Cutting edge technology and young Luddites

Two 11-year-old boys are sitting on my family room floor; they have a card game spread out on a small, round, low-to-the-floor Japanese style wooden table.  The Capitals are playing, but the boys aren't paying attention to the game, although one of them is an avid fan—he’s even wearing an Ovechkin jersey.  The boys, best friends since they were 4, are convinced that something weird is happening, because they keep rolling dice in combinations that add up to six, or drawing combinations of cards that also add up to six.  I’m tempted to ask them if they know that President Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln and President Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy, but that might be too much for them.  The Penguins just scored; cards and dice are forgotten for now.

*****

I can’t decide if I should buy a new phone or not.  My phone is fine.  But I want a new one.  I keep shopping for new phones; I’ve even had phones in my shopping cart, but I never actually complete the transaction.  Other things we need, I think; other things to spend money on.  Still, the phone keeps calling me (see what I did there?) 

*****

While I shop for the latest and presumably greatest mobile device, I spend Saturday evening with two young boys who love everything old.  They went through a typewriter phase a few years ago; now, they use giant Clinton-era camcorders to document their adventures.  Like Snapchat for the Stone Age. They disagree on which is the best Beastie Boys song; my son's friend favors "Fight for Your Right," while my son holds out for "Paul Revere."  Both of the boys agree that "Sabotage" is far inferior to their favorites.  "I liked their old stuff so much better," my son says.  

Now, during the intermission between the second and third periods of the game, the boys are watching old Harlem Globetrotters videos on an iPod, but they need a larger screen to do Meadowlark Lemon justice.  They want to borrow this computer, so that's all for now.  Let's go Caps. 

Ain't nobody got time for that

I signed up with NaNoWriMo in November, because I wanted to really get started on my novel.  I knew that I didn't have the vaguest chance of actually finishing it in 30 days, and I didn't finish it in 30 days.  In fact, I just passed 50,000 words yesterday, and I think I have about 40,000 more before it will really be finished, which means that I'll have finished it in about a year.

Maybe a real writer can finish a novel faster than that, but I'm working full-time and up to my neck in lots of other projects, too, so I feel fine about that time frame.  I write for about 15 minutes a day, almost every single day (sometimes I take Sundays off.)  Every so often, I go back and revise. Sometimes, I cringe when I reread my own work, thinking "who would ever read this bilge?" Other times, I laugh out loud at my own funny funny dialogue, because no one laughs harder at my jokes than me.  It's not necessarily a humor novel, although there are funny parts.  At least I think they're funny, but I'm no judge, because I crack myself up.

*****

My husband wants me to go shopping with him to pick out tile and paint and fixtures for my bathroom, which is in dire need of repair, especially the floor, a horrid old stick-on vinyl hot mess that won't come clean no matter how hard I scrub it.  As badly as the bathroom needs attention, though, and as much as I want the project finished, I just can't bear the thought of spending hours in a home improvement warehouse picking out stuff.  Instead, I'm picking out tile and a vanity, etc., online, and we'll just pick it up at the store when it arrives. "But what if you don't like it?" my husband asks.  "Don't you want to see this stuff in person before you buy it?"  No.  No, I don't.  Even if the tile color is slightly off; even if the vanity doesn't look quite as nice IRL as it does online, it will be much better than what we have now, and that's all I need.

*****

When I was young and single, I read magazines.  Vanity Fair was my favorite; but I also loved Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Glamour.  I stopped reading magazines because the Web made them obsolete; and because I just didn't have time anymore.  Not only did I not have time to read the magazines; I didn't have time to live life the way the magazine writers said that I should.  If everyone did everything that magazine self-help articles advised--8 hours of sleep, daily structured workouts, organic paleo diet, the right clothes and hair and makeup--then no one would ever have time for anything other than self-care and maintenance.

I was busy before I started working full-time again, but now I'm ridiculously busy.  I can still accomplish things, though; I just have to set priorities and manage expectations.  I don't have time to shop and deliberate over fixtures, but I can still renovate my bathroom as long as I'm willing to live with whatever I can order sight unseen from the Internet.   I can write a novel as long as I don't need to act however a novelist is supposed to act.  I'm not sure how novelists are supposed to act, actually, but I'm pretty sure that they're not supposed to write two or three sentences at a time, for five or fifteen minutes at a time, while dinner is on the stove or coffee is brewing.  Eventually, I'll have a functioning bathroom and a book that might or might not be readable.  I'll also have 24 hours a day; same as everyone else.

Basic

Yesterday, we helped to make deliveries for the Rockville High School mulch sale, an annual booster club fundraiser.  Believe it or not, driving high school students around the suburbs and delivering mulch is not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  They all worked hard and stayed cheerful and polite, despite cold, wind, and intermittent hail.  I was proud of them.

I didn't mind driving, loading and unloading, or even the dirt, because my car was not involved in the delivery of mulch.  This is my car.

I love this car.  I didn't name it Brad or anything like that, but I LOVE this car.

My last car was a Honda Civic, which I bought new in 2001, when I was pregnant with my first child.  I drove it until he was in 7th grade. So obviously, I'm not much of a car person.  The Honda was actually the first brand-new car that I ever bought.  Every other car I'd ever owned was purchased used, with only two features in mind: Does it go when I apply the accelerator, and does it stop when I apply the brake?  Sold. This approach to car buying and car driving served me very well for many years, speed camera tickets notwithstanding.

For some reason, though, sometime in 2012, I started to notice Subarus, and I decided that I wanted one.  My husband wasn't impressed. His approach to car buying is completely different from mine.  He has never bought a used car, and he swears that he never will.  Even at 18, in college and working three jobs, he bought a brand-new car (a Nissan Maxima.) He wanted me to get something flashier and more luxurious, but I'm not very flashy or luxurious, and I'd just feel like an idiot driving around in a car that's more stylish than I am.  The Subaru is not beautiful, but it's good-natured and dependable, and I can think of worse things to be.

But just because my car isn't flashy, that doesn't mean that I'm not fussy about it.  I'm VERY fussy about my car.  My husband is particular about styling and horsepower and make, but the inside of his car is a damn free-for-all.  When they're in his car, my kids and their friends eat snacks, throw their muddy cleats and gear everywhere, and fling straw wrappers and empty chip bags all over the place.  A family of rodents could take up residence in there, and it wouldn't look any worse than it does now.

We took my husband's old Isuzu Axiom for the mulch deliveries, which, if possible, looks even worse than his other car, and the dirt is the least of its problems.  It doesn't matter where you drive in that car; it feels like you're driving an East German-made flatbed truck down an unpaved mountain road somewhere in the Caucasus.  Fifteen bags of mulch stuffed into the cargo hold actually improve the ride noticeably; I considered buying a few extra bags, just as ballast.

My son was quick to explain to his friends that his mom's other car is much cleaner than the one we were driving in, and one of the boys claimed that his father has a truck that is much dirtier than ours. Maybe it is, but his father wasn't delivering mulch, either.  He probably just has an average everyday dirty truck, but not so dirty that he can haul 15 bags of mulch at a time, for multiple deliveries, and then still not feel particularly compelled to clean up afterward.  Our truck didn't look any worse post-mulch than pre-mulch.  If you're going to claim that you have a dirty truck, then that's the standard that you need to live up to.  Or down to.  If there are raccoons or squirrels in that car, then they probably have plenty of shredded hardwood with which to feather their little nests.  My car is still nice and clean.