Oh Goody, Wrong Number

Talking on the phone isn't something I'm fond of. I'm very selective as to who I enjoy talking with and there aren't many.

I don't know why that is. I love talking to Daughter and a few dear friends in Ontario, and some here but there are far few calls where the old blue-tooth is stuck on the head and I walk around and do chores, etc., while the conversation stimulates me incredibly.  Often for several hours.

Other conversations drag, I don't know why. Maybe they're about others rather than ideas. I know - it's me. I'm getting more lodged into eccentricity as I age. And getting more unapologetic about it.

I've got one of those systems where the phone announces who's calling. The dog hates this. She whines pitifully at the automated ladyvoice and comes closer to a howl than I've ever heard her. I sometimes join her. We bond as the unwanted or intrusive call falls into voicemail.

I have to be in the mood for certain people. They seem to always want something. So I have to be in a giving mode. And often I'm on leftovers with nothing on offer.

The other day I was arranging a meeting and dialled a wrong number. Of a woman I've met the odd time. The outer edge of my acquaintance circle. She was so excited that I'd called. She told me her face must have lit up the room when she saw my number on screen, it was an honour and a pleasure to hear my voice. I told her the truth. She was a wrong number. But she didn't care.

She spoke of her mother who is 102 and still fishing. She spoke of my play and wanted to know all about the tour dates and Ireland. She spoke of her own aging, she never did like fishing and here she was 80 and not going to start now with her mother catching all she needed for herself and her husband.

Oh you've made my day, girlie, she said, you've made my day. Call me again soon.

Well, I might if I had your number......

On Blue Tooth and Blue Notes

Daughter (who lives 3000k away) and I have long conversations on the phone, our record is 6 hours. Yet to be broken. It will, I've no doubt.

A few months ago I purchased a blue tooth headset for my landline. Mein Gott, what a liberator that's been. I am no longer chained to a handset or a computer. I make meals, wander about in the garden, have a coffee with her, even get some work done. Like today. I needed to make 10 CDs for the cast and crew of the play and I did this while chatting with her. I bought her a blue tooth for her birthday. She took a bit of convincing but now she is thrilled. Today we purged her closet while chatting, reminiscing about our race running days together (she still had the race t-shirts, I tossed mine a long time ago). We talked about the sweaters we had knit for each other and how sad it is when one no longer wears them and has to make a decision before Goodwilling. I suggested photographing these handknit beauties. I've done that. None of us want a museum of old clothes and shoes and christening robes and wedding dresses or could I be wrong?

She said this is why people move, so they can store their history. I said this is why I'm so awful with empty rooms, I am compelled to fill them. I feel we are almost physically together during these long conversations.

And Blue Notes.

I watched Daughter do this a few years ago and found it to be a satisfying side effect to my compulsive book reading.

(Quote recently seen about book readers such as myself: I read so much my bookmarks are smaller books. Yeah.)

Like her, I now make little notes of passages I like. And I don't limit myself to books.

For stressful days:

My eyeballs aren't playing as a team. Dooce Blog.

On describing a hangover:

His head was filled with exploding drums of used motor oil. P239 - Good to a Fault.

A description of a disconnected woman:

A strange dim woman, like a flashlight with the batteries run down. P 301 - Good to a Fault

.

On London:

Black taxis soughed through the skin of recently fallen rain. P263 - Mistaken.

On a fruitless conversation:

Monosyllables were planted like bollards closing every avenue. - The Transit of Venus.

On love:

The tragedy is not that love doesn't last. The tragedy is the love that lasts. - The Transit of Venus.

Such bon mots can't be found on teevee or in the movies. This is why I read. And savour such phrasing. Again and again.

Grouchy Geezer Gripes

Both Nick and Ramana had recent posts on "Undesirables" and after commenting on both and offering examples, it suddenly hit me that the most appalling undesirable in my life is when I am talking to someone on the phone and they take another call expecting me to hold. Or interrupt me and announce "I have to take this other call" leaving me hanging. I also have call waiting (part of the telephone package I have, unfortunately) but the most important call is the one I'm on and I wouldn't dream of taking another call. Isn't it all about respect? I always hang up on such ignorance.

Another gripe is when I have a meeting with someone and they keep bouncing off to answer the phone and then have the gall to come back and say "Now where were we?" and before I can complete my answer, they bounce off again to take another inconsequential call (I hear their side of the phonecall, they are all trivial). I never answer the phone when I have company of any kind over. I consider it rude and every call can wait until my guest/client has left. I have got into the habit of bringing a book to such houses and reading while inwardly wanting to pack up and leave and maybe I should.

And isn't it an odd thing. I know atheists with absolutely no fear of death. The only ones who fear it are the religious. What happened to the promises of streets paved with gold on the other side and sitting at the right hand and pearly gates? Wouldn't so-called holy ones look forward to that? Embrace death, so to speak. Say: "At long last bliss!". But no. They "battle" it according to the obits. Sometimes a long, hard battle. Why?

Yackity Yack

Some bills are really, really good. I look at my telephone bill for last month and I laugh. One of the long distance calls shows:

Toronto......280 minutes.

Who was this person you chatted to for ZOMG - 4 hours and 40 minutes on the telephone?

Did you take a pee break? (no, but I could have if I wanted to)

Did you skip a meal? (yes, I completely forgot to eat)

And in case you think I busted the bank: I get a global rate (I call Ireland frequently) of 5 cents a minute.

I don't particularly like the telephone.

So it makes this length of call both astonishing and hilarious.

And this endless conversation happens with my daughter.

What do we talk about?

Politics, feminism, art projects, writing, teaching, partnerships, entrepreneurship, her beloved daughter, now 16-1/2 - my grandgirl, cooking, growing, ideas, dreams.

She called today, it was another marathon. I only know this when I got off the phone and looked at the clock and realize lunch was skipped. Again.

I think she is one of the most interesting people I have ever met. I've thought that since the day she was born. She has never ceased to fascinate me. Even when she painted our front steps bright blue when she was four. And dug out under our backyard fence and escaped when she was three. And registered herself for swimming classes when she was four (they phoned me as my forged signature was printed in poorly executed CAPS - "MOMY")and showed up four months early for JK school and refused to leave so that the principal called me and I had to physically pry her out of there as she screamed and then put a calendar on her bedroom wall so she could mark the days until she could legitimately be at school. She was already reading and writing at the age of 4. So far ahead of herself she had to skip Grade 4 or she would have died of boredom.

She still has the capacity to surprise me all the time. I learn from her.

I remember the writer Isabel Allende being asked one time about the relationship she had with her mother. She responded that it was the longest love affair of her life.

I could say the same about my daughter.