thanks for the memories....

i haven't checked email or blogs for two plus weeks. i think i'm bi-polar. thanks oprah! maybe that truly explains my innate fear of connecting with people, answering the phone and the worse anxiety producer of all - checking messages both on my answering machine or my mobile phone (that's been 8 days, until tonight that is.....) not normal, not normal, not normal. reminds me of my dear old friend in sydney, abby normal, she was a good bloke. i miss her, he was nice!

the list of messages (15 on mobile and 14 on home phone) goes like this:

• stan (you'll be getting a call back soon, promise!)

• automated call from pathmark supermarket's pharmacy with an automatic message to retrieve about refills or some hard to find prescription i haven't asked for yet -- the auto retrieve doesn't work

• ron in jacksonville calling in a strange voice that sounds pekinese -- but failed to identify as my former dog sitting client, sasha, so totally not buying into it this time

• ron again, his voice, work phone, hello, isn't one message enough?
  

• ron again, voice growing agitated...called me a biatch. note to self, have a bialy from bagel store downstairs for breakfast and when you talk to him rub it in that he is stuck in florida where the meaning of judo and jew dough are disparately different things. neither of which is going to provide sustenance in his waning youth.

• ron again, now my voice was agitated - son of a bitch! he knows my one message rule. if you haven't died i will call you back when i'm done being non-functional...but thanks for ringing and ringing and ringing and driving me further into the chasm of non-life i've been dwelling in....by the way, if you have died, it's completely ok to leave as many subsequent messages as you like, just be sure to speak slowly and clearly and let me know where you went so i can tell all your friends....don't expect a call back though - i currently don't have long distance on my home phone (i wish the phone company would figure out why this is and fix it finally, i paid them the 7.42 i owed them 4 months ago before they turned it off...weirdness). while i have unlimited calling after 9pm on my mobile (and all weekend), i really can't be bothered to figure out the country codes for where i think most of my friends might call from....easily substantiated if they call collect (sorry, wrong number, no speaka-zee-eeenglish....)

• no message, dead air. two seconds of my life that i'll never get back. wait, make it four. i listened again in case i somehow missed it. might have been one of those collect calls....

• beeep. beeep. beeep

• beeep. beeep. beeep

• beeep. beeep. beeep - yep, this is only slightly annoying so far....try being frozen to your spot as the machine goes off repeatedly....if i were anything less than sane but more than manic or psychizo i would just assume it's those who cannot be named since the alphabet has no letters in it...you know, the ones with the anal probes that cartman is so fond of...

• beeep. beeep. beeep

• beeep. beeep. beeep - an anal probe would have been easier than these messages now.

• beeep. beeep. beeep

• beeep. beeep. beeep

• beeep. beeep. beeep - whoever you are with the freakin' fax machine, haven't you figured out that a) my fax machine is out of paper, b) or doesn't exist (ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!), c) you have the wrong freakin' number and after 11 or 15 autodials a day with no response over the course of nearly 6 months now, maybe, just freakin' maybe, you should delete my g-d phone number from your calling list.

• psychiatrist - missed my appointment since i couldn't function and decided i hate her. shouldn't have to work so hard to get the drugs i have been on for 4 years that work....don't lead me on and have me back week after week to check up on the drugs you want me to take that i haven't filled the Rx for....oops, she doesn't catch that bit i'm sure since she doesn't comprehend the confusion of 9 or 10 scrips a month all filled at different times, is a gi-normous ass-pain when it comes to refilling them....thanks MEDICARE! life is so much better with the US of freakin' A helping fill my pill boxes...if only the co-pays were covered by Medicaid instead of my pocket and the refills could all be at once instead of what, a 3 day window before you're out of something. jackasses, from the doctors to the administrators, but mostly the paper pushing pill happy government whores elected based on plastic hair, old cash, distant youth and ability to buy what you want when you want it, regardless of grocery store item or job titles....for example, that hillary clinton fella'....he must have trousers custom made since he's got some big cajones....but i digress....

• lawyer - call back need every pertinent detail of your needs and pending litigation/lawsuit against nyc....AGAIN....and AGAIN....and AGAIN. for the sake of all things holy roman empire related....if i could put the freakin' details into words and type it, and fit it on a freakin' card, business, birthday or other, i'd fill in their gaps to advantage, but as it is, i'm bored of hearing my gosh-darned story over, and over and over...and since i have no attention span, i find it hard to listen to it like that....so frequently, though i can't get it out in sequence anyway, i lose my place and find i've left enormous gashes of pertinent info on the cutting room floor. as much my fault as theirs? perhaps, but sheeesh....they went to law school, they should invest in a freakin' tape recorder or something....i know i'm sounding like a broken record....

• surprise, it's ron again....i wonder if i should call him back or change my number? i'm up for input here....after 3 calls, is it stalker or concerned friend with short term memory loss? i'm going for needy then stalker and then change the number....how do you block calls from a specific number...damn me and my tech-tardedness...always pops up when it's least convenient....

that was about it from the home phone....isn't that horrible....i've been scared of listening to these messages because of an unknown terror in my mind...and the most dangerous thing i encountered was a fax machine running a muck with no supervision (by the way, yes, i *69ed the fucker, got the phone number but it's a switchboard trunc so it doesn't go to an operator, it rings back to the fax machine. i may go out and buy a fax machine from staples this weekend and just set it to autodial with their number and have it go every 7 minutes for 7 days before i return the machine for a full refund....i would put a single page into memory and it would read:

--- FAX ---

To: YOU - WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE (ASSHOLE!)

From: the guy you've driven insane for 6 months with 9,782 beeping beeping beeping messages

Subject: an AK-47 and a rooftop short of Postal....

I hate to ruin it for you, but keep dialing, when you hit 10,000 calls to my home phone, I'm fairly certain the legal system will buy the insanity plea....