Shut UP!

Me. Me. Me.

I think I've ridden the Ferry more this week than I have in a month, bringing me into contact with more than a few people who surpass those who expose their personal lives in blogs and online journals everywhere. Who give up sex lives, marital problems, banking details, discussions with their doctors and basic gossip to the world around them. Indeed, "...millions of gasping little voices"

I am talking about the cell phone user.

More and more, people appear to believe when they are on their mobile phones, they are encased in a secure bubble, that blocks out everyone else... the way Cate Blanchett mentions when, as Elizabeth I, she turns to a suitor and says, "I pretend there is a piece of glass between all of them and myself." It's that "I am invisible" belief drivers who pick their noses or sing off key with the window open have.

People discuss anything and everything in huge crowds, in loud voices.... things I would go into my bathroom and shut the door to discuss (even though I live alone)....with no regard at all to those of us who don't want to hear, those who are offended by the conversations, amused by the conversations or those who strain their necks trying to hear as many as possible.

Those people will not be named in this journal.

In one morning, I heard a man ask the woman on his phone if he, "...... take the time to come up there, baby, and I'm keeping it real here, am I going to get the best fuck of my life? 'Cause I hear you want me in your (insert a graphic word) bad."

There was the woman discussing her upcoming hysterectomy with her mother. In graphic details.

The banker who told another he was pretty sure a large number of banks would be failing in the next two years. (There goes my $47.52 in savings!)

The girl screaming at her boyfriend, in words I'd never heard... although I did take notes for later use, just in case.

Phones ring, and you hear, "Hello? Hello? Hello?" The phone is shaken.... come on people.. the only electronic device to work when you shake it is a laptop.... then, "Hello? HELLO??" At this time, I want to lean over and say, "I don't think they are there." But, who am I to ruin a good time for the person who obviously likes saying "Hello?".

There are beep rings, buzz rings, bell rings... 8472 kinds of song downloads. "Hello?" is said in a number of voice tones and accents.

And, they all share their private business. The worse offenders are the ones who feel the need to use the walkie talkie thingy (technical term) so we can hear both sides of a conversation we really, really don't want to hear.

Somehow, I'm not that interested in how he did you wrong by going to your girlfriends house and getting up on her booty and then she was in your face. Or something like that.

With a blog or online journal, I have the option of finding these things and reading them. Phone conversations are all around me, washing over me, filling my ears with words I don't want to hear, in languages I don't understand.

I am in E.A. to begin with.... Eavesdropper's Anonymous. I have a hard enough time not leaning and listening to things that are unique and worthy of note taking.

You discussing with your Aunt Louby how you passed your kidney stones, isn't.

Trust me.



Our Neville Fact:


Our Margaret refuses to allow the grandchildren to wear their shoes in her house. She takes great pride in the hardwood floors, and the handloomed rugs made by nuns who live in a convent off the coast of Malabar. They must wear only cotton socks, and walk around the rugs, which have plastic runners on them for the times one must step foot on them. When no one is around, Margaret takes off her shoes and stockings, and runs her toes in the dense wool, while drinking a cup of tea, and reading M.M. Kaye.