Etch-a-text

Picture it, I'm out for dinner with a friend late last week and she gets a call on her cellular phone. No problem. Particulars are being sorted out, the simplest and only need-to-know details are being dealt with over a quick conversation, cause well, we are out to dinner. Then...she says 'just hold on a sec' and proceeds to move the phone out from her ear much like someone might be looking at the little screen to see who is interrupting via call-waiting and she shakes her phone. That's right kids, shakes it like an etch-a-sketch. She has to do this to get it's juices flowing again. What's sad is both the friend on the other line and myself have been witness to this before, and well, it was just a normalcy. 'Why get a new phone?' she says to me. It got me pondering. That's right, why do we have to be slaves to technology that is most often merely a luxury. It's sad how long it takes me to simply come up with plan B when I would normally just watch t.v. as plan A but don't really want stare at HGTV that day. I would love to read my books, work on scrap books, even enjoy the massive park across from my house. But no, I default to the 'idiot box' as my Mum calls it. The % of elementary aged school children with cell phones now would probably blow my mind, I rarely see a headrest in cars without a mini dvd-player dangling from it for the backseat toddlers on board, and what's with this new illness tagged as 'blackberry-thumb'. Who are we kidding? Day 2 of Sex and the City being released, I am in the theatre and Homegirl 1 row in front a few seats to my left is texting through the entire damn blasted movie. I could have rung her neck. Are we seriously that attached to our technological devices? I should have shaked her like an etch-a-sketch is what I should have done. The acronymed list is long of gadgets and electronic paraphernalia such as iPod, PVR, A/C, Xbox that I fear has us trapped and reliant on them so much, that we may have lost focus on what should really make us happiest, not to mention without having to purchase an extended warranty to go along with them. That's it...now can someone text me...I'm bored.

Toodles

Fung Shway

My bed now faces North. At least, when I am laying in it the top of my head is facing south, so I think it's facing north. I'm so not smart that way. So then I had to look into a little bit of bedroom feng shui and see if my chi was going to now be in total disrepair, or my chakra was going to head right for the gutter; as if it was trying to score a perfect 300 anyhow? What I got out of it was that although the Asian Zen masters of whateverness would rather me be on the opposite wall because i should face the door (a mirror's reflection will apparently cure this) what I HAVE got going for me is that my room is in the north part of the house, I have an empty space in the middle of my room and the eastern-most wall of my abode is green. Yay. I don't have hardwood floors or a west red wall, but I have been doing pretty good so far in my 28 years as far as me and my good friends chi and chakra are concerned to be perfectly honest. But what is it that calms and centres most people? I thank whoever invented the alphabet and all that came along with it. I think of songwriting, the outlet it creates for those who are so talented they can make magic out of it, and of course, the much larger audience who find solice in the words. The comfort a simple thought, idea, inspiration or gesture many get out of music is unbelievable. Our good ole' Oprah, she reads, and lately she been readin' a whole lotta self help kinda 'find your inner chi/chakra' business. Whatever kinda reading, whether be fictional that gets you of your current ho-hum-drumness in life, or inspiration in historical literature, interior design magazines, etc. I just think a lot of it correlates back to us being stimulated by the written word. Okay, back to feng shui. Not unlike I would like to get in tune with and educated on birth signs, it just seems that we may be able to gain a bit more grounding if you will by finding what brings us to the centre of calmness within ourselves. Whatever our current level of self may be. Bonggggg.

Toodles