My Tent on The Beach

I’m getting a new post in within a month of the last so that is progress in my book.  After a couple months of hiatus, I’ve decided to fire the old girl up again (no, not me…thanks for asking) and give back to regular reflecting its glorified status of old.  In some ways, it seems obsolete this mode of reflecting…even I think if I can’t get it done in 140 characters, what am I doing?  But recently I’ve re-learned the value of capturing thoughts more substantial than mere snippets of frustration or mirth.  What I’ve learned in this time away is that there’s no legacy of those things…thrown away thoughts…that’s all they are.

What I’ve especially missed is the log of my own thoughts that writing like this creates.  We don’t think in a vacuum…we don’t have disconnected ideas…they all stem from exactly where we are at a particular time and place.  And as I’m having a go-around yesterday with Kristine about cycles and patterns of relationships and friendships and discussions, I realized I missed my own proof of those very things.  Over time, I can be my own advisor…because something I thought about 17 days ago might have been a problem then but might just be the perfect answer now.

So…I’m back to it…for my own sake.  Of course, things are a little different.  In the storm of the last couple months I got a job…like a real one…with a desk and a chair and a coffee station…and I can only wear jeans on Fridays.  And I may have sorta changed my dissertation topic…kinda…okay…really.  And I cut my hair…I might be moving to Illinois for reals (like my license plates and everything)…and I’m an aunt…and a godmother…to two different kids.  Cool.  And I’m not thinking about moving to a different apartment…in fact, I’m painting the dining room and thinking about getting a dining room table.  And opera is my new hobby. And I have business cards now.  And I almost started asking that people call me Kathleen…but then I got freaked out by the formalness of it so I guess I’m Katie for life. And…

With all this newness, I did think about changing the name of the blog.  It comes from a comment friends years ago made about not ever seeing the place I lived…it could be a tent on the beach somewhere and no one would be the wiser. With this new level of stability, maybe a tent isn’t the right place to think about being for good.

And then I remembered I paid for this domain name…so a tent it shall be.  Long live the tent.

You know what makes me seethingly, nuttier-than-nuts, over the top annoyed?  When people break the communication chain leaving you hanging in a communication lurch, hands tied, and wondering.

I’ve noticed the communication chain to be very important to me, I think as a single person, moreso than 1) married people, 2) men, 3) introverts, 4)…okay, well, considering the number of people included in those groups, maybe I’m just crazy about the rules of communication.  But I find them fairly simple so I’m not sure why everyone just can’t get on board.  They are as follows:

1. When you initiate the communication, you (the initiator) cannot (cannot) for fear of being called a stalker contact the same person until they contact you back.

2. When you are the receiver of said communication*, you return it.

2b. When returning, it is proper to return via the mode the initial communique was delivered. (Thus, it is completely outside of the rules to return a phone call with an e-mail, etc.)

*This of course assumes the person contacting you is a friend or bound to you by a communication-based relationship (boss, brother, the dog groomer, etc.)

Those are the rules.  That’s all of them.  No overly-wrought communications lingo, addenda, or small print.  Of course, I realize that there are circumstantial situations that may preclude the rules and that’s fine; these are general and finite.

Unfortunately, I’m now left in the void of the disrupted chain of communication.  I blame myself.  I sent a vague, short e-mail to a friend fully expecting a response.  In all reality, it probably looked fairly innocuous and not meant for any kind of repechage (it’s a word…ask Susan, she knows)…but now my hands are tied…by my own damn rules of communication. Why?  No return.  Rule 2 was utterly tread all over.

Technically, I suppose since rule 2 was broken, all bets are off and I–as the victim, truly–could cite that in my trial for stalking a friend.  But we all know, per the labeling theory, what the title “stalker” can bring you in life…essentially, not good things.  No, I’ll just have to wait.  But that then brings up the weirdness that will come when I encounter said friend face-to-face; of course, I’ll want to ask why they never e-mailed me back…but I won’t…because in another set of communication rules, the non-returnal of calls, emails, disruptions of the chain of any species, cannot be inquired about directly for sure look of desperation.

The chain has been broken.  It wasn’t even a chain, really.  Just a simple two sentences with a question to finish it off.  Gone forever.  It’s the same dismay I feel when I know the opportunity to change potential energy into kinetic energy has passed. It’s a sad day for physics just like it’s a sad day for this lost communication.

Farewell, e-mail. Farewell.