etched, electronically

I love text messaging. It causes all kind of problems, miscommunications and misunderstandings. But it can also be beautiful. And it walks an interesting line between instant and indelible. I've gotten responses to text messages I don't remember sending ("Given up on you? Why would I do that?") and I've sent text messages that apparently never got where they were going (occasionally leaving me to wonder whether angels interfere with cell towers). But there are also text messages that are burned in my brain (or stored in my cell phone, on my computer, or in web-based instant-message chat histories).

2006 was, once again, heartbreak, family feuds, and friendship remnants like legs on a nice wine, some of them guttural, some electronic. But it also included one of the finest courtships I have ever experienced. So good, in fact, that it actually doesn't matter that it begins and ends with text messaging.

Except, obviously, it does. So for Christmas, I had some of the best ones etched in glass.