AM I JUST GETTING OLD OR WHAT?

These days when you hear someone saying "hello" in the park, chances are better that they are talking on their cell phone then that they are greeting you. And when they repeat it over and over you know it's a bad connection and you are so annoyed.

Our devices cut us off from communication with a person actually in front of you. When I'm walking in the park with my iPod I don't get greeted very often (okay, half the people walking are either on the phone or listening to something, just like me). It's so different when I am walking with a friend and smiling and talking--I get greeted constantly!

The isolation worries me. I have enough periods of isolation in my life, days when I don't work and might not talk to anyone all day except for "paper or plastic?" in the store, and here in Seattle I think there's now a law against plastic bags being given out by stores (or is that being contested).