.
Static
You are only coming through in waves
Your lips move but I can’t hear what you’re saying
– Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb –
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I wonder, when they wrote that song, if Gilmour and Waters ever could have imagined how applicable it would be to two-thousand-teens technology.
The photo above was cropped from a screenshot my partner sent me to show me what he was seeing during one of our video calls. Quite often, due to system glitches, wifi issues or network overload, there is a delay on the line. I’m fairly good at lip-reading, but when there’s a full-on cutout – smeared pixels showing with all the clarity of visual crackle – messages quite often come through skewed or otherwise get missed entirely.
.
Him: Hello, you.
Pause, during which the audio cuts out and the blurry visual is being interpreted
Hmmm… I think he said I love you.
Me: I love you too.
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Sometimes – as above – it’s something silly or easily-overlook-able, something that can be turned into a humorous ‘Us’-ism or laughed about later.
Other times, it is a complete clusterfuck.
Technology is greeeaaaaattt…
(said with sarcastic emphasis)
…when it works.
.
Sigh.
But that is a diatribe for another day.
Right now…
Well, right now I feel very much like that picture. Not-quite-disconnected, moment by moment coming in and out of focus, nowhere near crystal clear but not without flashes of dolorous un-distortion.
Stress and grief and the overwhelming complexities of managing medical care – balancing What’s Owed without exacting too steep a toll on my body and my relationships – have left me in a strange stasis.
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