Goddamnit I hate cell phones.

jones

I hate cell phones – and worse still, smartphones –  for the same reason I hate the internet, ads, the doorbell, making plans, cooking things that can burn and going to work.

I hate being interrupted. The constant attention to phones (cell or smart) – the constant checking and messaging and bbm-ing – is distracting. It kills the mood. Granted, I don’t know anyone (well, nearly) who will pick up their phone and start chatting or texting in the middle of conversation. But nearly everyone I know will pick up their phone and start chatting or texting if there is the slightest break in conversation.  If you stop talking for one millisecond – turn your back to pick up a copy of the newspaper or gather the coffees from the pick-up area at Starbucks – your companion will likely be studying their phone by the time you return.  Even if you blink – take a single breath in between stories or rub your eyes to relieve fatigue – your audience will be gone, stolen away by whatever more interesting person is currently demanding their attention via iphone.

Clearly, the person on the other end of the line isn’t more interesting. There's no way that so-and-so, the twenty-two year old daughter of a former rocker, is providing conversation more interesting than my account of the financial collapse; or that the lead singer in whatchyamacallit band who needs to use your practice space tomorrow is distracting enough to warrant your ignoring my dissection of the economics of obesity.  Still, I’ve never beat a cell phone in the battle for an audience. Can’t be done, I’d wager.

Why? Is it the beep – the fact that some foreign noise has entered your consciousness and, due to its foreignness, can’t be ignored?  Or is it that the other’s conversation has arrived in writing rather than as imprecise and ephemeral spoken word, and therefore seems grand, In Print and more important than anything my measly, human breath could utter?  Or is it simply that you have become bored with me – perhaps because I am lackluster or perhaps because you have some variety of undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder – and no longer want to be here?

Whatever the reason, I can’t stand it.  Breaks in conversation are a natural part of the flow of human life and have been since we invented grunting.  Doesn’t it worry you that those natural breaks (which should, I believe, be used for reflection or to gather courage) are disappearing?  When I start to look up at my companion and before my eyes leave my latte I can already sense that their attention has been lost, it gives me the feeling that they aren’t particularly interested in what I’m saying or even in whether I’m there. The jarring effect of this is an instantaneous butcher’s cut to whatever thought was previously swimming about in my fragile mind.  I was going to start talking about that time I was bullied in high school…but now…It’s indisputable that this kind of interruption to the natural order will have serious effects on human development and mental health.

How do I respond?  Either I begin to shrink into myself, believing more and more that people aren’t interested in what I have to say or what can be garnered from irl human contact, or I start trying to not pause. I start trying, instead, to fill every possible millisecond with words so that my companion doesn’t have the opportunity to ignore me and, in consequence, I don’t have the time to reflect.  The number of intelligent thoughts I am able to express starts to shrink; they become fewer and farther between.  What my friend knows about me is squished; what I know about him becomes truncated.  I start to become dumber. So does he.

And for what? For a ‘lolz’ or ‘ikr’ or whatever stunted, likely un-thoughtful utterance my companion’s phone-friend has beamed in between us.

The worst part of all is how more and more, people don’t even apologize for it.  Now, it’s not rude to pick up your cell phone in the middle of a social gathering.  You’re not supposed to read or watch TV when others are about, gabbing.  Why, then, are you allowed to text?  In my books, you’re not. So stop.

Unregular Fame Monsters

Last Wednesday, after an intense game of Settlers of Catan and a long day of work (respectively), Jones and I found ourselves seated in a small dark room huddled around a karaoke machine with eight of our closest friends. The activity was suggested to us by our recently rebranded teetotaler pal, who was no doubt interested in doing something - anything - other than just sitting and drinking and talking until the sitting became slouching, the drinking, spilling, and the talking, slurring.

On principle, I do not like karaoke. If you were to ask me what I think of it, 99 times out of 100 I would declare it to be a shamelessly ego-driven exercise in narcissism, during which an audience tolerates clichéd and uncomfortable performances only because of the possibility that their song is coming up next. It screams, 'Look at me! Look at me and think I'm talented, or at the very least funny, or at the very, very, least adorable in my failure to be either. Please, for a moment, take your noses out the songbooks and for this moment think me something special.'

This is not an opinion I voice often, because

1. It is unnecessarily judgmental,

2. Many people I love and respect enjoy karaoke and, finally,

3. Because 1 out of 100 times, upon being asked what I think about karaoke, I would not hear you due to my standing on a table, crooning into a microphone in a room full of strangers, and fucking loving it.

On the Wednesday in question, I dragged my heels into that rented, tiny, crowded karaoke room with what one could justifiable call a bad attitude. 'I'm not even going to sing', I grumbled to my smirking boyfriend (who wasn't fooled for a moment by my pouting and posturing). Sure enough, not two songs later - the second that mic was within arms reach - my hand shot out like a predatory snake, striking its prey and clutching it with a death grip that secured a three-song Mogg-medley before retreating and resorting to loosely holding a beer.

I'm not going to pretend that I was heretofore unaware of the fact that I enjoy attention. I'm well aware of the irony of my judging even the most enthusiastic karaoker. What I was surprised by was that even though I'd convinced myself that the thing was undignified, I couldn't stop myself from diving ego-first into the spotlight.

While I know Karaoke is just a bit o' fun, and I shouldn't analyze it too much, I'm going to anyway. Because that night brought to mind a book I'm lazily flipping though: Be My Baby, by Ronnie Spector. Specifically the part where she talks about about her first performance, and how afterwards 'all she could think about was getting back onstage.' She continues to say that, 'after that night, there was no question that was where I belonged.'

I'm curious about how many of us there are that truly covet fame. It is obvious that some people are born with star-power, and that others shy away from any sort of attention. There are the celebrities that are famous for little other than their ability to be famous, and there are devastatingly talented artists who cannot stand being in the public eye. But who makes up that enormous in-between? Before this magical internet era, it would have been easy to argue that the majority of people enjoy their privacy, and that there is nothing innate about the desire to be famous. But I now suspect that the majority swings towards fame, and possibly always has.

Consider! How quickly Youtubers produced over 100 million videos! How frequently the everyman updates his twitter! How many profile pictures we all have, cropped and contrasted into images of ourselves that we spoon feed to each other!

Sometimes it seems as though we're all just preparing ourselves for it, for that day when we get the call and are plucked from our daily lives into the whirlwind of societal and monetary riches. And it's easy to judge us. Of course it is. We even do it to each other; the obscurely talented muttering about the sell-outs, the commercial actors, the amateur comedians.

...the bloggers.

Should one be ashamed to want to be famous by any means necessary? To feel you 'belong on stage' regardless of the means by which you entertain? I'm not going to lie, I instinctively find it off-putting. It often reeks of a 'mommy! mommy! look at me!' taken too far. But then I wonder: does that apply to fame within academia? Is wanting your name in a textbook the same thing? It doesn't seem like it is. It seems like it must be different. But how?

If the desire to be famous is not innate, it may be a product of living in a society that starves us of approval and recognition; a society that slots us into lives that bore us to tears; a society that rewards even the smallest action by any celebrity with disproportionate attention.

Fame means that the majority of people find your talent worthwhile, and they let you know it. And while it may result in a public castration for every poor decision, it also allows for positive reinforcement when you do a good deed. It is your eight friends multiplied a million times over, laughing at you when you sound tone deaf, but cheering when yer little dance looks just like the artist you're imitating. And while I do believe there are more effective ways to achieve happiness, I cannot fault myself (or anyone else) for wanting it just a little bit. And, truth be told, I don't think it is one bit unreg.