A surprising discovery

I recently got a new cell phone and, after much harassment from a couple of friends who are avid texters (is that a word?), had text messaging enabled on it.

I'd never been a fan of texting before, but I admit that on New Year's Eve I was a little drunk on this new ability. At least 60 texts were exchanged that night--largely while I waited an hour for the 38 Geary--with friends all over the country. It was fun.

I'm a little over it now, but I still participate. It doesn't help that I'm extraordinarily slow at texting. This is mostly due to the fact that I steadfastly refuse to send texts that say stuff like, "Where R U?" I type it all out, because typing in such a short-handed fashion makes me feel like some kind of caveman banging rocks together.

Anyway, a good friend of mine loves to send me random texts when he's out drinking. He'll say things like, "There's a lot me [sic] pretty men here, I'm fearing for my virginity." or "The cure for a lonely heart is only 2 tall beers and a cigarette away." He likes to tell me whenever he's somewhere that's playing my song ("Amie" by Pure Prairie League--what!? You don't know it? Get on that!) Last night he said, "The southern cross is angry." I got this one as I was in the process of transitioning from one location to another and didn't have time to respond. But when I got home and looked up "southern cross" to try and figure out what in the holy hell he was talking about, I found that it refers to a constellation, Crux.



This is the disturbing part: I can't see the southern cross. Apparently, if you're in the northern hemisphere you have to be south of 30 degrees latitudes to see it. (This makes sense for him because he lives in FL.)



Now, I know that you can't see all the constellations at all times of the year, but it honestly never occurred to me that, no matter what time of year it is, your geographic location only allows you to see a fixed range of the sky. How did this not occur to me? I'm sort of upset.

Of course, this is quite likely not what he meant at all.