putting out the fire with gasoline
May. 1st, 2004 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ironymaideni've always hated talking on the telephone. somehow i feel intrusive when i call people - what if they were in the middle of reading a great book, or making a souffle, or masturbating?
the first summer i dated C was before there was a local ISP (that's right, even dialup was a long-distance call) and being terribly poor and neither of us car owners, we wrote letters to each other. every day. rarely were they less than two cramped front and back pages of college ruled paper. and yes, i have all of them. two summers' worth, plus summer stock, plus on and off through my internship year.
i like email and blogs. i think they are returning us to literacy, and i fear the spread of multimedia. i don't want to talk on the computer. i want to post signs and exchange notes. especially because reading about other people's experience of the world is mind-expanding. i periodically "read" people who are stationed in Iraq or expatriates of one kind or another, regularly professional writers and parents.
i've had some hellish talks in the car (like my brother letting me know that he had proof positive that i was fucking my HS boyfriend) and some wonderful ones. i find that chat provides the same kind of release that talking in the car does. we all know the phenomena, it's something about being slightly preoccupied and not quite looking at the person you're talking to yet being in a private place that you can't easily leave. i am rendered more honest and more vulnerable by it, but the other person isn't in the car reading my cues. nor am i reading theirs. i'm wondering if there is some accepted abbreviation for tears all over the keyboard, because a frownie certainly doesn't cover it. i'm glad of the revelatory property, and i'm glad we can't interrupt each other or be stifled by seeing those responses. i'm glad about being honest. i'm sorry that the responsive nature of chat (as opposed to letters) still lets me put my foot in it in the moment. i need my ass kicked every so often. i just miss the hugs and kleenex that come from speaking in person.
the first summer i dated C was before there was a local ISP (that's right, even dialup was a long-distance call) and being terribly poor and neither of us car owners, we wrote letters to each other. every day. rarely were they less than two cramped front and back pages of college ruled paper. and yes, i have all of them. two summers' worth, plus summer stock, plus on and off through my internship year.
i like email and blogs. i think they are returning us to literacy, and i fear the spread of multimedia. i don't want to talk on the computer. i want to post signs and exchange notes. especially because reading about other people's experience of the world is mind-expanding. i periodically "read" people who are stationed in Iraq or expatriates of one kind or another, regularly professional writers and parents.
i've had some hellish talks in the car (like my brother letting me know that he had proof positive that i was fucking my HS boyfriend) and some wonderful ones. i find that chat provides the same kind of release that talking in the car does. we all know the phenomena, it's something about being slightly preoccupied and not quite looking at the person you're talking to yet being in a private place that you can't easily leave. i am rendered more honest and more vulnerable by it, but the other person isn't in the car reading my cues. nor am i reading theirs. i'm wondering if there is some accepted abbreviation for tears all over the keyboard, because a frownie certainly doesn't cover it. i'm glad of the revelatory property, and i'm glad we can't interrupt each other or be stifled by seeing those responses. i'm glad about being honest. i'm sorry that the responsive nature of chat (as opposed to letters) still lets me put my foot in it in the moment. i need my ass kicked every so often. i just miss the hugs and kleenex that come from speaking in person.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 01:08 am (UTC)Cheers!!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 01:33 am (UTC)I thought I was the only person who really enjoyed car chats and thought they were particularly intimate and freeing.
Cool!
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Date: 2004-05-03 05:28 am (UTC)