ring it off the wall

so at least the person that is calling me has a sense of humor. i didn't even know it was still possible to star sixty-seven anymore. i thought that feature went away with beepers and the popularity of three-way calling. maybe the unmarked call is similar to the poke, though the poke isn't anonymous. maybe some are, but i think that's a story for backwoods bars or something. and if the anonymous call were answered, then what would happen? would the world invert?

i think people call me because i never answer the phone. it's true. i've had the same phone number since i was fifteen, and i never answer a call. maybe people call me when they go outside to smoke a cigarette, half dressed, disheveled, kind of drunk and mostly bored. maybe it isn't the talk at all, but maybe it's the line instead. maybe that sound of the ring, the ringing sound that's probably been the same for fifty years, is comforting. maybe the hello is disconcerting. maybe when it just keeps ringing, and there's no answering service, is disconcerting. maybe the automaton answering service is disconcerting. 

maybe people call me and never leave messages because i've had the same voice since i was fifteen, and i think my answering service message has been the same for just as long. i change it as often as i say hello.

and i'm good for never saying hello. i can handle that. 

communication is bizarre. even a lack of communication is bizarre. but the strangest thing by far, is the way that people seem to come out of the woodwork at the same time. it must be lunar or something. maybe we're all lunar. i think i could make an easy case for that. easy. and maybe we call each other and know each other and are connected to each other because we're in the same phase or something. this could relate to that eastern religious idea of reincarnation, and that each life has a different focus. if we figure out our focus, then we know where we are in the process. maybe mine is communication.

and if it is, maybe i'm failing miserably. maybe i'll get to do this life again, and know the same people and same things and try it on a little better the next time. because i know myself, and i know i would rather do most anything else than talk on the phone.