high school – today was alright

april is national poetry month. each morning i receive the Poem-a-Day. i don’t always read them. i may have shared one or two. i came back to this place and noticed that the last few posts were lyrics, verse. time to get back to writing.

in high school i fancied myself a slam poet — it was on trend at the time. there was a movie. slam poetry was accessible to a teenager growing up in the city at a particularly diverse school. it was necessary for a teenager with tension and oppression and privilege at a particularly diverse school. i was invited to read at various events, always standing out but also fitting in. we were all angry. we were all connected. we were all alone. we spoke the same love language.

this is one of the many places i learned to read a room. read each person, as if i’d known them for years. read them cover to cover. understand what they needed. understand where we connected; observe even the faintest touch: translucent linens, hanging out to dry on a hazy, sunny morning. just a whisper and i could find the passable bridge.

this has come in handy. this has crippled me. too much all at once separates soul from body from mind from present from past. the future happens, directionless. it has come in handy: promotions, friends, safety, efficient code switches.

poetry. i had to write a poem today for work. the “spring cleaning” newsletter. i searched for “cleanse poems” and “poem purification” and “cleansing quotes” and the algorithm served were verse and rants from holistic healers peddling new life through multi-day programs and righteous theists speaking of rebirth. are these people different? some say not really.

positively spring
winds rush through my soul lifting
my spirit. relief!

this post is not about sexting. it’s just something that fascinates me. i’m old enough to have only had access to a smartphone – the first iPhone – as an adult. i was intrigued with communication technology in high school though, where a majority of students had pagers. including myself. they were cheap, plans were probably something like $5 a month, and you had the joy of going to a payphone – or using your friend’s house phone while you were at their house – and punching in your number to send to a friend to call you back.

they didn’t know how long you’d be at that number. also, it may be a bit until they were able to return the page. they, too, had to find a payphone or, if they were at home, they could use that. or they could also use their friend’s phone while they were over there.

next level: pager code. basically texting. not T9. actual pager code. like short-form number series for longer phrases. or actually pressing numbers that represented letters on the telephone keypad to spell out messages. the number-letter relationship was visual. “8” was “A” as well as “B”. “12” was “R”. “143” was “I love you”. And then you had your “signature”, your tag, your handle. Mine was “41” which is also “hi”.

I did manage to get a coworker who was over 18 at my high school retail job to help me get a cell phone. it was some kind of rose gold, dull tan thing with a plastic flip to cover the keypad. it did not have texting. it did not have a camera. it made and received calls. it was purely functional but did a 17 year old really need that level of functionality – especially when hardly any of his friends had one, too? i hid this phone from my parents for at least a year.

when i moved away after high school i could get my own phone plan. i wanted a Siemens or Ericsson. They were very European and I felt particularly such at that time. Nokias seemed pedestrian as the US models were a bit lackluster and I wanted something more complicated, high maintenance, and not as reliable. my propensity for over-complication started young. so i had a crazy looking siemens phone that was still probably to this day one of my favorite phones. it was slim and silver with a blue pixelated screen – no graphics – and blue buttons.

this is a pretty boring post. i’m just waxing poetic about dead tech. but i think it’s so interesting. anyway, more siemens, then to ericssons/sony ericsson. now that was a kick-ass phone. you thought flip phones were satisfying to close. wait until you flicked your wrist and half your phone swung about and shut.

ok enough about phones. i lost pretty much everyone probably a paragraph or two back. communication technology. now no one really talks on the phone. i do. i sometimes prefer it to texting. i struggle with the screen typing, the autocorrect, the inpatience and anxiety of waiting for a reply the lack of context or emotion. texting can be rough. phone calls are easier. they can be fast – often faster than texting. that said, i wonder if apple has it right when they turned the iPod into a neutered iPhone. can (do?) people buy iPods instead of an iPhone and just text when there’s wifi. iPads have cell service. same question.

enquiring minds want to know.