Runcible Blog

Last night I had the most bizarre telephone related experience ever. There is a feature available on the phone that is so cool, weird, and powerful that I almost don't want to reveal what it is lest it become even more abused. But I'll tell you anyway.

It's called Sprint Relay Online, which apparently is a relatively new service. Anyone from anywhere can go to that website, type in a phone number, and be connected with a "relay operator" whose job it is to read aloud to the recipient anything that you type. After the operator reads the text and says "go ahead", you speak your response, and the operator types it for the other party. Talk about a creepy experience! The entire conversation is relayed through an operator in a call center somewhere. You really have to try it out to know what I'm talking about. Here's what their FAQ says:

4. Are there any charges for using Internet Relay?
No, there are no charges for making calls through the Sprint Relay Online. No charges for long distance calls. Free calls!

5. Is it secure? Are my calls private?
Secure! Private! Your calls are handled with full respect to confidentiality. There are security measures to ensure that your calls are made in complete privacy.

I know it's a system designed for the convenience of deaf/mute people, but nothing stopped my friend Amie from typing some totally ridiculous things to me and having an innocent operator swear at me. It's priceless!

I can't even imagine what sort of things those relay operators have to read and type.

Try it out before Sprint realizes the Pandora's box they've just developed. It's like a guilty pleasure (unless you're deaf/mute...in which case, it's a useful service) worth minutes of hilarity.

I wish I could shut off my nose while I'm sleeping. Sometimes early in the morning I wake up to the smell of cooking food. Most recently it was pasta sauce, but it never smells pleasant in the morning. I don't know why; I usually smell oniony meatloaf -- even if it isn't.

While eating at my aunt's house in Derry I saw a typical suburban family taking a stroll around the neighborhood. A little girl, maybe 8 years old, started chasing after her younger brother. Father yelled to her, "You don't run like this! (imitating her flailing arms). Tuck your elbow in!"

If I cared more about those yuppie slugs I would have run out there and dope slapped the guy for giving his kid a hard time about her stride. But I don't care enough. Unfortunately, these suburban kids are growing up in a world of dreadfully boring wealth and eerily quiet neighborhoods. Their parents micro-manage their lives in an attempt to make up for a lost childhood or a lifetime of unfulfilled dreams. It's an urgent rush to cram everything into their little lives as possible -- ballet, football, baseball, pony rides, basketball, karate, music lessons, ad nauseam.

For once I was happy to return to Lawrence, to return to sanity.

Wednesday was the Annual Central Catholic Alumni Cross Country Race (or ACCACCR for the acronym-inclined). Although I had time to think about training for the race, I didn't quite have time to train. But watching was tiring enough. Afterwards, everyone met in the gym for the Annual Post-Race Pizza Fest (APRPF). Nothing mixes better than cross country running and pizza.

Since I hadn't seen any of my former teammates and teachers in about a year, I was curious to see how everyone is handling college, or teaching, or whatever. in the process, I realized a couple mildly profound things:

I still don't have much in common with my classmates/teammates. I didn't throughout high school, and I don't now. It seemed to me that no one had changed much since high school -- that college was merely a continuation of the same homogeneity, the same comforting mediocrity to which everyone aspired in high school. Maybe I'm being too harsh considering I didn't have the time, will, or opportunity to converse deeply with my former acquaintances. But at first glance, everybody looked the same (same as eachother and same as they did two years ago), and, more importantly, everybody conformed to the same roles they did back then.

I sort of talked about it before, but it's more apparent now. I think I spent my high school career trying to fit in with insular people and lost a lot of opportunities to be myself. It's almost like my growth as a person was stunted rather than nourished by my high school experiences. Of course it's not that simple. Decisions I made back then (even ones that prevented me from being myself) make me who I am today -- whoever that is. If I could go back in time to freshman year of high school I'd probably tell myself to be more outgoing, learn more about important issues, and forget about trying to feel validated by one clique or another. Easier said than done.

Another thing I thought: boy, if I was as "cool" in high school as I am today, my life would've been quite different. That sentence is almost laughably embarrassing, but it's true. I feel that I have to clarify, explain, rationalize, elucidate on the "coolness" factor, but I won't. Suffice it to say, I'm not exactly cool now, so that sentence isn't saying much...

These small reunions give me an opportunity to think about high school, try to make sense of my time there and understand the culture of today's inmates. The other 364 days in the year I'd rather just file those memories away in a dusty cabinet. I was once again reminded of the smug, "I'm better than you little high school kids/teachers because I graduated" attitude prevalent in recent graduates. Personally, I try to watch myself and be a little more humble and empathetic, but who knows, I might seem just as smug. At any rate, every year the previous graduating class returns to walk on their tiptoes, stick out their chests, speak with a deeper voice, and sarcastically shake hands with their former teachers. They might say things like, "College is great/sucks", "you still teach here??", "I remember when the lockers were a different color/there was an extra door somewhere/there weren't uniforms/we didn't have as many electives. Now, it's so different!". I overheard one recent grad say that he was just stopping by to pick something up and that he decided a while ago that he didn't want to be "that guy who visits high school every year." Good thinking -- you might get cooties otherwise.

As early as the summer after graduation, high school all of a sudden becomes ancient history; those 4 years can be recalled with a kind of supercilious nostalgia, a naïve superiority that hopefully evaporates with time. It's tough for me to dredge up fond memories of the time. Actually, it's tough to remember anything from high school. My time there passed in a blur like wiping a sponge across a detailed oil painting landscape.

The school essentially molds students into little, productive cogs. Admittedly, we're supposed to be Catholic, "upper-middle-class" cogs, but cogs nonetheless. The credo used to say something about "fostering future leaders" or some such hoo-hah, which seems like a classic example of a roper-doper. Hardly any student understands that message of "leadership". In fact, leadership seems contrary to the idea of a religious education. Sure, there were some leaders -- the officially sanctioned, kosher ones who towed the line. Hey kids, it's cool to be a leader...as long as you follow authority figures!

While I was talking with a religion teacher someone mentioned that another teacher was lecturing about phallic symbols, to which the first teacher expressed concern. I hope he was just kidding though. "Catholic" supposedly means universal, inclusive, but you wouldn't guess that by attending a catholic school. Most of the material is skewed, edited, censored, or otherwise limited. Curiosity is discouraged; creativity is squelched. It's no wonder many of my classmates end up having children too young -- teachers weren't allowed to explain how not to get knocked up.

Though I'm not keen about catholic schools, I can't criticize the teachers who are dedicated to their jobs. Sometimes it seems, however, that the quality control for teachers stinks. There are some good ones, few great ones, and far too many awful ones. A teacher who will remain nameless couldn't believe that my class had close-minded cliques when I tried telling him about it. But isn't that how every high school class is?

To summarize: In high school, everybody tries to figure out which segregated group they belong in, most kids waste time thinking that some other people are cooler and as a result take out their frustrations on others, "leaders" exist in name only, and the school hopes to subdue its population just long enough to package, polish and ship the students off to their next stop in life's assembly line: college. Administrators say, "don't hesitate to come back" with feigned warmth while they dust off their hands and start molding the next batch of cogs.

Enough with high school. That's ancient history, dude.

I look forward to next year's reunion...

A car burns on Bennington St.

The old man and I went to see Mystic River Saturday night. It was wicked pissa. I especially enjoyed hearing all the culaful accents. Oh, those actors tried so haaaahd to mimic the Boston vernaculaah, so I shouldn't criticize them too much. But, man, were those brutal attempts. Laura Linney (Annabeth Markum) should win the academy award for worst accent. She sounded like she had just gotten off the boat from Cliched-Irish/Catholic-ville. (boy, that was funny....) Surprisingly, Boston.com said this of the accents: "The infamous accent varies from actor to actor, but there's nothing to match the horror that was Rob Morrow in ''Quiz Show.'' For the record: Linney nails it, Robbins comes close, and Penn's all over the map." Uhhh, if she "nails" it, then I must be out of touch with South Boston. whatever.

Oh, and I liked the little references for Boston audiences: the depressing Red Sox, Dunkin Donuts coffee, the WB56 newscast (huh? Nobody watches channel 56. I guess that's the whole "synergy" thing -- WB56 and Warner Brothers studios: both crap.), and of course the ubiquitous Catholic priest child molester (there must be thousands of those).

After the movie I drove around town a little and happened to come across the car fire above at about 12:45am. I spotted it before the fire department arrived and snapped a few mediocre pictures. Fumbling with changing film and the cold weather, that picture was the only decent one. At any rate, I talked to the car's owner, who claimed that some kids had set fire to his car and run away. The fire investigator confirmed that the fire was intentional but didn't make any other conclusions. With the rash of insurance scams throughout the city, I'm a little skeptical of the incident. The owner apparently witnessed the "kids" torching his car but couldn't identify or stop them. Also, it's odd that the headlights were on while the car burned.

Anyway, I left at about 1:30 and sped to the Tribune to report a potential news item. To my surprise and dismay, there weren't any reporters or photographers at work. There was one sports guy and a few cleaners in the newsroom. Since I don't know how to use the C41 processor, I went home with my film and waited until morning. Sunday, I tried to find a place to have my film developed then returned to work around 11am. Again, there was just one guy writing obituaries. What happens on the weekend or at night if something happens? (admittedly, a car arson isn't big news, but with such thin Monday editions, one would think they wouldn't mind some extra "filler") I scanned my few frames and left, and nobody read the email I sent until Monday. By that time, it would've been old news. Ah well. At least I learned a couple things:

Since I've developed a greater appreciation and interest in Lawrence as a photographic subject, maybe the interest will lead to a weekly "paper" of some sort in the future....

Ah! The wheels are turning!