Voicemail #1: “Hi, Isabel Culpeper. I am lying in my bed, looking at the ceiling. I am mostly naked. I am thinking of … your mother. Call me.”Voicemail #2: The first minute and thirty seconds of “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You” by the Bee Gees. Voicemail #3: “I’m bored. I need to be entertained. Sam is moping. I may kill him with his own guitar. It would give me something to do and also make him say something. Two birds with one stone! I find all these old expressions unnecessarily violent. Like, ring around the rosy. That’s about the plague, did you know? Of course you did. The plague is, like, your older cousin. Hey, does Sam talk to you? He says jack shit to me. God, I’m bored. Call me.”Voicemail #4: “Hotel California” by the Eagles, in its entirety, with every instance of the word California replaced with Minnesota. Voicemail #5: “Hi, this is Cole St. Clair. Want to know two true things? One, you’re never picking up this phone. Two, I’m never going to stop leaving long messages. It’s like therapy. Gotta talk to someone. Hey, you know what I figured out today? Victor’s dead. I figured it out yesterday, too. Every day I figure it out again. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like there’s no one I can —”Voicemail #6: “So, yeah, I’m sorry. That last message went a little pear-shaped. You like that expression? Sam said it the other day. Hey, try this theory on for size: I think he’s a dead British housewife reincarnated into a Beatle’s body. You know, I used to know this band that put on fake British accents for their shows. Boy, did they suck, aside from being assholes. I can’t remember their name now. I’m either getting senile or I’ve done enough to my brain that stuff’s falling out. Not so fair of me to make this one-sided, is it? I’m always talking about myself in these things. So, how are you, Isabel Rosemary Culpeper? Smile lately? Hot Toddies. That was the name of the band. The Hot Toddies.”Voicemail #20: “I wish you’d answer.
Is this Clarissa Fray?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded familiar, though not immediately identifiable.Clary twirled the phone cord nervously around her finger. "Yeees?""Hi, I'm one of the knife-carrying hooligans you met last night in Pandemonium? I"m afraid I made a bad impression and was hoping you'd give me a chance to make it up to-""SIMON!" Clary held the phone away from her ear as he cracked up laughing. "That is so not funny!""Sure it is. You just don't see the humor.""Jerk." Clary sighed, leaning up against the wall.
We are loved way more by some of the people who have not contacted us in the last twelve or so months than we are loved by some of those who contact us every twelve or so days … or hours.
Texting is not talking and a phone is not a friend.
Kuamini (mbali na imani, ambayo ni nia ya kujua kisichoweza kujulikana) ni kwa ajili ya vitu usivyoweza kuvielezea. Unaamini kwamba siku moja dawa ya UKIMWI au saratani itapatikana mahali fulani, ilhali huwezi kufanya majaribio ya kisayansi kulithibitisha hilo. Unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mia, lakini kama bado dawa haijapatikana, unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mingine mia. Kuamini ni kujifanya kujua (na mara nyingi kujifanya kujua ni uongo) na kuamini hakuhitaji maarifa. Kujua kunahitaji maarifa na ni kuamini unakoweza kukuthibitisha. Ukiniuliza kama simu yangu ipo mfukoni nitakwambia ndiyo ipo, kwa sababu nitaingiza mkono mfukoni na kuitoa na kuiona. Siamini kama ipo mfukoni, najua.
Just because you have baggage doesn't mean you have to lug it around.
I am clumsy, drop glasses and get drunk on Monday afternoons. I read Seneca and can recite Shakespeare by heart, but I mess up the laundry, don’t answer my phone and blame the world when something goes wrong. I think I have a dream, but most of the days I’m still sleeping. The grass is cut. It smells like strawberries. Today I finished four books and cleaned my drawers. Do you believe in a God? Can I tell you about Icarus? How he flew too close to the sun?I want to make coming home your favourite part of the day. I want to leave tiny little words lingering in your mind, on nights when you’re far away and can’t sleep. I want to make everything around us beautiful; make small things mean a little more. Make you feel a little more. A little better, a little lighter. The coffee is warm, this cup is yours. I want to be someone you can’t live without.I want to be someone you can’t live without.
Amanda, you finally decided to answer the phone,” her mom exclaimed after picking up at the first ring. “Where’ve you been, what’ve you been up to?”“Mom, do you remember when I was a kid, I had a friend, he was a Personification of the Sydney Tar Ponds, sort of my imaginary friend?” Mandy asked.“No, what in the name of god are you on about?” her mom sighed in exasperation.“Remember? Only I could see him, but he was real and he was my best friend when I was eighteen?” Mandy insisted.“No, I don't remember Alecto Sydney Steele at all,” said her mom all too quickly.
When the river of emotions bursts its banks and expectations go over the edges of reality, the brain creates hallucinations. Ringxiety-stricken people feel illusive vibrating alerts and hear phantom phone rings, since absence of ringing generates scaring emptiness and destroys their self-esteem. ("Kein Schwein ruft mich an" )
Loss of cell phone reception inside of a building generally indicates that the following two issues may be present: 1. High electromagnetic interference (EMI) environment from dirty electricity that is being generated by electronic products. 2. Shielding and Faraday cage effects from metalwork in the building.
Some seem to be desynchronized in their relationships. They feel oppressed, because they cannot move forward together and at the same pace. Their thinking is often incongruent, their motivation disparate. The phone could be a mediator, as it creates an impression to be a perfect reliable friend. However, in the end, it causes rather a sense of isolation, since it divides more than it unites. Eventually it appears not to be such a good friend but only a ghost friend. ( "Kein Schwein ruft mich an" )
She is shocked by the rows of thick Plexiglas windows, each equipped with a telephone, each with a prisoner on one side and an outsider on the other. There is a teenage girl chatting with a prisoner who is presumably her father. There’s a married couple talking to their daughter. There’s a woman with a baby in her arms, sobbing into her phone as she begs her husband not to plead guilty for his crimes. Jail is terrifying to Geraldine, not only because it’s a house of criminals but also because it’s a cold slap in the face, a reminder of where she will eventually end up. “You’ve got to stay with me the whole time, Callo! I’m serious, you CANNOT leave me here.”“I’ll never,” Callo vows, but he’s eyeing her strangely. “Just remember which side of the glass you’re on right now, Geraldine.
Claire scraped her chair back, walked over to the cordless phone lying on the counter, and dialed from the business card still stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. Four rings, and a cheerful voice answered on the other end and announced she’d reached Common Grounds. “Hi,’” Claire said. “Can I talk to Sam, please?’”“Sam? Hold on.’” The phone clattered, and Claire could hear the buzz of activity in the background—milk being steamed, people chatting, the usual excitement of a busy coffee shop. She waited, jittering one leg impatiently, until the voice came back on the line. “Sorry,’” it said. “He’s not here tonight. I think he went to the party.’”“The party?’”“You know, the zombie frat party? Epsilon Epsilon Kappa? The Dead Girls’ Dance?’”“Thanks,’” Claire said. She hung up and turned to face Michael and Eve, who were staring at her in outright surprise. She held up the phone. “The power of technology. Embrace it.
To be fair, she called this morning. I stared at the phone. Circled it on my bed. And, eventually, it stopped ringing. If it had been important, she would’ve called back, right? That was the line of thought that ran through my head until halfway through the day, when I started to feel bad about it.