Day 8 - 2011

Although I haven't been status checking or updating mobilely (I may have just made that word up), I've been using my iPhone to connect just as much as ever.

My new favorite is podcasts via the NPR app. One of the things I really do miss about a car (as opposed to the gas and insurance costs) is listening to the radio. NPR lets my ears ingest 'casts about music, science, culture, strangeness, and recipes (I don't really cook so much, but foodporn is a staple of my diet) while I walk/ride to/from my various destinations. HIGHly recommended.

I also freakin' love Angry Birds. I've recently collected awards for slinging over 5K birds, popping over 1K pigs, and playing for over 15 hours. That's insane...I find that Angry Birds brings people together too: on more than 1 occasion (at least 5) I've struck up friendly conversation or banter with a fellow commuter based on AB. One random guy and I spent 3 subway stops hunched/talking strategy over his game trying to defeat those little green pigs because he noticed what world I was currently battling and asked for my help on a level he was working on that I had already beat. I never saw him again, but combining forces to work out your collective post-work anger and energy in the form of a collaborative attack on cartoon piggies is a way cooler way to spend a ride home than the typical avoidance of eye contact and nervous adjusting of your personal space via shifting of your appendages.

The other thing I like to do in the absence of FBing is to read. My literary intellectual staples are TIME magazine (physical, not an app, folded/torn in my bag), NPR news (app, when I'm not listening to it), NY Times (app), and before bed I'll consume for at least 10 minutes whatever book (actual, physical) is on my bedside table. I've been working my way through Love in the Time of Cholera and And the Band Played On for a few months now. Romance and reality are juxtaposed so that my dreams are on an even keel...can't have too much of either if I'm expected to have a healthily varied distribution of nighttime reveries.

I also like to play word games before I fall asleep. Most recently I'll take my turn in Words with Friends (app, a ripoff of Scrabble) as my last act before succumbing to unconsciousness.

I guess really all this points to is the fact that I naturally strive to connect with reality, friends, others, and myself even if I have to seek avenues other than FB to do it. Ease aside, I need people and I still have ways to "be" with them. I may spend much of my time by myself, but because of virtual or literary socialization, I never really feel alone. So cheers to WORDS...with friends, with strangers, about stuff, put to music, and for all that they mean.