I never used to answer my phone.

Part of it was because I was being stalked by a crazy girl for a while. Somehow she got my num­ber and called a few times, but Trolley picked up and was able to warn me.

The other rea­son was because I used to be stoned almost every minute off work. Dealing with peo­ple in the out­side world was an instant buzz kill.

It’s only recently that I’ve started tak­ing calls again. The lan­guid process of reha­bil­i­tat­ing my social skills has been rather slow. Sometimes I get so busy that I don’t have time to check my mes­sages, and they build up into strange archives like this, circa last month.

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0:22

John gives me the fun­ni­est advice some­times. I never did call the girl. Anyone who comes on that strong is usu­ally trouble.

1:13

Dan is eas­ily the most loqua­cious per­son that I know, yet he’s per­fectly suc­cinct when leav­ing mes­sages. I find it funny that he always leaves his num­ber at the end. I guess we don’t see each other enough for him to be sure that I haven’t lost it. Last time was November. I should give him a call.

1:25

One time, Pat asked me for my birth date. He told me that he wrote down the date and stuck it to his fridge, so he would be reminded every time he went to grab some­thing to eat. Apparently, he’s ter­ri­ble at remem­ber­ing birth­days, so for him to remem­ber mine was quite a gesture.

1:42

My dad left me two mes­sages. They’re rather short, so I’ll give a quick trans­la­tion. First call: “Jeff, it’s Daddy. Just call­ing to talk. I’m guess­ing you went out. I’ll call you later, bye bye.” Second call: “Hi Jeff, it’s Daddy. Daddy moved, so there’s a new address and num­ber. I’ll call you later. Bye bye.” The first two words he says are are my Chinese name, and “Daddy” doesn’t need to be translated.

2:08

This is the creepi­est mes­sage I’ve ever received. I have no idea who it is, but they know my name. I can’t even tell if they’re male or female. I tried to do a reverse lookup on the num­ber, and called it even, but it’s not in ser­vice. The only words I can make out are “Hi Jeff, this is Emily…had to fight for your number…maybe you want to chill some time”.

2:33

Even though we already broke up, Bronwen has no prob­lem telling me that she loves me, then call­ing me a loser. To this day, our rela­tion­ship is defined by this very repartee.