The Stack and the Net

Los Angeles, California

I was watching a program recently where, before sitting down to a meal at their home, the host collected everyone's cell phones. I was reminded that I once heard someone interviewed on Fresh Air who was promoting an unplugged weekend. At the time, several years back, that appealed to me. But now, it just seems impossible! I now even need my phone to unlock and start my car! While I ponder about overusing my phone, I am gratified that I stave off impatience by playing pool on my phone, when I am, for example, waiting in line at the bank. But my phone usage has begun to usurp time that I would normally spend reading books at night, or catching up on the last month of The New Yorker magazines that I seem to be perpetually chasing.

Texting sometimes stands in for telephone conversations, which is both good and bad. Good in its expediency; but bad in its lack of face-to-face, or at least voice-to-voice, connection. Thankfully, it hasn't replaced the phone conversations that I have with my cousin and my closest friends, and, of course, Joel. But for some of the friends with whom I am in intermittant contact, texting often suffices, and that's okay.

Christopher once mentioned the stack, where, during business lunches, everyone stacks their cellphones in the middle of the table. The first one who reaches for their phone has to pay for the meal. I once proposed a similar plan with friends who seem to be vilely steeped in celebrity culture: The first one who mentions 'the k-word' pays for the meal. The k-word being Kardashian (Kardashian clearly up there with Lord Voldemort as a name which should not be spoken aloud ever). I suspect they were not amused. Can you imagine?

The cell phone thing has apparently replaced the personal computer thing which replaced the television thing. Think of the changes that have occurred in interpersonal relationships since people have become distracted by screens. I grew up in the sixties, and have no memory of living in a home without televisions. There was always a television set in each of our bedrooms, though not in my parents' bedroom nor anywhere else in the house. Watching television together was not a family activity, as both my parents looked on TV-watching as something that was done by people who did not read books. However, my grandfather worked for Barker Brothers department store in downtown Los Angeles, and they retailed television sets. So, our family always had an abundance of new TVs, even though my parents never watched except when there was a major news event or NASA launch (Dad was an aerospace engineer whose firm worked on instruments in those rockets). We had our skating lessons and other activities, including Girl Scouts, after school. At night, we did our homework and practiced piano during the week. If we were at home on the weekends, we played games while listening to albums on the stereo system that my father had built. Engineer that he was, he had put together a receiver, a metal tray of tubes and wires, connected to a turntable. When my parents joined us, we played Tripoly and other card games. I was the youngest in my family, and always trying to get the rest of them to play board games with me. I think I got them to play Clue and Monopoly a couple of times, but we got back to Tripoly pretty quickly.

I'm not the first person to observe that technology is wreaking havoc on our relationship to others. On this planet, normal humans need to have a connection with the people in their lives. At the worst of times, three years ago, my therapist and I discussed the idea of bringing my female friends together in a sort of loose support group. When I floated this idea out to two of them, one immediately demurred, saying she wasn't interested in talking about, nor listening to others' problems. Fair enough. So, the Frister Fridays became social, which was fine. Friendships became stronger through these monthly get togethers, which clearly separated the women from the girls.

Recently, my friend Cathy, who is also my pilates trainer and acupuncture practitioner, was telling me about a workshop she attended in Washington state. We were having lunch at a little restaurant in Westwood called Fundamental. After she described one of the exercises in visualization which was called The Net, I had an epiphany. That was a realization of what my friends and I are providing for each other. The net Cathy described is a metaphor where strength comes from being interwoven, which allows it to support, even to gently rock, as in a hammock. How important is that? In my own net, I am, literally, trusting these women with my life as I have given them this power through my Living Trust. But they are also available, and emotionally available, in so many other ways. As I have written before, Joel is my rock. But these women are my safety net.

Whether they know it or not, everyone needs The Net in their lives. If you don't get this, step away from this blog and go watch a few Sex and the City episodes. Or, The Golden Girls, or I Love Lucy. Remember how many times Ethel was side-by-side with Lucy in all of her zany experiences and schemes? If you utilize your friends for socializing alone, you are missing out on what it feels like to have people in your life who have your back, whom you can call at any time, and with whom you balance all of that by also having a lot of shared fun: travel, and shopping, and concerts, and special dinners together. The best of two worlds. And the best part of all of it? They are always only a text away...

And again, thanks for reading my blog!

Anarchronism (sic)

Los Angeles, California


I think I inadvertently coined a new word recently. It was an uncaught typo; one of many that remain out there, I'm sure. I tend to publish posts (I'm not being lofty, that's what the button says: PUBLISH POST) hastily. I don't write them in haste. I go over them several times a day, during the course of about a week. I make a lot of changes and often move text around. This, too, causes problems, as I often leave part of a sentence behind, rendering what remains unintelligible. I'm only an average speller, but good enough to notice that spellcheck has its problems. After going over the posts quite a number of times, I eventually hit a wall and just punch that button to put the post up on my blog. Then, over the next couple of days, as I keep noticing errors -- typos, bad syntax and whatnot, I continue to make corrections, even though it's already out there.


And that is what happened with anarchronism, which I misspelled in the first paragraph of my last post, entitled, The Golden Age (and available here for a limited time or more). And don't bother looking there, as I've already cleaned it up. But, here's the thing. I kinda sorta like it. I've decided that anarchronism is the melding of anarchy and anachronism. This happens when the anachronisms are done out of rebellion. Like the rules of this time period don't apply to me! I saw this in Joseph Papp's production of Two Gentlemen of Verona. The hell with convention, let's send a telegram in the middle of Shakespeare's play. You know, sometimes mistakes can create a lightbulb-over-the-head moment. Ok, maybe this wasn't exactly one of those times . . .


In spite of my shortcomings, spelling and the like, I do know a couple of things. And, recently, I had a conversation with some friends about uncommon knowledge. We defined this as things we know that a lot of people don't. We weren't talking quantum physics here, nor even geometry, which might as well be quantum physics for my lack of comprehension of it. Rather, we were talking about things like words that are commonly mispronounced; words so commonly mispronounced that if you use the correct pronunciation most people will think you are the one pronouncing it incorrectly. Like flaccid, which I learned long ago is pronounced flak-sid. Luckily, like zoology (zo-ol-o-gy not zoo-o-lo-gy), it doesn't enter into my everyday conversation. However, when it does, I pronounce both the way everyone else does even though I know it's incorrect. Call me crazy, I just like to fit in.


And, while I'm on a roll here with the mispronunciations, I'd like to cry out against dropping H's. No, not like a Cockney dropped H a la Eliza Doolittle. But rather the ph and th sounds in amphitheater and anaesthetic. Ph as in fuh, and th as in the. Why on God's green earth do people say amPitheater and anaesTetic? There's a phuh and a thuh in there, people! Ok, sorry, just a pet peeve of mine.


As I recall, the conversation didn't start with the pronunciation of words, however. It started with disbelief at how fast rules of etiquette seem to be changing (or perhaps, more accurately, how they are currently being ignored). One of my friends, Debra, mentioned that she was aghast when, at a wedding reception she attended, a cash collection for the bride and groom was taken by passing around a large bowl. On point here, we recently received an invitation to an out-of-state wedding shower where it was indicated that the soon-to-be bride and groom, who both have quite good jobs, didn't really need anything. So could we all just pitch in and help send them on their honeymoon to Australia? Hmmm. I hate to be a buzz kill about this, but I think if you can't afford to take yourselves to Australia for your honeymoon, you should maybe set your sights a bit closer. Bakersfield, perhaps. I would say that it was just me feeling that way, but my friends seemed to agree. Still, the times they are a'changing.


I'm not quite sure what purpose etiquette serves anymore. While people do continue to beg forgiveness for an unexpected belch, a lot of the rest seems to have gone out the window. And I mean flown, not meandered on its way. And, evidently, some new rules haven't stuck around town for long. Clearly, as I learned from Sex in the City it is no longer a breach of etiquette to sleep with someone before the third date. The thing is, I didn't even know about the third date rule, and already it's old hat. It gets really challenging to keep up. In Calvin Trillin's new compilation Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin, he confides that he's "decided to skip holistic," adding that "the speed of trends being what it is these days, about the only way a citizen can exhibit an independent spirit is to remain totally inert." Inertia's not a bad thing, I think. And in the case of these new wedding trends, I think I'm going to give it a skip. Gluten-free? Ditto. Reality TV (do you really have to ask?)?


Therefore, I'd like to fall back on the very important things that I do know. I hope they are still true and impactful. Here's one: when a wedge of cheese is set out for self-serving, you should take your portion while maintaining the shape of the wedge. None of that slicing right across the point. No, no, and no. And, do you know that while you should leave a guest room and/or powder room in the same state as when you walked in, conversely you should never refold your napkin before you leave a dining table? This gets confusing because of those waiters who will run over and refold your napkin if you leave the table, say, to make a phone call or use the loo. Still, when your meal is finished and you are walking away from the table, you don't refold your napkin (you just don't).


And who decides this stuff anyway? Billy, who is rather a devout iconoclast, would be inclined to do these things just because he knows he's not supposed to. And yet. And yet, he can be a real stickler about other stuff. Don't even think about whispering even one comment to him during a movie. To him, this is a felony etiquette infracture; one to which he refuses to dignify with a response. Any response. He will not speak during a movie. Stonewall Jackson was a loose goose compared to Billy in this area.


Clearly, I believe structure and form serve a purpose, and I think some sense of etiquette has its place in our chaotic world. Isn't it fundamentally just bad manners for each of us not to let in one car ahead of us, when the adjoining lane is closing? And I fear that if we throw it all out, one day we'll find ourselves caught in the nightmare of passing the hat at a bridal shower to fund the bride's Vera Wang wedding dress. And with our luck, this would also be where we encounter the flaccid napkin, and that badly hacked wedge of cheese. But, I think it really is too exhausting to fight. Besides, it could just be that my dedication to the cause of maintaining order is misplaced; or worse, that in the last analysis, it is merely an anarchronism. Thank you for reading my fblog (F is silent).