(hi how r u?) (ok) (fine)

It is so beautiful in New York right now.
The beautifulness mocks me.
“I’ll rain the next time you get dressed up, the next time you plan a big night out. I bet I can freeze the pants rights off you. Today I’ll be beautiful though. Today I’ll shine. You can look at me, through that big 23rd story window. You can sit there and half-way work and you can contemplate as hour rolls into hour how today, in its own way, was wasted.

Sit at your desk and quietly know that even at this moment, well before noon, today is already over.

I worry about us.
Sometimes.
I worry about the possible oncoming death of human interaction.
In a world where we move from friendster account to instant messenger, from text message to blog
In a time when we can live through entire 24 hour spans feeling a part of this human world because our blackberry was checked eleven times and our email inbox is full
In an age when there is no need to return phone calls because the fact that we had messages in the first place was good enough, I have to admit I worry, just a little.
I mean, entire relationships can develop with little to no shared contact.

There is a difference between connected and connection.

I’m right on the cusp. My telephone statement said I used 1450 minutes of free PCS to PCS calling in the last two weeks alone but I to this day refuse to go on IM. I’m obsessed with this new universe of “blog” but the concept of texting is still lost on me. I do it regularly, but doesn’t it take twice as long? Are we so afraid of speaking to each other that even a phone call is too much?

I think I’m just more or less worried about the kids who are ten now, the kids who have just been born, and those kids’ kids. Will they ever read a book? Will they ever read anything that didn’t come accompanied by an electronic ring? Bill Gates was on MTV last week and said that within five years computer screens will be on every surface of the American home- from your bathroom walls to your kitchen countertops. But on a recent trip to L.A. (where it should be noted that I had an amazing time) I couldn’t help but see that we already move throughout our days going from one screen to another. Our powerbook g4s lose our interest and it’s onto our sidekicks. Once all ‘contacts’ have been made we maybe scroll through the face of our ipod where we tune in and tune out for a while. And when we’ve exhausted ourselves on this contraption we sit down in front of the biggest isolator of all- our televisions.
From screen to screen to screen we fill our days.
You’re looking at one right now.
They sure are great. I for one don’t know what I’d do without all of mine. But that’s all they are—is screens. Blocking me from you.
And you from everyone else.