Memories

Memoirs have become a popular forum, not just for the rich and famous, but also for the unknown and middle class. And while the “misty water-colored memories” of song fame may sound cheerful and nostalgic, more often the modern memoir is an outpouring of vengeance on those who are perceived to have done the memoirist wrong. Too often, common decency takes a back seat to salaciousness.

Famous actresses are particularly fond of tell-all stories cataloguing the transgressions of their numerous ex-husbands, without taking into account how trashy their lack of propriety may make them look.

Fans buy into it in an effort to get to know what it’s like to be one of the rich and powerful. But I wonder if some of those tell-all books are any more honest than the headlines from the tabloid newspapers reporting on the 20-pound, two-headed baby or the, “She’s having my alien-abducted baby” stories.

           

Knowing what these memoirs are often like, it was with some trepidation that I bought Carly Simon’s Boys in the Trees. While I’d bought her albums and learned to sing and play many of her songs on guitar in college, I’d also heard enough gossip about her life that now would be touted as, “It’s on the Internet; it must be true.”

           

Wanting to know how the other half lived didn’t mean I wanted confirmation of slutty behavior. It was refreshing to read the book.

While it was a fairly comprehensive autobiography, it didn’t give a blow-by-blow recitation of her every sexual encounter. She was private about what should stay private.

           

There were even surprises, like her admission that she had met and was delighted to play a concert with Cat Stevens, someone the inquiring minds in college had insisted she’d had a torrid affair with.

Even on her marriage to James Taylor, which ended in divorce, she was polite. She didn’t lay blame. She took and gave blame equally, and demonstrated that she still cared about him.

           

Compared to other famous memoirs, Carly Simon’s was so non-lurid that the biggest headline about it were what few revelations she made about who “You’re So Vain” was really about.

           

The fact that a famous person can pen a revelatory memoir without sinking into the muck shines a light for regular folks to see that they can write a memoir that can be insightful for their children and grandchildren. They can show how their lives mattered, and what life was like in a different time.

The key is to find what makes an individual’s life important by showing how it reveals the times in which they lived.

Caught by the 21st Century

Recently, I bought my first iPhone. Many of my friends consider that as my having been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century.

Not so.

I love the idea of technology. But I don’t necessarily see the point sometimes. I don’t like to have things just to accumulate them.

 The technology that exists today is not what I was expecting, growing up. In the ‘60s we were told that by the year 2000 we would have robot maids and possibly flying cars. While I never really expected to live like the Jetsons, 17 years beyond the promised date, I’m still waiting for my robot maid (and no, the Rumba doesn’t dust or make beds -- or dinner).

While Star Trek may have hinted at mobile phones and computers with Siri (or Alexa, depending on the brand), expecting that future seemed a bit too Twilight Zone for this century. Perhaps next century was my thinking.

I like computers. I truly do. In fact, it always surprises me when I know how to do things with them that my much younger colleagues don’t. I mean, they grew up with computers, whereas laptops appeared too late for me to have benefitted either time through college. Yes, the big ones were around, but my family couldn’t afford one, and the Internet wasn’t ubiquitous back then.

To me, a computer is a fantastic typewriter, one that saves a lot of paper when I’m writing a novel. I love being able to delete or move words, sentences and paragraphs without having to start from scratch. And autocorrect is great for my typical typos. The fact that I can also save the many novels that I’ve written on a single thumb drive instead of a filing cabinet is fantastic.

I love being able to look up information on the Internet instead of needing an entire set of Encyclopedia, which are outdated in a year or two. It is frustrating, though, when I type in a search word, only to be flooded irrelevant information. In that regard, it doesn’t save me time or frustration.

While research on the Internet can be frustrating, social media is an introvert’s dream.

Facebook allows me to be social with people I might otherwise never meet. It also allows social contact without physically being in a crowded room. I can read someone’s blather, call them an idiot and never type a word. They’re none the wiser and we’re all happy. (So, if I actually answer something you've posted, I haven't called you an idiot.)

The idea of email is exciting, but the actuality is it’s mostly junk mail. I had dreams of keeping up correspondence via email. I do that with a small group of friends I’ve known since elementary school, but  most people now tell me they’d rather get texts.

There are several things I wish I could do with the computer. Being married to an IT guy, you’d think I’d have an easy time of learning cool things like Photoshop. But no. I had to take a class to learn the finer points of blogging. My husband, The Blue Scream of Jeff (read his blogs) didn’t understand why I needed to take the class when he could have shown me. The point was he didn’t.

I was told I can’t do Photoshop because I don’t have the program on my computer. When I asked about getting it, I was told I didn’t need it. Blue Scream could do those things for me. What about independence? What about creativity? I think I could be good at it, even if I can’t draw. When I do need something, I have to wait around until Blue Scream has time, instead of being able to do it myself.

But he says it’s expensive, so I won't be getting Photoshop anytime soon.

I’m not anti-technology.

I am just against wasting things.

I have a computer.

I have an iPod.

And until recently, I had a perfectly good phone to talk and text on. 

I also have a perfectly good DSLR camera, although it will never be as good to me as the old 35 mm camera for which I have difficulty getting film.

I don’t need a phone that does all of those things. Once everything breaks, a single item that does it all might be okay, although I don’t know how you can listen to music, chat on the phone and take photos all at once.

But why waste things that still work perfectly well? Besides, the camera on the phone isn’t very good compared to my real camera, as it demonstrated recently at a Moody Blues concert. And the charge on the phone battery doesn’t last anywhere near as long as the one on my iPod, despite the iPod being an ancient 5 or 6 years old.

Originally, I got a mobile phone because Blue Scream was worried about my having to drive long distances for my job. Once, on the way home, a not-so-reliable previous car broke down. There was no payphone anywhere, even at the gas station I stopped in to find one. The attendant was kind enough to let me use his mobile.

With the total demise of pay phones and a job that requires my boss to be able to get in touch with me when I’m in different places, I got a phone that allows texting as well as calls. Of course, outside work, I seldom get calls or texts, other than robocalls and hoaxes.

People have frequently, over the past few years, told me I need an iPhone or droid.

Why?

It has Internet!

My old phone could’ve had that, but it was far more expensive than the phone plan I had. Besides, I have a computer for getting on the Internet. The phone that had texting had been a concession to modern advances. The one before that was a flip phone. Ever tried to text on one of those? Can you imagine trolling the Internet on one?

Still, while my newer model phone suited my needs, it was getting old and the battery was starting to go. It was showing other signs of failing, too. I had been hearing about plans that included Internet and were cheaper than the plan I had. I thought I might just have to give in simply to save money.

Looking around, I noticed that many of the stores I frequented (mostly for tea between schools) had apps now rather than punch cards to allow one a free cuppa every 7^th or 10^th purchase. But you couldn’t get apps without Internet.

So, I bought an iPhone.

I still seldom get calls or texts. My boss, colleagues and Blue Scream call or text at times. And it does have some interesting features.

It’s nice that I can get weather updates, but not being tied to my phone, I usually don’t see them until a couple of hours after a storm has already passed. I really don’t need the news flashes about the latest governmental lunacy. I still don’t use it for the Internet; I don’t send emails or look up information. When I have the time, I do those things on a computer.

Recently, I even used the GPS, although I couldn’t get mine to show the cool map on the screen in my car the way Blue Scream’s does (we have the same model car). After I came home, with a bit of playing around with my phone (he has a droid, so it works a little differently), he was able to show me how that worked.

I do know I’ve earned 2 free teas so far and a hoagie, and I’ve recently earned a free Rita’s water ice on my apps. I wasn’t able to download my boarding pass for our recent vacation on it, although I suspect having it on the phone will be as awkward as a paper one going through TSA.

Getting the iPhone has allowed me to get an iPad for a really good price. I haven’t yet figured out what to do with an iPad, but I’m sure I’ll eventually find it useful.

Just know you’ll never see me walking anywhere with my head down and eyes glued to a phone screen. And don’t expect me to give up my SLR any time soon.

The Thrill of Pretty Things

The scene: Philadelphia in spring or summer. My mother, my aunt, my cousin and I were in the city for a day, but the reason escapes me. My cousin and I were 10 or 11.

We spent the day shopping, I suppose. I don’t recall going to the city for any other reason as a child before malls had been invented. I liked the idea of shopping, but the reality was headache-inducing, what with overheated stores, crowds and standing in line.

Then there was outside. A rural girl, I found cities gritty, and sidewalks tiring on the feet that, in those days, had to be in dress shoes for any excursion. I had yet to own my first pair of sneakers.

Despite the negatives, I found department stores magical; the window displays a thing of beauty.

But whereas I felt the internal wonder of it all – an emotion inexpressible in words but easily seen on my face – my cousin was exuberant. Experience had taught me that verbal expression of my joy led only to ridicule, from cousins as well as peers.

“You like that?”

“You still believe in that?”

“You’re stupid.”

“You’re a baby.”

“You’re weird.”

My cousin had, apparently, never met with those experiences, so she didn’t hesitate to say, “Oh, that’s beautiful! I love that! How pretty!”

I would nod, enjoying my internal experience, but apparently not showing it enough on my face. My cousin had, at every turn, beaten me to the punch.

The intersection of, “I’m tired and my feet hurt,” and the thrill of pretty things was face-in-neutral.

Face-in-neutral is apparently interpreted by extroverts as boredom.

Yes, I am an introvert. I can hold my own and more in a conversation if it’s something I’m interested in. But starting a conversation with a stranger or someone I don’t know well is something the other person needs to do. I can no more get beyond, “Hello. Nice weather,” than my non-artistic mind can find the horizon line on a blank canvas.

When someone isn’t having a conversation with me, but enthusing over the sights and sounds of the environment, what is there to do beyond nodding and saying, “Yes” ?

Perhaps the reason I don’t remember much about the day is the one memory of it that did stick out: my mother scolding me in the train station – in quiet but deadly “mom voice” – after my cousin and aunt had departed. “Why can’t you be like your cousin? She, at least, enjoyed this trip.”

Wait a minute. I enjoyed the day enormously. I got to ride the train, see the sights, and enjoy the wonder and beauty in my own way. We even ate lunch at Horn and Hardart’s automat, my absolute favorite restaurant at the time, where I put the coins in the slot and took out my favorite, beef pot pie, from behind the little glass door. My cousin hadn’t even liked hers. Why was I expected to repeat every rapturous thing she said? What’s the point of that?

My mother destroyed the day with her admonishment. Now I understood: my mother wanted a daughter, but I wasn’t the one she wanted.

I was well-mannered and smart and inventive, and did what I was told. But somehow I was lacking.

Admittedly, my social skills have always been in negative numbers. I spent my childhood waiting for friends to happen, and never quite understood the odd looks or social cues or whatever they were that were directed my way. Unfortunately, that is still the case.

I liked my cousins. I always liked the idea of visiting them, but the visits never met my expectations.  No, not expectations; my hopes and dreams of what it would be like to have someone to play with.

Any of my cousins my age or near it could run faster than I, climb trees better, and generally disappear so I couldn’t find them. They were good at grabbing my shoes so I’d have to chase after them in my bare feet, and when I wouldn’t, they’d toss the shoes into a nearby rose hedge where the thorns would tear at my skin as I retrieved the shoes.

They wouldn’t discuss books or invent stories or jump rope or anything I was good at. The trip to Philadelphia fit right into the same mold.

Which is why I travel alone. And wear sneakers.