keeping up appearances

Oh there are just so many ways to 'keep in touch' these days aren't there? And so many of them so odd and removed from actual contact. Shall I pop round and visit you? Phone you? Leave a voicemail? Fax you? Friend you? Email you? Contact you on your Blackberry? Send you a message on Facebook? Become your Myspace friend? Instant message you? Text your mobile? Skype you? Add you as a friend on Flickr? Make a sound file and upload it to your website? Write about you obliquely in my blog and hope you read it?

Hitech versions of the other random, oblique forms of contact: Dedicating a song to you on the kind of talk back radio show that you only hear down the cat food aisle of the local grocery shop when you stop by on the way home from work, write a note for you on the kitchen table, send you a letter, send you a note in class, screwed up on graph paper and moist with sweat from clenched hands, scrawl a vague and only half articulated note about the text and our shared lives in the margin of a library book, write in red lipstick on your mirror in the middle of a party, fart a sneaky old dinner kind of fart as we all queue for the check out, buy a t-shirt with a slogan I want to say to everybody, write a novel and say what I want to say to you to everyone, bite your lip unexpectedly in a kiss only semi-domesticated, send you morse code in the shimmer of my eyes gliding obliquely over the top of a beer in a weeknight corner of a pub.

Just musing, just noting, as I enjoy the space on a weekend morning and plan to get in touch with people without a looming visit to work this afternoon to dampen my mood.