The Rolodex (part one)
Wisecracker Workshop (WW) Month 1, Entry 2 (1.2)
My loneliness settled in with the cold. That funny climate of ours played coy with a dry, mild fall, the unobtrusive kind that tricked even the least foolish that temperate conditions were here to stay. I was among these least-fooled fools, who stepped out into an early December morning to be pummeled by the bone-chilling realities of my geography. I configured my new oblong porch to face away from the smattering of homes lining the road, but no soul could be seen when I peered out into the front yard. A void of warmth, connection, commiseration. And so came the loneliness. The sort that I welcomed, smiled in the presence of. I smiled not because I was lonely, but because I was reminded of the degree to which I was alone. While lonely is an undesirable affliction, loneliness is an empowered state of being, and I have consciously created the conditions for the latter. Whether for a weekend or a lifetime, those who flee the city confines often do so with the intent to disconnect from their hyperconnection, silencing the noise to better hear themselves. I fled the city to pursue the inverse outcome — in silence and solitude, I could hyperconnect with others.
I retreated inside and switched on my Rolodex in the padlocked cabinet beside the cutting boards. As the system booted up, I brewed a milky chai laden with raw sugar and a black coffee cusping the edge of burnt. Drinking either on its own would be unpleasant, but I found alternating sips to be a winning combination. On these communication heavy days, hydration, alertness and a curbed appetite were paramount. Both brews joined my keyboard, reading glasses, and a cigarette on a wide breakfast tray I draped over my knees, settling onto the loveseat. Across from me, the projector cast a feed of the Rolodex’s code and command queue, engaging its final pairings and permissions with the crisscrossing satellites littering the atmosphere. I twirled ankles and cracked knuckles. I yawned with the irreverent comfort of a class clown slacking off in intro to biology. A cartoonish ‘bloop’ played from the cabinet — everything was ready to roll.
We began with a note to Vivian and Amari, their daughter turning three today. They expected nothing, still no emerging toddler could flourish without a sturdy set of blocks from her honorary uncle. In the past her parents got frustrated by my generosity, but this time they responded with video of their chubby-cheeked girl building a block tower, shrieking in nude-colored footie pajamas embroidered with the words “birthday suit.” Very Viv and Mar couture. My heart sang.
We pivoted to Tana, sludging through an unconventionally rainy season (very lush, all mush). Foundations were caving in on older builds in her neighborhood, flash flood warnings a constant. Would she move? With the sound of rabid rain in the backdrop, a voice message: “Keep dreamin’, cousin dear. This is home.”
Before the next, Bruce called in from across the planet. Unexpected, yet unsurprising. He likes to ring when his business stabilizes (during their warmer months) and has a couple of basement-brewed beers coating the intestines before he can ask how I’m doing. I stick to business updates — the English as Second Language word game site (vexingly unprofitable), the plinko sports parlay generator (stupidly profitable); the info appears to satisfy him, and a satisfied Bruce can be hard to come by.
I checked in on Memo’s mom transition to memory care (hard to forget). I got to learn about Grace’s promotion (yet no raise), and the downstream effects of her boyfriend’s sister’s online music fame. Then, an envelope addressed to former neighbor and retired architect Danika Doerr, stuffed with the glossy photo prints of the completed porch (which she designed pro-bono, and) requested two weeks ago. I craned my neck to the mail light at the front door (flickering on): already delivered. I feared my Rolodex had suffered an interval glitch (it’s happened before with physical mailing), though upon querying, the communications protocol preferred the letter be sent tomorrow so it would arrive at Mrs. Doerr’s doorstep on a day she wasn’t babysitting her grandnephew, noting Danika had mentioned in a correspondence last year her block had a history of mail theft. The program couldn’t see or hear me, but I ensured I voiced an apology. Even this far into my Rolodex's deployment, I continue to underestimate its feats of bravura.
It was half past two; my mugs had emptied and my thighs thirsted for blood flow. I keyed in the shortcut to block inbounds and outbounds before setting the breakfast tray aside, tucking the cigarette behind one ear. Shaking out my legs, I rummaged for a handful of cashews in the kitchen, crunching and staring at the paused program interface. I didn’t need prompting to know Vic was next, or was planned to be. Our bimonthly Friday calls are the only preset my Rolodex has ever known, and hers has known too. During our last successful e-rendezvous, she’d mentioned her tightening strands of busyness, but I didn’t perceive it to be of the kind that would miss two straight months. If she needed to divert our three o’clock slot elsewhere, her Rolodex would’ve removed the commitment long ago; yet there it stood, still committed to me.
I wouldn’t mind the bout of disengagements if she wasn't the catalyst for how I’m able to communicate as I do. We’d gone to preschool and kindergarten together, then shared a session at a science summer camp before she was whisked away to a faraway town before first grade. The formative years and social stimuli after age six made it difficult to really miss her, but over time she popped into mind at the occasional moment of nostalgic remembrance. Then four years ago, she was there — still sporting the tight pigtails of her youth, tapping my shoulder on a warm day in a park full of thousands in a city of millions: “This’ll sound impossible,” she said, “but I think we used to play Ring Around the Rosie together."
I wasn’t attracted to Vic in the way I thought I’d be. Our chance encounter evolving from monthly hellos to bimonthly meets to weekly hangs had the storybook signals of any budding romance, though like me she didn’t seem compelled to initiate. With time I understood her preferences shied from men, or settling down when it came to anything. She was living a life of complete ownership; her autonomous health-tech sales gig, triathlon medals, tiramisu recipe, addictive coding hobby, friends with guest rooms in every nook of the Earth and a dogged inner push to continue learning. When she was in town we’d leverage our peer pressure to each smoke a cigarette in the park, or at the nearby cafe that allowed it in the special section near the mucky windows. We’d take turns waxing poetic about this and that, with so much to discuss that we rarely discussed ourselves. We laughed and came to accept the harmonic dissonance of being so tied in another’s life while never really seeing how they lived.
Vic emerged in my life within a bout of conflict I was having with city living, and living at large. After a dozen years I had taken the steps to build the work, network, and routines I craved, which in turn had created an optimization problem of how to make the most of these privileges. A comforting complacency had moved in, tied in a wrapper of habits and busyness that were hard to frame as harmful. Spontaneity and curiosity cratered, and the middle and outer reaches of my social circles suffered in turn. In knowing I could see them, I never did. Vic had a name for this — “Proximity Fatigue” — an excess taking for granted of what was so readily reachable. She expressed her own struggles keeping in touch with her worlds, lamenting how the World Wide Web and its juggernaut apps had an adverse effect on connectivity. We’d been trained to derive social fulfillment through watching others bob through life at a safe screen’s distance. “It’s an acquaintance economy,” she liked to shrug and say. “It pays more to care less.”
In the sixth month of our rekindling, Vic slid a small portable hard drive across the café table. “A little pet project you inspired.” Our conversations had led her to some serious dabbling, a hacker’s minimum viable product for personalized social connectivity at scale. Zacharias, her product developer pal, custom built the drive to be plugged into any standard router, and selectively mirror smart devices and popular communication services. The codebase on the drive itself was simple; a recipe to be built upon, hungry for input. Seeing the initial over-technologized concern in my eyes, Vic removed a tablet from her bag to show me her own code running from her apartment — I watched as the language parsed through her digital mail, mail mail, messages and calls with her rolodex of 150 selected meaningful contacts (following Dunbar’s Number) she’d synched to the program. In real time, it juggled, weighed, and referenced each network member’s communicative tendencies, responsiveness, platform preferences, time zones, relevant news headlines, weather patterns and life events to offer suggestions for who, how and when to reach someone. With one command, a banner notification appeared:
“REBA BACK IN CELL SERVICE--TEXT/CALL WITHIN TWO HOURS”
Vic toggled to her app and fired off a quick “welcome back to reality.” Reba responded almost instantly: “call u this wknd?” Another banner:
“SUN--9-11PM.”
Thirty seconds later and it was set. My eyes had rid themselves of skepticism. I’d just seen something I didn’t know I needed to see; a framework to be there for anyone I ever wanted, my way. “It’s not enough to know anyone anymore.” Vic looked at me with an enlightenment I’d soon come to feel. “You’ve got to make ways to keep knowing them.”
Within three months of her demo, I’d built the foundation for what would become my Rolodex. It was empowering, how much clarity the right tool could offer; who I wanted to know, to keep knowing, to know me, to keep knowing me. The hyperactive social anxiety shrunk, as did the desire to pursue many routines I had ensconced myself in. Vic and my’s rapport fell into our every other week chats as she jetted around the globe; part catch up, part product improvement brainstorm. She remained adamant about the project being private, safe from commodification or financialization, a tinkerer’s path to build a better life. As living proof, I agreed, and doubled down. I ditched my lease, closed on the countryside fixer upper, filled a drivable clunker with my valuables, my Rolodex, and kissed urbanity goodbye. Thirty five months in, I haven’t needed to look back.
Though I admit I did today. As the clock ticked well past three with no sign of Vic, a fleeting glance in the rearview, a wondering if I’d missed something. Of course I hadn’t — the Rolodex ensured that — but beyond one call or contact, a hibernating hunger panged. To see someone, to see me see them, to embody my presence and importance to another, in the flesh. I donned my warmest coat from the closet, fitting the bulging envelope addressed to Danika Doerr in the deep breast pocket. I laced on my boots and un-booted my Rolodex, the cartoon bloop ringing out as I locked the door. Down the Doerr porch, down the sloping front lawn to my shivering vehicle. The engine sputtered awake, as did I. It would be good to see the city again.
To be continued