"We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space,time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life." Harold Bloom - How To Read and Why (2000)

 While I am no great writer I do write. I consider myself to be a cronista (chronicler) spying on people in Facebook and in TwitterX. I don’t ever comment and should I have to go to the US the authorities would find nothing offensive in my phone. I just want to recognize the changing trends.

In this chronicling I have seen how the world has become emojified (my coining), texted and our city and many other cities are losing small shops and restaurants and are becoming homedepoed (my coinage) and couriered (my coinage).

I have written before a blog (in above linik) on the mounting list of excuses I am given by people when I call them on the phone.

There is something new that I have noticed in last year. I have a first cousin in Buenos Aires. I call him on Messenger or WhatsApp. He is friendly and we chat about our life as little kids together. But he never calls me back.

I have a good friend in Mexico whom I met in 1962. He both knew my mother, my grandmother and Rosemary. On October 1 I called him. “Alex I am in Costco.” He hung up. He never did call back. I did a month later and he was pleasant.

Why is this happening? I believe that both my friend and cousin do not live alone. They have someone with them all the time. They do not experience or have any idea of what it is to live in a house of silence and that the phone never rings.

Another friend might call me and say, “Alex, you called?” What stops these people from calling me to find out how I am doing as this is why I call them?

I often look at myself in the mirror and I ask myself, "What is wrong with you?" 

This chronicler at age 83 feels much like his now gone friend Abraham Rogatnick, who three months before he died said, “I am not long for this world and I am glad.”