightmare!"
"I'm jamming so hard to Hall and Oates!"
"I'm masturbating like a little boy!"
"Damn it, I just paid cover and it's a fucking country-western band tonight"
"Best present ever in my life"
"I just went Christmas shopping and bought plates for MYSELF I suck"
"Jury duty is making me so aggro"
Picture of a Hut's hamburger wearing Peter's glasses
Picture of the Margaret Wertheim's crotcheted coral reef
"Not sure if this is appropriate to ask in a text but have you ever had an abnormal pap smear?"
"Hohoho HAPPLES"
"WHO CARES"
Detailed directions from JFK to a Queens hotel that I sent my parents on their trip to New York City, partially to demonstrate the utility of text messaging at all and partially to demonstrate my utility?
Darn, I've already forgotten a lot of them.
The last text I saved was from my dad the night of the last Democratic primary, this month. It said "Hiya Chels, you live in interesting times." People had been telling me this during the whole primary season, from the opening when Joe Biden called Obama clean and articulate, to Hillary's concession speech where she said the remarkable had become unremarkable. But it only really made sense to me right then, coming from my dad, with his characteristic deference to me, as if these were no longer his times as well, and the studied but casual language that fits him and me better than the breakneck instant message pace, typos and syntactical inversions and all, that make it so fun to "chat" on "AIM" with my mom and my fully Generation Y brothers. (Sorry for typing "Generation Y")
My labmates have watched me follow the political season with zeal since I returned to school last fall. None of them were around in 2004 when I moped for the remainder of the school week after Bush got reelected (wearing black, which you know I never wear). But I guess they can tell I take it seriously. I think they would have been freaked out if they had been here in the computer office when I checked my email this afternoon and saw that Tim Russert is dead, because I would have tried to make them understand how I actually feel like mourning. My boss is on vacation and they're at paintball today anyway, so in the empty room, I picked up my new telephone, which is small and shiny and pink, and called my dad instead. I know the last half of this blog entry was about texting, but this time, I actually wanted to talk, because talking, though it is often harder for the quieter among us, is also usually better.
I remember going weeks in college without talking to my parents; before I had a cell phone, phone bills were one of the college expenses I prided myself on paying with my own money, so I would usually only try to call home once a week, at a time when everyone would be home and the phone could make the rounds, bounding up and then back down the stairs from person to person till I had talked to all 5.
The first semester, I called home more because I was convinced I hated everything except what was back in Los Angeles. They wouldn't call me because I think it was pretty obvious after each call that I needed to get off the damn phone and go meet the people I was meant to start meeting.
After I started liking college, it was always my sense that they didn't call me a lot because they wanted to give me space - space they were sure I wanted since isn't that the only reason someone would move from California to Ohio to go to school?
I call my parents more often now that I have a cell phone. For about three years they would always ask, first thing, if they should hang up and call me back so it wouldn't be expensive. I've never been one of those people who runs out of their daytime minutes, but I guess when you're a parent, the umbrella of things you worry might happen to your kid extends to "a terrifyingly, slightly large phone bill." Anyhow, after a while, I guess they believed me when I said with a cell phone you get charged whether you're the caller or the callee. Or maybe one of my other brothers with way more friends got a phone and they rightfully turned their attention to him.
This makes it sound like my parents aren't technologically savvy, which is partially untrue. My mom hates most things with circuit boards, but it is pretty fun to talk to her on instant messenger; for some reason she handles the format better than I think most people her age would, maybe because whenever she talks in real life there are always 2 or three conversations going on at once. And my dad basically knows everything about anything with a liquid crystal, a battery, an LED or an amplifier. I'm always amazed at how modestly he lives, gadget-wise, when there are so many guys I know, my age or slightly older, who blow hundreds of times more money than he does on stuff they claim to be "into" even though they have no idea how it works.
Text messages saved on erstwhile phone that I will miss scrolling through when
(1) bored on a bus without a book or
(2) pretending like I am receiving late-breaking correspondence when I'm in a bar/at a party having a miserable time:
(these are mostly inside jokes but sometimes a blog is a diary so whatever)
"I'm trapped in a fondue nightmare!"
"I'm jamming so hard to Hall and Oates!"
"I'm masturbating like a little boy!"
"Damn it, I just paid cover and it's a fucking country-western band tonight"
"Best present ever in my life"
"I just went Christmas shopping and bought plates for MYSELF I suck"
"Jury duty is making me so aggro"
Picture of a Hut's hamburger wearing Peter's glasses
Picture of the Margaret Wertheim's crotcheted coral reef
"Not sure if this is appropriate to ask in a text but have you ever had an abnormal pap smear?"
"Hohoho HAPPLES"
"WHO CARES"
Detailed directions from JFK to a Queens hotel that I sent my parents on their trip to New York City, partially to demonstrate the utility of text messaging at all and partially to demonstrate my utility?
Darn, I've already forgotten a lot of them.
The last text I saved was from my dad the night of the last Democratic primary, this month. It said "Hiya Chels, you live in interesting times." People had been telling me this during the whole primary season, from the opening when Joe Biden called Obama clean and articulate, to Hillary's concession speech where she said the remarkable had become unremarkable. But it only really made sense to me right then, coming from my dad, with his characteristic deference to me, as if these were no longer his times as well, and the studied but casual language that fits him and me better than the breakneck instant message pace, typos and syntactical inversions and all, that make it so fun to "chat" on "AIM" with my mom and my fully Generation Y brothers. (Sorry for typing "Generation Y")
My labmates have watched me follow the political season with zeal since I returned to school last fall. None of them were around in 2004 when I moped for the remainder of the school week after Bush got reelected (wearing black, which you know I never wear). But I guess they can tell I take it seriously. I think they would have been freaked out if they had been here in the computer office when I checked my email this afternoon and saw that Tim Russert is dead, because I would have tried to make them understand how I actually feel like mourning. My boss is on vacation and they're at paintball today anyway, so in the empty room, I picked up my new telephone, which is small and shiny and pink, and called my dad instead. I know the last half of this blog entry was about texting, but this time, I actually wanted to talk, because talking, though it is often harder for the quieter among us, is also usually better.
