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Yesterday was not all that strange or different for me than usual. The weather is unseasonably cool. There's a crisp edge to the breezy north wind. It's not cold, but a light jacket feels nice. That makes it just right for taking a long walk without getting too hot.
If there was anything different yesterday it was the anticipation of seeing an old friend again I hadn't seen in person for a while. She used to have a job here as an artist-in-residence for a couple of years. She became friends with my brother and his wife and that's how I got to know her. She was driving down with her second husband to spend a few days away from their hectic city lives. Their progress along the I-95 corridor driving down from the District of Columbia to North Carolina was not unknown. Cell phones are ubiquitous now aren't they?
Previous to the constant info bombardment cell phones provide, our visitors probably wouldn't be heard from after they left home unless they stopped somewhere along the way and used a wired phone to call, but not anymore. Yesterday was a series of hourly phone calls and text messages from wherever they were. I received more telephone calls yesterday than for a long time.
That seems a little complicated, but it required nothing from me other than to sit here and amuse myself reading and writing, and let nature take it's course. The visitors were actually staying with my brother next door and his wife, and I was only involved because they wanted to meet one of my friends who depended on me to tell him when they showed up.
They finally got here and my friend showed up here at my house about the same time. We had a cup of fresh coffee I'd made, and went over to my brother's house to meet and greet the out-of-staters. It was an artsy craftsy sort of gathering of some talented folks.
Our old friend used to be the artist-in-residence here a decade or so ago, and was married to a poet back then. Later, she divorced him and has since married a graphics designer for a few years now. I'd never met him in person until last night. My friend they wanted to meet is a fine musician and my sister-in-law is a trained painter. We all felt easy with each other pretty quick.
I really have fallen behind technically by never having owned a cell phone. It still doesn't matter to me that much. What made me wonder if I might ought to check it out was the development of the new smartphones like the iPhone and the new Android devices. Being able to get online with them and use them as desktop replacements makes buying one for myself almost inevitable.
I would have bought one already if I could afford two telco accounts. Just having this one DSL account is pushing my budgetary envelope. Having an expensive iPhone data account in addition to the DSL account is financially prohibitive. I'd literally have to get a job and go to work to get a smartphone I wouldn't use any more often than I don't use the home phone I have now.
I must have a phobia about using phones. I haven't made a long-distance call in years. I don't have enough excuses to get out of the house now. Of course, my acquaintances who do have smartphones tell me it gives them more freedom to get out because they take they smartphones with them everywhere they go. That's one of the excuses I use to leave the house. To get away from the phone. Double bind. Damned if I do. Damned if I don't. All fall down. '-)
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
