It annoyed me when Prince did it ...

... because it's unacceptable in anyone over 16.

I'm speaking, of course, of sliding into slang abbreviations. It's lazy* or pretentious.†

Right now I'm angry about this because of my oldest friend. Last Wednesday I sent her an email, letting her know "I'm beginning to unspool" and asking if I felt especially sentimental over Christmas I could call her.

Her response? Crickets. I heard nothing Thursday or Friday. I began to worry. After all, this is a woman who told me she would always be there for me. I let her know I was getting emotional over the upcoming holiday and she didn't respond at all.  Henry, my friend in Key West, knows about my oldest friend's battles with bipolar disorder and he thought I'd feel better if I called her and spoke to her. He knew I was beginning to imagine her literally frozen by depression, which has happened more than once over the last few years.

So I called her cell. It rang and rang before it went to voicemail, which was full. So I texted her and asked if everything was OK. She immediately answered me with:

We r good. Billy is here. How r u?

So let's see ... She saw I called and just didn't answer. Then she responded with fewer characters than a Donald Trump tweet. Apparently she believes that the mere mention of her son's arrival for Christmas explains/justifies everything.

It doesn't. I was really upset Wednesday night over something I'll post about later, after I've processed it a bit more. I reached out to her and asked for her help. I got 31 spaces/characters.

This morning I got an email from her -- apologizing for being "MIA." Not for not being there when I needed her, ignoring me when she saw my name on her phone and needlessly frightening me. At least her email included entire words.

*How much energy do you actually conserve by keying "U" instead of "you?"
†"50 is receding in my rear view mirror, but I'm still soooo cool!"