old friends

NPR makes me feel smart. I might have mentioned this before, back when I first got unemployed; listening to NPR makes me feel like I'm in touch with what's going on in the world. It makes me think deep thoughts while I'm in the car, thoughts that would otherwise be completely wasted on: "Oooh, birdie", (and before you raise your voices to defend my keen intellect from such obviously unfair criticism, let me assure you that "Oooh, birdie," and "Shiny thing!" are in fact the top two thoughts I tend to have in any given moment). Not only does NPR make me feel like I'm smart, it also gives me smart things to parrot back to people during social situations. It's particularly satisfying to impress complete strangers with the sort of hard-core, political analysis that NPR tends to offer when all the conversation you might have had to date has led them to the conviction that you're quite possibly a bit of a goober.

Him: "So, what exactly do you do for a living?"

Me: "You know, it's quite possible that the removal of FCC regulations against any broadcaster reaching more than 35% of the population at any given moment could lead to massive media consolidations of the type that will, in the end, eliminate the diversity that has protected the consumer until now and create monopolistic hand-in-glove blind spots insofar as news is concerned."

Her: "Um, right."

Him: "Huh?"

Me: "Were you aware that, for all the vaunted diversity of the web and its alleged immunity to such monopolistic tendencies, that thirty percent of all internet activity took place under and within the umbrella of AOL-Time Warner last year?"

Her: "Let's go, Bob."

Unlike PBS, NPR has yet to do anything to tick me off. Let it never be said that a Japanese person couldn't hold a grudge. I have a racial stereotype to live up to. I would be perfectly willing to give NPR my money, if I had any to spare at the moment. I encourage all of you to do the same.

In fact, I demand all of you to do the same. Send NPR your money. I'm sick of funding drives. There're only so many times that an unemployed person can listen to pleas for funding before said person -- if said person isn't made of stone, and this person is definitely made of some sort of gelatinous substance -- caves in. If there are those out there who don't want me to end up completely penniless and without Internet access, the best way to prevent that is to eliminate all NPR funding drives forever by giving them all the money you own.

Okay. Wait. This isn't the direction I was going to go when I first started writing.

Back up a bit.

In fact, back up a whole bit. Because, crud, I don't remember where I was going to go with this whole thing.

Start over.

This whole past week has been a sort of "oh, hi" sort of week.

"Oh, hi" basically means that I've been coming across (or meeting up with) friends that I haven't talked to in several months. The sad thing is that liking or disliking has nothing to do with my not having any contact with these people in months; it has more to do with my incredible social inadequacies, my pathetic inability to remember exactly what day or month it is, and a chronic fear of the telephone that hasn't been alleviated by my acquisition of a cellular telephone several months ago.

I delivered a belated Christmas present to Cathy's place, -- my personal Dragon Lady; everybody needs at least one -- who I haven't seen in well over six months; I then went on to have dinner with the Eye, who told me that Cathy was currently away on college auditions with her son, Whitney. "College?" I said, blankly. "Whitney?"

Then on Saturday, my old manager got married, and at the wedding, I ran across Michelle and Greg. We clung to each other, strangers in a strange land as we were; I knew only a few people there, and those only by distant encounters. I was entertained to discover that Michelle is one of those rare and endearing people who cry at weddings. Every time a glimmer of bridal white moved into view, I'd discover tears in Michelle's eyes.

"We have to do sushi again," she told me, sternly.

Well, yes, we do.

I'm a bad friend, not least because I'll allow ridiculously long periods of time to go by before it occurs to me that I haven't seen a person in a while. "How weird," I'll think, and then try to look them up, only to be told when I finally make contact that so-and-so heard through the grapevine that I'd died two years ago in a car accident and gosh, how are you? This is obviously not the material from which close friends are made.

On the other hand, this is the sort of material from which eccentric aunts and godmothers are made. I have therefore decided that I will create a new career for myself serving as story fodder for families with young children. Henceforth, when I encounter a family with children still young enough to believe pretty much anything you tell them, I will lie creatively and excitingly, without any recourse to truth whatsoever beyond the inarguable facts of gender. All else: name, age, career, history, scars, invisible tattoos, will be up to the whim of the storyteller. Every child should have a fascinating, slightly unbelievable character who shows up now and again during one's youth. This is something that I can excel in. I will be that person.

Back in the old days, my career goal included being that little woman who gets interviewed on news shows saying, "Gosh, he always seemed like such a nice young man. Who would have known?"

All in all, don't you think my new goal is a little better?