Cell Phones and/or the lack thereof

I don't have my cell phone anymore. The cell phone disconnection was quite unintentional. I started by not picking it up, or knowing where it was for several days at a time. The next part of the process, toward disconnection, was leaving the phone at home when I ventured out. It was strange the first two times. Now, it feels better than the comfort of having it with me. You know the dieting phrase, 'nothing tastes as good, as skinny feels? That is what you feel like when you ditch the cell phone.

I began to notice some rude components in many group situations. Individually, people were paying more attention to their cell phones than the people they were fortunate to be visiting. I noticed the difference mostly, when I visited with my work friends. My work friends, as a whole, simply would not dismiss you, to respond to a message. There are many reasons why. Most of all, I'd like to think, we value our time together. The other reasons subconsciously create this phenom. The overall strangle hold cell phones have on our society is abhorrent. When I put the behaviour and societal conditions into the equation, it adds up to madness. Complete and udder madness.

I want to take a few more stabs at this, in presentation, before I offer some solutions. Let's compare playing a handheld game device, and the ongoing conversation that is shared by text with two people. (or more?) What person do you know would play a game device after being invited to dinner with you? Or maybe you visited them at their home and they were involved in a video game.. but didn't hit stop, pause, or off, to focus their attention on you. Well, I guess if that happened, no, please don't get up, I can find my way out. I walked you to the door, are you seeing now, the comparison between a person's intense interest in a cell phone and the hypothetical video game, or game device?

I realize this is an economical explosion for social networking, and other forms of desirable media. Shouldn't it all be taken in stride for what it is? Seriously, you want to be completely connected to everyone you know? You don't want a break from accessibility? Turnaround is not fair play. You only have to be available when it's convenient to you. This creates the loss of the mutual compromise that takes place, when building and maintaining, a relationship. One electronic tool, is increasing the shallow gene pool.

Lets look at some ways to bring sexy back. First and foremost, is always safety. The convenience factor of owning a cell phone is having the ability to call ahead if your lost or late. Maybe for distance driving, and knowing you have access to any of the options that keep you safe from harm, or inconvenience. Those things are the very real reasons cell phone connectivity has lost the luxury luster. That said, lets do an experiment; leave the cell phone in the trunk. If not always, at least 90% of the time. Not in the glove compartment box, as I know you will be reaching over to remove it, while your driving! If your late or lost, you can pull over to a parking lot to use the phone. See how the phone feels in your trunk? It's not so bad to be alone with your own thoughts, is it? Do you find, your actually doing some productive thinking? I believe the more often the phone is in the trunk, the less dependent you will become. It's empowering, let it happen.

Cell phones are crack. What someone will lie, cheat and steal to have, brings about the addictive factors. I would suspect working for a cell phone company, must be likened to a bartender? Where else would you deal with addictive personalities on a daily basis? Where the main function of your job, is catering to destructive behaviour. If cell phones can destroy relationships, and they do, it's time to turn the power off. Don't let something of an electronic nature, come between you and someone you care to spend time with. The same way I would hope you would not let prohibitive substances come between you and your reality, I would urge you to take a good look at your electronic habits.

Afterall, would you rather your cell phone be in your trunk, or up your ass?

Against All Odds

If I could describe the most current emotion I am experiencing, I would state; confused. What happens on the day you decide to end your life? Maybe you have thought of it for years -then you suddenly follow-thru. What sets the gears in motion to execute the final moment? My sister committed suicide. I've never met her. She was put up for adoption by my dad and my step-mom. I was 15 yrs old. I didn't understand much of what just happened. They went to the hospital to have the baby, then came home empty handed. I remember then, being confused. What prompted that decision? How long had they known this was the plan? Why weren't we told? I sat in the backseat of the car, and asked, "where's the baby?" They didn't cover it up then, and maybe it was too painful to let us know ahead of time? It was premeditated, I'm certain. Maybe the lack of explanation was so they wouldn't be talked out of it. I believe my dad said, there's something we need to tell you. I was prepared for death. At this point maybe I was relieved the baby didn't die.

I never knew her, so I wasn't emotionally connected. My connection was only the mystery of who she was. Her name was Misty Gail. I loved the name. All of my life, until I was 35 years old, Misty Gail was missing from our lives. We wondered mysteriously where she was, and what was she like? When my brother died in 1997, we talked about her a lot. That now, if we ever met, James was gone. She missed a whole life. She will never meet, or know, James.

Then it happened. She worked in a Gov't office, and went thru some records to find her birth information. She figured it out. Suddenly we heard from her. Despite all of my memories that are so clear, I can't recall the events that took place. I'm not sure who she contacted first? At this time, my dad was terminally ill. She did manage to meet him, before he died.

She explained to us at this time, she wanted no relationship with any of us. She didn't want to know any more than, who she was, where she came from, and who was her biological family? She loved her parents and didn't want to hurt their feelings in any way. She did meet my older sister on several occasions. I never met her.

And now, I never will. I guess it's okay, she has always been just a figment of my imagination. I don't suffer knowing I will never meet her. However, I am puzzled as to what was going on, that made her take her own life? Why did she take a gun and end it all? What emotional pain could she not overcome? How long had she considered this was an option? And, most of all, why didn't she leave a note?
Did the fact that she was adopted lend to this decision? She had said, she loved her parents and never wanted them to have hurt feelings. So much for that!

I wonder was her life already taken from her, as a newborn? Is that how she felt? Or did the adoption scenario never play into any of this? Does being adopted make you feel unwanted, in any sense of the word? I would not think so. I would actually think the opposite would be true. She lived to be Thirty. She made a dramatic exit.

Do I mourn the loss of Misty Gail? No, I've suffered that loss all of my life.
She came into my life as Amy, in 1999. In 2011, she ended her life as Amy.
A few emails exchanged back and forth, was all I ever knew of her. I didn't feel comfortable getting to know her, as she was clear with her intentions. Since she was Amy, it felt awkward. I wish her name would have been Misty Gail.

This means I never met Misty Gail. She is still a baby I never held.
Maybe I will mourn the loss of her again, but I still suffer from the only emotion I have ever related to her. Confusion. I sometimes just shake my head and wonder.. what happened? What happened then, and what happened now?

Experiencing suicide twice in as many months, makes one pause. What on earth do you experience the day, you finally execute this decision? I wish I knew a little bit more of what she felt? Then again, maybe I don't.

Maybe the suicide note, is better left unwritten. For everyone' sake. After all, I was prepared for death, since the ride home from the hospital. Hearing of her suicide, really doesn't feel much different than learning she was not with us, physically. Seems to be much the same. The only thing that changed was her name.

SUICIDE

I've been thinking about the things that bother me. Really, cause I can't really seem to think of anything else. I just need to get the crap off my mind. My life has just smacked me in the face as of late, and I don't know how to get out of the cycle. Work out; yeah, I know.. but my foot has been broken. It'll be awhile yet. Since I can't work out physically, I must work out my mind.

Enter, suicide. Yeah, right? This sucks. Interesting is that is sucks more than you could ever know!!! Makes you explore every single thing about the person you lost, everything about yourself, and everything about the relationship you shared, if any. It sucks. I tell ya, sucks. It hurts. The first thing I did was download a suicide grief book on my Kindle. You can't talk about it. You can't just bring it up to someone. Sure they'll discuss suicide with you. But discuss an actual suicide? No. It's too awkward and extremely isolating. I don't even know that it's proper to bring up, in this forum. I can't find anywhere that I don't second guess my option to discuss. Here I feel like I'm bringing it up to myself. That's a little better. Still makes me ache. Death is final, that's accepted. Suicide is even more final. Final and deliberate. How in the hell does one get from alive to dead?

If someone threatens suicide and you discuss it with them.. it's troubling. Yes, it is. Every day you talk to them about it, is one more day they are alive. After they're gone, they did it. Now your left with this jumble load of questions. Questions you couldn't bare to ask when they were alive. Unless it's happened to you before.. I guess if you have a little more suicide experience, you may have some questions or solutions? That sucks; suicide experience.
If it's your first suicide however, it knocks the wind out of you. Look at this; I'm talking about me. How did a subject that is supposed to be about loss of someone, become about me? You see how it works? You see how deep and confusing suicide is? How did I get to pay this price? You took your life, and I'm paying a heavy price.

I don't know what to say to anyone. I've always been one of words and actions. Now I don't have anything. I don't have normal conversation. Nothing is interesting. I feel confined to my own thoughts. I can't get out of myself to work through these complicated feelings. It's almost like being confined to a chair, or a bed.
I'm beginng to think there's another level of breaking here. Sure, at the time it was emotionally draining. It's only been two weeks, however. Maybe there comes another breaking point before I can start to heal. There were three days I remained nauseated. Now I am nervous, almost paranoid feeling. Scared it will happen again.

This knocked my lights out. I was going to say; these are the most unexpected emotions I've ever felt. But ya know, that's not fair. I expected this all along, in fact, that may be part of the problem.

Hospital View

H I L A R I O U S

Starbucks

The first thing I gave up when the economy turned on me. Closing 600 stores.. Starbucks, I apologize. But, really, $4.00 for a cup of coffee - I agree, it's good shit... but maybe reduce your prices, I can come back - and the stores can stay open??? WE LOVE YOU STARBUCKS !!

The V-Rex

Makes your Harley look outdated- huh?

RIP Heather Walker

Residents say area where teen's body was found is riddled with crime
Heather Walker's body was found Saturday morning in a trash can between abandoned buildings.
WWW. MYSPACE. COM/HEATHERWALKER07
By Jim DeBrosse
Staff Writer
Sunday, April 27, 2008
DAYTON — — Police woke James and Joy Kinsler at 8 a.m. Saturday, April 26, at their residence at 2911 E. Third St. to tell the couple they had found a girl's body in a trash can just two doors away.
"They asked if I had seen any strange people in the area lately, which is kind of a crazy question for this neighborhood," 28-year-old Joy Kinsler said. "I told him if there was NOT something strange going on, that's when I would call them."
The Kinslers say prostitutes and drug dealers work the area near East Third and Jersey streets where the body of missing 18-year-old Heather Walker was found stuffed in a trash can between abandoned buildings.
Walker had lived with her parents, Robert and Tammy Marie, and her 2-year-old son, Devin, at 1748 Gummer Ave. until she disappeared Feb. 9, the Walkers said. She had been dropped off by friends at an East Third Street convenience store parking lot at 7:30 p.m. that night just three blocks from where her body was found.
The Walkers say they notified police after Heather failed to call them for several days, but police declined to file a missing person's report because Heather had run away several times as a youth. "Because she had a history of running off, they wouldn't take it seriously and blew it off," Robert Walker said.
The Walkers made up hundreds of fliers with Heather's photo, her father said, and family and friends distributed them "as far away as Springfield and Troy."
The fliers drew numerous calls, but none of the tips could lead them to Heather, her father said.
Heather Walker's MySpace page reveals a young woman whose obscenity-laced blurb mentions that she's the 17-year-old mother of a 14-month-old son.
Next to the Heroes heading, she wrote, "No one has rescued me yet!"
The Kinslers say police have been ineffective in stopping vandalism, theft and prostitution in their neighborhood. After his car was broken into for the third time and the stereo stolen, James Kinsler said he installed video cameras around his home so he would have the evidence police say they need to investigate a theft.
Paul Dameron, 71, lives on Jersey Street, two doors west of where Heather's body was found.
"I have no idea who the person is," he said. But he said that, in the last few years, nothing that happens in the neighborhood would surprise him.
"We need a gun really bad here," Dameron said. "They're likely to kick your door down while you're watching TV."