Texting

So, I've been a little happy lately. I've been sad also. I had a good day today but a horrible night last night. I had gotten to sleep around 10:45pm. This is early for me by 4-7 hours or so. But then, I woke up around 1:30am and couldn't get back to sleep...that was until 7:30am when I finished a text message I was revising all night. I was sending a text message because time had run out to see the person I wanted to say something to and also, I just didn't want to send the message through facebook. That seems to be a jerk thing to do. So I worked with a text. And re-worked it. Then I re-worked it again. Wanting to get everything said when you're limited to 160 charicters (which just has to include spaces) is really nerve racking. It reminded me of a project we had in an improv class back at the beginning of the month that consisted of two word lines. The objective was to get rid of everything with the exception of the MOST IMPORTANT WORDS.
Unfortunately, texting doesn't make that easy. I could say, "I hope to see you soon!" That uses 23 of the 160 charicter limit. If I were to say "Hey, let me know when you are leaving for the show tonight," I just used 58 charicters. I can shorten that down by saying, "Hey, let me no when u r leaving 4 the show 2nite," and I have it down to about 48. That only removes 10 charicters. You can get "hey" down to "Ha" but then it might read like "HA!" like you're laughing. Texting charicters is like moments spent with a loved one. Every charicter should count. Unfortunately, shortening all the important stuff to fit 160 charicters can caused the reader to read it a different way than you intended.
Now for the sake of my purpose in writing this text, I'll say that this is what happened. I tried to send a text around 8:50 the night before. Dealing with the 160 charicter limit, I shortened it so that just the most important stuff stood out. Unfortunately, the "most important stuff" didn't even scratch at the surface of what I wanted to say...or it came out sounding weird or creepy to the reader. Therefore, I never received a text back which I was hoping for some comment.
After working on it from about 2am in the morning to about 7:30am, I had reworded it to the point that it didn't say anything about what I was wanting but said everything about why I was wanting it. Anyway who reads this blog on a regular basis who doesn't come here following a Warren Zevon video link from YouTube might know who I'm talking about with this text. For those who don't, I felt like I lost a friend last week in a they're dead type of way. They didn't die, wrather they suddenly moved away and never bothered to say bye or anything. I finally got a reply back about 7:30 after sending it when I said what I felt like and then, I was happy. I didn't get to do what I wanted to do, but they did know I cared. And then, I was happy enough so I was able to sleep.

Bottom line, if someone moves away or otherwise you won't see them again but they're still alive, sending a message over facebook is like when Sprint laid off their workers through e-mail a few years ago. It's better if you can see them. But if that's not do-able, then texting can allow you to say what you want said...provided you can say it in 160 charicters or less. But for this purpose, I don't REALLY like texting either.

Now one last thing, in a round about way, this is related: I had my first show with R. I. Spectacular last Saturday night. The Saturday afternoon class has been shut down due to scheduleings and a lack of instructors at the Roving Imp. This Saturday class was the ONLY improv class 2 years ago when I joined. (This weekend would be my 2 year anniversary class show). Now, it's no more and everyone from class who can make it is now in the Monday night class. This was heartbreaking but at the same time, releaving because as I found out before the show that night, I had a lot of energy.
Also, it was nice because I finally got to be in a show with Hannah again before she moves to England for school next month. It was bittersweet because it was also the first night of shows that Nifer was 100% gone. She has moved to Chicago and we will see her no more except for once a month starting in October. In fact, speaking of improv friends moving, a friend of mine from high school who I've been seeing a few times in Stitch Tactics is officially moving to upstate New York and never coming back. I was fortunate enough to see her last show before she left to tell her fairwell personally. If you couldn't tell by my first few paragraphs, the ability to actually say bye to someone personally is important to me.

Anyway, I don't want to end this on a sad note. So I'm going to post some pics from Saturday's show: