Deep Cuts, Trk 2

Early in this blog month, I gave a post the title Deep Cuts. That title was meant to be a reference to the compilation albums that are 0h-so-helpfully created for me by iTunes Essentials: The Basics, The Next Steps, and finally, the Deep Cuts, where you'll find those lesser known gems and prized oddities that are only known by the lucky bastard who goes deep, preferably staying on iTunes as long as possible, double clicking on 30 second sound bytes of songs until his bank account balance drops by the double digits, seemingly entirely of its own accord.

On November 26, just a few days before I unplug, it feels like the right day to add a track to that compilation album. It has a 90 second drum solo, that only a purist could love, and that's the telephone. It doesn't offer the total anonymity of the internet. And it doesn't offer the soul-calming ease of being with someone face to face. It means listening to hold music. It means keeping track of phone numbers. It means practicing being a generous listener with the phone in one hand while Milo is threading figure eights around my legs.

And I'm not good on the phone. If I were to take one of those fun quizzes that test, "What Kind of Learner Are You?" -- and I am bravely resisting the impulse to do that, right this second -- I am certain that it would define me as a visual learner. Unlike the parrot I have for a son, I have a hard time remembering -- or even responding correctly to -- things that I hear without matching visual cues. After several years of racking up a mess of phone call slip-ups in which I spoke the wrong date, name, theatre company, or even play title, I actually made a point to move my professional interactions into cyberspace.

In that light...what I'm doing right now is crazy.

But, here I stand, with a goal and the will to achieve it, and I have many more reasons to leave the internet (for a while) than I do to stay. Prime among those reasons is the realization that the type of interaction that I've been having, even on this blog, is completely accessible to me through other means, if I'm willing to make the effort.