2009: The Year I... Hot & Personal by G. Charles Wright

Back in July I blogged about my need for a new dentist.  I got several recommendations and never followed up on any of them.  I have not been to the dentist now in over a year.  That's because I:

A. Am pretty meticulous when it comes to cleaning my teeth.
B. Not fond of dentists.
C. A huge procrastinator
D. All of the above.

If you answered D, you are correct!  If you answered C, you are still correct, because procrastination is really the culprit here.  My new years resolutions this year are few, but procrastination plays into all of them.  Here are my resolutions for 2009:

1.  Stop my new occasional smoking habit.  I know that it will grow back into a festering two pack-a day habit.  And it's totally gross.
2.  Stay cute
3.  Start returning my friends phone calls WITH phone calls...and in a timely manner.

When it comes to talking on the phone, I am generally not a fan.  I don't like it.  Which is odd, because I used to looooove it.  As a teenager and as a twentysomething, I would spend hours and hours and hours on the phone talking to friends.  But when email came along, I took to it like a fish to water.  And text messaging on my phone feels like an extension of my arm.  To have it removed would be like amputation.

So to that end, I tend to be in communication more with my email and text friends, but I seem to lose touch with my phone call friends.  2009 is the year that I must change that.  Or risk losing some of the best friends an anti-social hermit like myself could ever ask for!

And I'm too old to make new friends.

Something I've noticed about myself and our culture is that technology has continued to make us less social and poorer communicators.  All under the guise of social networking sites and mobile communication devices.

Instead of sitting down, face to face, or even over the phone to have a conversation with someone, we now just type to each other.  Some might say that this has brought on a new age of letter writing, but truthfully it hasn't.  It's simply expanded the adolescent "art" of passing notes in class onto a global and ageless scale.  Take blogs for instance.  Most of you reading this know more about me and my life than some of my closest friends (those that don't read my blogs, or text me, or email me).  We reveal more about ourselves, while communicating less with each other.  Isn't that odd?  It kind of snuck up on us, I think.

So in 2009 I vow to communicate more!  That's my big goal.  Well...that and staying cute and smoke-free.

Comments

[Aloysius]

i tend to not talk on the phone too much these days because i now only have a cell phone and i'm afraid of brain tumors.

[John K]

I am shocked, shocked I say, to learn of this semi-smoking habit! I have never, in the couple of years we've been friends, seen you smoke...had no idea. Thank God I read your blog!!

[John K]

Oh and I forgot...two things:

1) Great blog with fantastic points! (Although I do hate talking on the phone as well)

2) I just found a great new dentist if you're still looking for recommendations. Leonard Cohen in Sherman Oaks...on Woodman.

[MJ]

Well, I must have the wrong phone number bc I texted you over the holiday while I was shopping at our old place of employment,Mother's Market in Costa Mesa, & never heard back...what's gives?

Let's do something!!!!

[jefbot]

so true, man. 90% of how i communicate these days is via texting, IM, my website, twitter or email, and i can feel a little bit of my soul disintegrating with each "send" button i push. but i'm dead inside anyway, so, whatever.

[Nictate]

This line of yours is such a terrific observation (and nicely phrased, to boot):
"It's simply expanded the adolescent 'art' of passing notes in class onto a global and ageless scale."

[HayesODESSA29]

Cars and houses are not cheap and not every person can buy it. But, home loans was invented to support different people in such kind of situations.