By Maria Padhila
Communication technology, too often my lifeline and love connection, has not been my friend recently. I guess that’s the instant karmic payback for making anything material a lifeline. But is there anything like that zap vibration of an incoming text from a loved one, especially if you keep your phone in your pocket?
I lost my phone, most likely in a cab, after a party a few days before Halloween. It wasn’t even that much of a party. It was an artists’ party in an unused, cement-dust strewn and carpet-glue-reeking office space, and there was one really good artist there and probably some more interesting mayhem around, but it was hard to get into things.
Our daughter was at a friend’s house, and I’d put together a dinner at Isaac and my place for both the guys, and it was one of the nights of that freak snowfall, and all we really wanted to do was stay home and lie around, but we’d bought tickets, so… and there was the other issue of who gets to lie around with whom, which could have disturbed the general good vibe of the evening, so… off we went. Since the snow had stopped, we walked on the way there, and there were some funny moments with our costumes that started getting me into the flirt/play/Situationist mindfuck mode (that I find most often at Burner events).
There were some people I was happy to see there, but I just felt kind of blah. And after about an hour there, I went into the bathroom, and it was full of drunken young women, staggering and even puking. I was frankly worried about them — but it wasn’t the kind of context where I could help strangers. Dull, disturbing, depressing, cold. All in all I’d have rather been in a tent at Occupy.
And I found myself checking my phone. Until after the cab ride home. When I couldn’t check it anymore.