Gadgets

I have been accused of having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century. This, I believe, is not only untrue, but also an unfair assessment of who I am.

People assume that, because I don’t have the latest model of something, I’m somehow not modern.

Not so.

I like gadgets as much as the next person. But frequently I find myself saying, “That’s really cool. What do I do with it?”

Despite having a laptop and a Surface, I wanted an iPad – or I thought I did.

When I got my smartphone, my phone company was running a special deal on iPads, so I got one.

Cool.

Except the only keyboard is on-screen.

I’m a tactile kind of person who prefers the feel of a real keyboard. But I can deal, except that I tend to make a lot more mistakes with an on-screen keyboard. Like the phone keyboard, it tends not to be whole hand, much less two-hand friendly.

And then there’s the fact that the iPad has no thumb drive compatibility, so anything on the iPad is non-transferrable to any other device unless I send my work via email. What a hassle!

So, my iPad is basically only used for an Irish language app that I use because the iPad screen is better for that than a phone screen.

Oh, but you can take pictures with it!

Yeah. There’s nothing dorkier, in my humble opinion, than using something that cumbersome to take pictures.  That’s what seniors do to try to prove they’ve come into the digital age to so they don’t have to use their reading glasses.

Oh, but games!

Do I look like I’m 10? I have no desire to get roped into Fortnite.

I spent several months once playing Diablo in my free time instead of doing something useful. I couldn’t get past a certain level in that, and realized, eventually, that all I was doing was raising my cortisol level for no very good reason. I can do that driving to work every day.

And most of the game apps seem to be the same game in different colors.

Having to wait through commercials is annoying, and I don’t like any of the games enough to pay a monthly fee for them just to skip the commercials.

Of course, I can use it for answering emails or social media. But I prefer my laptop for that, since it has that nice clicky keyboard that has room for two hands typing.

The only thing I hate about my laptop is the more modern thing on it: the touchpad. No matter how I try, I can’t get the cursor to cooperate, so I have to use a mouse, instead. I’m good with a mouse. I just wish the mouse disabled the touchpad the way it did on my previous laptop.

“Why don’t you just use the touch screen?”

I don’t mainly because I usually forget it has one. I find the mouse faster, anyway. And, since it’s already connected –

So I get called a Luddite.

The first time someone called me that I had never heard the word before. Someone had to explain it to me.

But that’s not who I am.

I also have a Surface, for no better reason than I thought it was cool.

What I like about the Surface is that it’s lightweight, dual voltage, and has a detachable keyboard for those of us who prefer tactile keyboards. And, I can attach a mouse and use it just like a laptop. I mainly use it for travel.

What I don’t like about it is it’s slow on the internet. I don’t spend much time answering emails or going on social media when I’m using it because the slowness is so frustrating.

Of course, that’s a good thing on vacations. I’m not distracted by the internet. The main reason I bring it with me is to download my pictures and title them daily so I don’t forget which castle or cathedral I have a picture of.

Yes, I can feel your eye roll. Yes, I use a digital camera. A DSLR. One of those big things.

Why?

It was an upgrade from my 35 mm camera that I still have but seldom use. It takes much better pictures than the phone or a point-and-shoot, and I can do a lot more creatively with it. I don’t have to limit my photos because of the expense of film, and I don’t have to worry that an entire vacation’s worth of pictures didn’t come out. On my honeymoon, I lost an entire roll of film somewhere between England and Ireland.

I still prefer the ease and the feel of the 35mm over any other camera I’ve ever used.

But you have an iPhone, you say.

Yes, I do. It’s a phone. I use it as a phone and to send texts. 

True, it has a camera, which, in my opinion, takes so-so pictures. It’s good for that in a pinch, but not for real photos.

As for the keyboard, it’s slightly better than the one on my old flip phone, but hardly something I could comfortably type emails, much less a blog on.

And as for reading, in a pinch, for brief periods, I can use it in place of my Kindle.

Yes, I have a Kindle. I got it for reading when I travel. It’s probably 10 years old by now, ancient by tech standards. But it works. And it’s smaller than the Surface, so even though I have the Kindle app on all of my tech appliances, it’s more convenient on a plane than pulling out the Surface, and easier to read than using the phone. And it still works, so I don’t need an upgrade. And I can read it outside, which I can't with other devices.

But I do prefer real books.

Even my iPhone is now two years old. It’s a 6s that I got a few days before the iPhone X was released. Why didn’t I get the X? Who would spend over $1,000 on a phone in the first place, much less one that will be considered obsolete in two years? And then, there are “improvements” that I don’t want or like. My 6s works, and is a convenient size. It will meet my needs until it no longer works.

I’m not opposed to new things. I was raised to take care of my things. When I was a child, if I broke something, I didn’t get another one. Now, if I have something that works and meets my needs, I see no reason to get another one. It rankles to have to replace something that works because the internet companies have rendered it redundant.

I will say that I like the GPS on my phone much better than the independent GPS that I had. That was difficult to program and didn’t work in other countries.

But I will never be attached at the hip to a phone.

I originally got a mobile phone because the powers that be had done away with pay phones. Because I travel long distances for work, my husband thought it was necessary in case of emergency.

Even Superman had to make adjustments.

So, although I have a variety of gadgets, they’re not necessarily the most up-to-date ones. And that doesn’t bother me. Call me what you will, but I’ve never been one to cave in to peer pressure, whether it was to smoke cigarettes or buy an iPhone X.

And as for my blogs, I write them by hand in cursive before they ever make it to the computer. Call me old-fashioned if you wish, but I do what works best for me.

Peeves

No matter where I go, people don’t seem to understand my way of thinking.

But then, I don’t understand theirs, either.

I’ve long dreaded going to all-female things, like baby showers, wedding showers, or even the Ladies’ room at a party because of the conversations they will inevitably lead to.

It seems that whenever more than two or three females are gathered together, conversations often tend to begin with, “Men are such…” and you can add your own derogatory word – babies, pigs, etc. It seems to be an all or nothing put-down of the male of the species.

I feel a need, in those situations, to come to the defense of the men, since they’re not there to defend themselves. I don’t like generalizations about any group of people.

“I’m sorry, but I refuse to accept that generalization from anyone who propagates the myth of PMS,” I have said in many of these situations.

I am met with glares and evil looks, even when the people I’m with have no idea what half of those words mean. They know a put-down when they hear one, and I am suddenly the enemy.

I once worked in an all-female department of occupational therapists. You would think that highly-educated people would have a modicum of propriety.

 But no. 

In addition to the “men are such” sentences, they seemed to have some primordial need to announce their periods and other no-one-needs-to-know-that subjects.

A woman entering the room with a package of salted peanuts and a candy bar  -- or simply a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup – feels compelled to say that she needs this because she is “PMSing.” 

Really! 

Couldn’t you just let us assume you’re feeling a bit peckish and leave it at that?

While it may be fine to tell your significant other, your mother or your best friend – in private – about your bodily functions, it is, in my humble opinion, highly inappropriate to discuss these things in public. Particularly at work. The exception would be if there was some sort of emergency related to it.

I know in my 43 years of being cursed with such a waste of my time, only twice did I ever discuss what was going on  with my body,  and both were emergency situations – and highly humiliating. I certainly don’t want to hear about someone else’s bodily functions.

One colleague in particular, used to relish the discussion. If I were in the room, I would cut her off with, “Do you come out of the bathroom and discuss whether you went  #1 or #2 as well?” (I only put it in such babyish terms because that’s the way my “highly educated” colleagues preferred to talk.)

She seemed offended. It never occurred to her that her discussion offended me.

For a while, we had a male OT in our department. During his year or so working with us, all of these inappropriate conversations ceased. It was a relief.

Unfortunately, once he left, they resumed. 

I also don’t need to know about your hot flashes, your incontinence or a litany of your medications. If your baby was not conceived the old-fashioned way, I don’t need to know. TMI, folks, TMI.

Of course, work isn't the only place people feel the need to discuss bodily functions.

There are baby showers. 

Is that supposed to be some rite of passage, to make the poor pregnant woman suffer? I can’t imagine that someone who’s eight or nine months pregnant is comfortable in the first place. I think she’s well aware of the labor to come.

But at every shower I’ve attended, there are multitudes of women anxious to share, in gory detail, the massive extent of their morning sickness, how many hours of labor they endured with each child, and how inept their husband was in the delivery room – or the myriad reasons they wouldn’t have wanted their husband there, if they were of an older generation.

Even decades after giving birth, these women can recount every gory detail. It makes me wonder how they could possibly love a child who caused them such unforgettable distress.

“Oh, you forget after they put that sweet baby in your arms,” they say. 

But they apparently didn’t.

Of course, now you’re saying to yourself, “You know, men say things about women, too.”

Yes, I know. Women are cows, nags and bitches – and worse. 

I find that just as reprehensible. I tend to take it personally.

Ok, yes, I can agree that at times I have been a bitch. 

It’s being called a nag that offends me.

I do not nag people. I’ll say something once. If the other person doesn’t respond, my assumption is that it’s their failure. They don’t respect me. They aren’t willing to be helpful, or in some instances, do their part.

Point taken.

And when the point is taken, don’t expect me to volunteer to be in any way helpful to that person ever again, or to be part of a group that they’re in. Trust and respect are earned.

Maybe it’s cold, but you can’t accuse me of nagging. Don’t lump me in with those women at the baby showers. I will only remind someone of something they were supposed to do if they ask me to.

If you don’t believe me, just ask my husband.

P.S. When my husband proof read the blog, he noted that the last sentence is true!

Outside the Box

I sometimes wonder if I was born with a form of dementia.

I generally call it a short-circuit in my brain, which sometimes behaves almost like an out-of-body experience.

This sort of thing has been happening all of my life, and is not simply something that started after age 50. In fact, it hasn’t happened much at all since age 50.

I don’t know if it happened before I started school. The first memory I have of it was when I was in third grade. It was the first week of school. I know this because we were still in regular clothes, and hadn’t started wearing our uniforms yet.

In those days, girls’ dresses usually had sashes. As an eight-year-old, I couldn’t manage to tie the sash behind my back, although I could button, zip and tie shoe laces, all in front of me.

It was the end of the day, while we were waiting for our bus. I had asked one of my friends if she would tie my sash. My recollection of what happened was that I stood there quietly while she tied it, and that was the end of it. Well, she had said something funny, and I giggled.

However, the teacher, who had been out in the hall, suddenly dashed into the classroom wanting to know who had screamed. I thought she was crazy. No one had screamed. There was a little quiet talking, but certainly no screaming.

I know I was confused. My friend immediately looked at me and said quietly, “You did.”

I had not! When no-one said anything, she went around the class asking each person if they had done it. Everyone said no, and my friend kept saying over and over – quietly – “You did.”

I was the last one questioned, and when she asked, figuring my friend knew something I didn’t, I said that I did it. Because I hadn’t admitted it immediately – or perhaps because it had happened at all – I was given a punishment of having to write a 100-word apology.

When I got home, I explained to my mother what I knew of the situation, and what my friend had told me. Of course, she would not contradict the teacher or even write a note saying that I had no memory of the incident whatever.

What I should have done, except that, at eight, I didn’t have the words, was write my side of the story, and how I had no idea what she was talking about. At the end, I could have apologized for any inconvenience I might have caused.

But, as I said, I didn’t have the words. Instead, I wrote an apology that basically used the word very – misspelled as verry, I do recall that much –to make up about 90 of the words in the apology. And I’m sure it was tossed in the rubbish as soon as my back was turned.

The second time happened was when I was about 10. I was visiting relatives for a week. Apparently, when my aunt was out getting a few things for dinner, my cousin fell off one of those baby sit-on-and-scoot toys. Apparently, too, I told my aunt this when she returned home a few minutes later.

Nothing was made of the incident, since there was no blood, bruising or tears involved.

Later that night, apparently, my aunt thought something wasn’t quite right with my cousin. She asked me about him falling. I had no idea what she was talking about. I had no recollection of him falling or even of telling her about it. I tried to pull the memory of it, but it was like trying to retrieve a parsley flake from molasses. All I could do was shrug and say I didn’t know.

I don’t think I have had any other episodes quite like that since.

There have been times when I was so involved in the pretend life I lived inside my head that I was out of touch with what was going on in front of me in the real world. 

Who I was in my head was never who I had to remember to be in real life. So there were times when I told people my name was David Michael instead of Cathy. That usually got strange looks. I’d laugh and say I was just kidding to cover my tracks. But anyone who really knew me as a child knew that I always pretended to be a boy named David Michael.

The other form this has taken started when I was in high school, and has also only happened a couple of times that I recall.

The first time was in Chemistry class. I really wanted to like Chemistry. I had visions of being the mad scientist. But my Chemistry teacher happened to be a warm body with a science degree, and that degree was in Biology. She could only explain the work in the exact words that were in the book. I seem to be a "textbook dyslexic," and so couldn’t make sense of what I was reading in the textbook (or any textbook, really).

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand what she was teaching. Since our class was first track –what would now be called advanced placement – it was unusual for the majority of the class to fail to understand content or, as it turned out, to fail the first major exam.

Our intrepid teacher continued to repeat the same words in the same order to be met with the same lack of understanding from the class.

Finally, I raised my hand and said, “Do you mean…” and proceeded to spend five minutes explaining, in completely different words, the points she had been trying in vain to give us. It was a great explanation. All around me I heard, “Oh, now I get it!” along with the oohs and aahs of understanding. It was perhaps my best performance ever. 

Unfortunately, I have no idea what I said. I couldn’t even hear what I was explaining. It was as if some pixie sitting on top of my head was explaining Chemistry in a foreign language for all I got out of it.

The teacher’s eyes lit up. I never saw her so happy ever again. “Yes, yes, that’s it!” she said.

“I don’t understand that,” I replied, sincerely.

She immediately became extremely angry with me, and told the girl in front of me to explain to me what I had just said. Apparently, her explanation wasn’t as good as mine had been, and I never did understand.

And from that moment, that teacher never gave me credit for any intelligence whatever. I suppose I was lucky she didn’t send me to the principal for insolence.

The only other incident like that that I can recall happened when I was in my 20s. A friend was trying to explain to me how electricity works. I still have no idea.

After he spent about half an hour explaining it to me, I explained it back to him using completely different words, giving him an accurate accounting of the principles of electricity. It sounded very much like I knew what he was talking about.

But again, what was coming out of my mouth had no attachment to my conscious brain. I can’t access the portion of my brain that knows this stuff.

When I finished, he seemed happy that I understood. Until I told him that made no sense to me whatever.

I know he had used an analogy about electrons moving through a wire like water runs through a pipe. And at least he got a good laugh – and has never let me live it down – when I picked up a piece of wire, closed one eye, and looked at the end of it.

“Where’s the hole?” I asked.

No, I had no idea what he was talking about.

I know I’m not stupid. I know these things must be in there somewhere, but there’s no key to the door they’re locked behind.

The only other thing that comes close is when someone asks if I have an idea of how to do something to help one of the students I work with. Without even being aware that I’ve thought of something, I’ll give them a suggestion that usually causes their jaw to drop because they never would have thought of it.

I just shrug and say, “I kind of tend to think a little outside the box.”