Sad are the nights and rude are the awakenings...

I get more and more cushier as I get older. For someone who has moved around all her life; has never lived in one city for more than four years; has joined a school, and just as quickly gotten up, moved out and joined another one; to whom packing, labelling, lifting and unpacking boxes is a second occupation almost...for me, with all of that solid experience behind me, one would think I am good at this 'saying good-bye' thing. And I used to be good, a darned downright impeccable good-bye sayer, no drama, no tears, just plain and simple...until now.

I have wielded the all powerful 'good-bye' over and over again in my life--to family, to librarians, to friends, to teachers, to house-helps, to pets, to love interests, to neighbors...the list goes on. But now, the erstwhile habitual task of the good-bye saying has all of a sudden become unbearably difficult. Across-the-border friend has left to go live in her mountains, and preach the good of micro-finance to earthquaked-out peoples, and I am staring at this screen feeling every single heart wrench inside of me. A voice inside me whimpers, why them?, why not me?, tell me about savings and credit and livelihoods, me, I'm a good listener too! Yeah, yeah, relatively pathetic, I know, but the voice is still there.

Or, I should say, the voice was there. Its been a couple of months now, and the voice has been snuffed out by what I like to call the regulars--work, play and functionality. I've also started this Google Talk business with her, so it pleasantly interrupts my days of typing thesis pages on my keyboard. I've never really been one to do online chats, its somehow never caught on with me. I mean I know its great and all, and I'll do it periodically...but still, if I want to talk, I reach for the phone. Plus, chatting annoys me because every now and then you have these random people messaging you asking these stupid, mundane questions. They do this even if you're set to 'Away', and you can't block them because you don't hate them or anything, you're just not particularly too keen at that moment to answer probing questions about your life.

Case in point: What's up? Whatever was up the last week when you asked me the same question, dodo. How's school? However I want it to be. What are you doing after this semester? Sorry, don't feel like telling you. How're so-and-so? Ask them yourself, duh. And then, if you make the mistake of returning a 'What's up', be prepared for this launch of keyboard diarrhea. I'm great, doing this-and-that, one month from now I'm doing this-and-that, so-and-so is doing this-and-that. Blah. Basically, you wanted to talk about yourself. Double blah.

I'm sure many wonderful people have many more wonderful chat experiences, and not all my online buddies are meaninglessly probing. But the ones that are, are, and so, I generally avoid it all. Better to stay away, than put yourself and the other person through it all. But anyway, my point is (did I even have one?!) that I'm doing this Gtalk with my across-the-border friend, and for once, I'm glad for it. It's fun at some ungodly hour in the morning to have our usual one-liner sarcastic exchanges. She of course, is sharper than me, considering its in the afternoon for her. But nevertheless. However, I do like MSN better..they have cute smiley faces, and nice martini glasses.

Another complaint I have is generally against Gmail. I mean that tending-toward-infinity MB mailbox is great and all, but they scan your e-mails or something. I've had that account for a couple of years now, and only recently started using it. When I sent myself a note from my University account to Gmail, they had this little side-bar with a bunch of links to the University, things to do in the town, and etc. stuff like that. That bothered me. It might have utility value, but why are you looking at where I get my e-mails from?? So anyway, maybe I'm missing something, but that doesn't sit so well with me.

Say hello to Skype I guess!