The telephone is something I’ve been thinking about these past two days. Yesterday a friend, who isn’t fond of email, emailed early in the morning to see if we could go for coffee. I emailed right back, set up a time, a place, an almost certain meeting arrangement. I wandered around at the arranged time and place, looking, but no friend. Later in the evening, when I got home, there were three messages on a cell phone that never rang, and an email saying my email arrived at 5pm.

Now I’m wondering about the ethereal connection between people unconsciously trying to avoid the outside world and the objects they claim to dislike as means of communication. I’m not fond of my cell phone. I like my space and I find it somewhat intrusive, but, granted, necessary in my hectic life. I’ve had nothing but problems with my cell phone. Sometimes it works perfect and no one calls. Sometimes it doesn’t work, someone does call and I don’t get the message. Sometimes the message manager won’t work, and sometimes the thing just goes dead. I can send the phone away, again, for repairs, or I can simply suffer with the phone. I can’t upgrade until next August as I just recently bought this phone. Why all this dribble you’re asking right about now, who cares about her phone, what’s her point you’re saying. Well, I think, in some ways it’s no different than the person who doesn’t like email. A person who doesn’t like email seems to have difficulty receiving mail, for some reason never gets things, or they arrive late, or they don’t arrive at all. A person who doesn’t like email uses it only for necessity, much like a person who doesn’t really like carrying a cell phone. Aha.

Maybe our method of communication or not liking to communicate through certain channels is impacting the objects around us. Or not. But, then again, perhaps the problem isn’t with the phone, but me. Ohmmmm.