i just caught myself

typing the "1" key three times in an attempt to enter a period in an email to a friend of mine. i was totally befuddled by what was happening until i realized: dear god! my mind thinks my fingers are texting! and so,

texting is a treacherous, subtle media devouring my soul.

i never texted until about two years ago, and it has slowly been rewiring my neural pathways ever since. when i first started, i refused to use the auto-spell and so my communications were stunted and infrequent. but over time i came to trust my phone's brain and the texts became more frequent. there was even a manic period about a year ago when i became obsessed with texting non-traditional haiku. trite little compositions like:

here i go again
throwing art into the void
haiku text couture

but thankfully this passed after a couple of months.

i then started examining the text as a media as the result of an intense flirtation in September 2007. it felt like i was instant messaging, but - as i observed my anxiety grow waiting for her response - i realized that it only seemed to be instant, that in fact the person's phone may be off or the SMS gods may be frowning. i realized that texting is, in essence, a one-way communication. it is the perfect medium for communication in either very quiet places (like libraries) or very loud places (like concerts).

we are paying a premium for telegraph technology, and somewhere Samuel Morse is smiling.