26 Characters

Ever wonder what happens while you sleep? I sometimes think about what the opposite end of the earth is doing as I lay in bed fighting the darkness. I am a night owl; I’m more productive at night and I think better when the lights are dimmed.

My bed is second in comfort level on the list of beds I’ve slept in, but I don’t want to lay down yet. I’m up – thinking. Wondering what the next page of my short story holds.

The other day someone asked me what I wanted to be when I was a child. I had to think about it for a second, because I don’t reminisce about my childhood that often and probably should.

An architect. It took me about forty seconds to come up with my answer, which seems like a long time, but when you’re on what will turn out to be a two-and-a-half hour phone conversation, it’s really just a wrinkle in time. (Good book if you ever get a chance to read it).

My sarcastic answer for the same question is “rich.” I always dreamed of all the cool toys I could buy as an adult if I were rich…I still dream, but about other stuff.

I don’t have a lot of money, I’m still working toward that aspect of my life and I’m in no rush, because the ride there is the most challenging and most rewarding part. I’m also no architect, though I frequently add to the AutoCAD version of my dream house.

I don’t know what happens next, but I will eventually find out and knowing that puts me in a comfortable place. Perfect timing because my bed is four feet behind me and it, as I mentioned earlier, is also a comfortable place.
Win-win.

fict – ion – ar – y
adjective, plural – ar – ies.
1. A person in love with the high-definition feed between the title and credits.

We’re addicted to the happy ending. Moreover, we yearn to be a part of our own one-hundred-twenty-six minute masterpiece. Our nature is to believe that anything is possible – and it is, but human beings are too imperfect of creatures to recreate what we all endeavor to feel.

Granted, there will be times when life comes close to mimicking the movies, but it may not be when you expect it, and you may not be paying enough attention to even acknowledge or respect it. The awkward silence that leads to “picture-perfect” is only capable on the other end of a convex glass disc.

I have been told that life is not fair since I was about 110 pounds lighter, and I believe it every time – and, every time I share that same bit of advice with others. However, I am just as much of a fictionary as anyone, (one of the reasons I just sat through The Girl in the Café).

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t need music to fall asleep. It’s four in the morning, I could fall asleep on a brick patio in the nude…dude.

The movie that kept me awake was completely worth it and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m referring to time in relative terms – it would have been nice to catch it during an earlier showing (i.e. before the wee ante meridiem hours). It was bound to be good, though…any soundtrack that combines Sigur Rös and Damien Rice is worth the rub.

Good thing my car insurance is valid, because I’m crashing.

Note-to-self: insomnia severely effects my driving and my sense of humor.

If you oversleep your alarm clock and are running late for work tomorrow and you need to come up with a good excuse as to why you’re late, use this one…

Call your supervisor, wait for them to answer and repeat the following:

Good morning, it’s (insert your name here). So, I woke up this morning and as it turns out, Delaware is actually a state! (This is where you have to sound excited and pretend that you previously didn’t know that Delaware is a state and is actually the first state – which you might actually not know.)

Then continue on with how traumatized you were from finding all of this out that you spent twenty-minutes internally debating this with yourself (and your pillow). You would have come to work, however once you start the internal monologue, your psychologist has advised against interrupting the “other” personality.

Let him or her know that you will be in to work once you complete the closing arguments of the debate.

I’ve never used it, but hypothetically this should work. The only reason it wouldn’t is if you live in, or around Delaware. If that’s the case, then you probably haven’t secured a job that requires you to arrive on time, or at all.

Riding down from my mom’s office on the ninth floor, the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. A bubbly brunette eagerly climbed into the elevator and noticed that, oddly enough, I too was traveling to the first floor. Within seconds, she started up a conversation about how happy she was to have a job, and as an added bonus, she also found that instead of being an administrative assistant (embellished term for “secretary”), she would actually be doing more with her degree in law.

From the fourth floor to the lobby, I shared in her excitement and as we exited the building together, I congratulated her again on the achievement and parted heading in the opposite direction. As I rounded the corner, I wondered what would have happened had I made a different choice – perhaps said, “lets go to lunch and celebrate.”

I run into people every day – from those I barely make eye contact with, to those whom I actually exchange words with. For instance, the other day a friend and I met for lunch and on the way back I collected two more penny friends. One was the young woman at Starbucks who comp’d my triple-Venti, nonfat, extra-hot-with-whip white mocha. (And, I love when they ask if it is hot when I say that…no, I want an extra-hot, iced latté.)

I accidentally left my wallet in the car and I only realized my ass felt less-padded moments after sputtering out my order. The cashier was ready to wait for me to run back to my car, but almost immediately she looked up from re-stocking the pastry case and kindly said, “well, then your drink is on us today.”

Awesome points: plus one. I thanked her two-and-a-half times before getting back to my wallet (and, incidentally, my car). On the way back to the office (it’s coming September 27!), I found myself stopped next to, what I had to assume was a UMKC student. She was clearly listening to her radio and having a private jam session when she looked over, mid-verse and noticed me noticing her. Simultaneously, we both broke into laughter and smiled at each other fourteen times before we hit a fork in the road and headed in separate directions.

Penny friends: noun – could be just like any other friend, but you know nothing about where they have been, nor where they are going. Names are not important, because you’ll most likely never see them again, and if you do, it will consist of you trying to figure out where you saw them and that just gets awkward…like run-on sentences.

What if you met a penny friend named Penny?

Have you ever heard an echo in cyberspace? You won’t ever hear an echo in outer space, but can anyone tell me why?

Social networking has reached the point where you can pretty much guarantee that at least one of your friends is “online now” any time you choose to sign-in.

With so many different social networking sites, what has happened to what a friend once was? I remember when I could name all of my “top friends” on two hands. I’m not saying that the Internet is responsible for diluting friendships down to someone “you once met”…actually, no, I am.

I am no stranger to it either. I can honestly say that I have several online friends that:

• I will probably never talk to again, but may run into
• I will never see again, but may continue to stay in contact with via messages or wall posts
• I met online and will neither see nor talk to in person
• I don’t remember meeting and, while I’m not sure why I added them, I may not delete

Networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Virb, YouTube, Friendster, Classmates, Orkut and SixDegrees (the list goes on and on) all amplify your ability to add a friend and eternalize that once-euphoric feeling you experienced when your yearbook received another scribbled HAGS or HAKAS just before the final bell of high school. Now, all it takes is a few clicks of your mouse.

And, let’s face it, it all boils down to absolutely nothing. I can make twenty-five friends within minutes online, but I won’t remember them twenty-five minutes from doing so.

When was the last time you dusted off your yearbook to read what your friends and former classmates wrote? “Dusted off” suggests it has been a long time – if you can locate where it is collecting dust. I’m not against the affliction we all have with social networking, I’m just wondering when it will fade like your senior photographs and kick-ass summers.

What has the half-life of our friendships been stretched to?

Imagine a friendship manifested as a chewed piece of gum. If before social networking, via the Internet, the gum was stretched to fourth grade, when your parents moved because dad got a new job, or just past the falling out you and your best friend had in seventh grade over something you can’t remember now, or to the first day of college when you both separately realized that priorities now held new meaning.

Obviously, these three situations require our “friendship” gum to be stretched to three different lengths, but are all comprised of the same piece of gum. So, keeping with my chewy metaphor, was the friendship stretched so far that a break was inevitable?

My theory is that, as in life, you can always fold another piece of gum into your mouth and stretch it even further. Even if it does break, both ends can be pieced back together again (better than Humpty’s ass) with little evidence of the initial fracture.

Impersonal communication is just that – it is “impersonal.” In addition, you do not always get the response you want, if any. Ignoring a friend in person is just plain, fat-free rude. Transpose that same situation to your inbox and you can blame the silence on technical difficulties, human error, or any number of excuses.

Social networking appeases our innate need to communicate with others…our sense of belonging if you will. But, when no one is there, what do you do?

I prefer a healthy pinch of Big League Chew while I write.