It is Better to Have Loved and Lost....

When the New York Post called me up and asked if I'd take part in an article they were doing on the cliched mystique of writers and drinking, I was more than willing to oblige, particularly when they were buying a round. So I'm there with the writer, Justin Silverman, another guy whose name I can't remember and a cool photographer named Andy at the Odeon Cafe in Tribeca, the centerpiece of one of my favorite novels, Bright Lights, Big City.

But as the questions and conversation flowed what was to be one round gradually turned into three. And as D had hit me up a few days before to ask if he could crash on my futon for a few weeks, I had to get out of Odeon and back to the BK as soon as possible to get him situated. The minute my feet hit the floor I knew that my future included a hearty meal and a lot of water. But just as I was on my way to the crib to do both, I took out my phone on the way up the subway stairs and my berry took a horrible spill down six steps. Now my baby was tough, but this was the straw that broke that camels back. The screen cracked. That crack has continued to spread exponentially. She only has a few days left now. May she rest in peace.

This is particularly ironic as Negarra and I had a very tech-heady convo over the weekend about what phones were up next for us. Iphone vs. Blackberry. But since the new Berry I want won't drop until later in the year and my carrier doesn't have the Iphone, I'm going to have to downgrade to a Pearl ASAP. It's not an expense I'm looking forward to, but as my boss and I are Berry to Berry companions and this teaching gig has me running all over the place, its a necessary tax write-off. Or at least that's what telling myself.

I tried out the phone I was using before my berry to find out that I've forgotten all the keystrokes and that I lost the Bluetooth passkey. In laymen's terms this means that I can't send new ringtones, etc. from my computers, which makes it almost as lame as having some fifteen dollar Kyocera. Say no go. But I must press on.

It's a funny thing when you go through a phone from year's past, as you see which friends and associates you kept and which ones you let go. In a day and age of cells numbers change like socks and it's both easier and more difficult to lose track of people. Lately I've been longing for the days when I had to wait for people to call me back and vice versa. At the school there are eleven year olds clutching their phones all day and text messaging during classes, all under the guys that their parents could call at any moment. It's a legitimate concerns, but it definitely gets in the way of learning. But what I've also learned that in today's public schools there is little learning and more focus on controlling "those crazy kids."

I had a dream last night that a white couple was renovating my apartment. I hope that doesn't mean my landlord's selling the building. But even if he is, it just might be that time. I'm one of the only folks who's lived in two places in almost ten years in this city. And though I swore that this was the last place I'd pay rent on (Next up Mortgage), if it's in my destiny to head east with the rest of my brethren and sisters. Then so be it. Out.