Changing Tastes

Every vacation I go on necessitates a trip to the bookstore.  No matter how long or short the trip, I must take enough with me to ensure that should I get trapped on a dessert island, I will have enough reading material for a year.  This also tends to mean I travel with a very heavy suitcase and carryon.  Besides, I need options, even if I don't get the chance to read everything that I brought.  I'm still a little raw from our trip to San Francisco last year that necessitated me buying a book in the airport.  That's right, in the airport.  I felt dirty and a little ashamed of myself.  Taught me a lesson about being unprepared.  All of this has also taught Elton that until I invest in an e-reader for trips, we probably need an extra suitcase to tote all of my reading material, which often includes variety in the vein of New York Times Crossword Puzzle Books and an assortment of news weeklies.

Anyways, having said all that, I'll get to my actual point.  When I went to stock up for our recent trip to San Diego I discovered something that really surprised me:  my genre tastes have changed.  Having spent close to 10 years working in a bookstore, and having spent the last 20+ years as an avid reader, I was really surprised.  I have a pretty varied palette, but have always enjoyed a soft spot for coming-of-age stories of the contemporary Holden Caulfield variety.  The last coming of age story I read left me feeling rather wanting.  I just didn't care as much.  It all seemed so whiney, so cliché.  But this lack of interest ultimately left me feeling bereft.  Sure, there are a million other things i can read, but that's been a sure bet for a long time.

When you're used to working in a bookstore and you no longer have daily access to everything new and interesting, you begin to rely on those "guaranteed reads," those types of books that are sure to be quick and satisfying.  I walked out the door with only two books in hand; this was a first.  I know this means that its opening the door for a whole new genre that perhaps I've yet to enjoy, but it doesn't mean that the genre, or the feeling it evoked rather, won't be missed.  

This is My Life

Sometimes weird things happen to me.  I would go so far as to say that sometimes I feel like a homing pigeon for weird people and events.  Having said that, I had a really odd encounter the other day.

I was outside a restaurant down the street from my office, waiting for a couple girlfriends I was meeting for lunch.  I people watched for a few minutes; I was early so I had some time to kill.  This guy meanwhile wanders up next to me, and sort of hovers.  Irritated, I pulled out my phone and start checking emails, Facebook, anything, trying my best to emit "stay away" vibes.  Then the guy starts to talk. 
Him:  Pretty humid out today (keep in mind this is Florida in the summer.  It's always hot, what matters is how humid it is)
Me:  (I barely glance up and keep studying my phone) Yup, sure is. 
Him:  So...you meeting someone here?
Me: (sighing in annoyance)  Sure am.  Waiting for a couple friends.

It's a simple enough exchange, right?  At this point, I'm still trying to be nice, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure he's hitting on me.  It's not in my nature to be automatically cruel or rude, despite how I may feel about the situation.  So I try to at least give off "leave me alone" vibes without being a jerk.  Did it work?  Oh no, he kept talking to me.  Over the next 10 minutes, I learned that he had moved here for California, is terribly lonely, works in IT, left a girlfriend of 4 years in California, is convinced she's cheating on him, is thinking about hiring a private investigator to find out more about said cheating, is analyzing her phone bills to see how long she talks to other guys,  and on and on and on. 

Really?  Who stands next to someone and spews their life story like that?  It was both weird and sad.  Weird because c'mon, wtf?  And sad because the kid was clearly lonely, and coming a little unhinged about his relationship.

It was like talking to a wall.  He kept asking me "Do you think she's cheating on me?"  and I answered (probably somewhat callously) "Cut the cord, son.  If she's not moving out here and you're not going back there, don't drag it out." 

It was just such a weird exchange, to the point that I don't know how to describe it.  I wound up counseling the kid about it.  A friend said I should offer street corner counseling.  I kept waiting for the hidden camera to pop out.

A Sad, Sad Day

I think it was the Christmas I was 12 or 13 that I asked Santa for it.  I couldn’t wait until Christmas morning; I knew that heavy, rectangular prize under the tree was waiting for me.  I was about to receive

Cover via Amazontree was for me.  What was it, you ask?   The créme de la of Christmas presents:  my very own Oxford English Dictionary.  Granted, it wasn’t the 20-volume behemoth that I coveted from the local library, but it was enough.  It was still full of words and language; it meant endless afternoons of new words to memorize and pore over with abandon.  My nerdy little self was in heaven.

As with all books, there is something to be said for their physical nature.   The act of reading, the feel of the paper pages between your fingers, the different weight of a paperback vs a hardcover, or permabound and roughcut.  So many variables that shape the reading experience as much as the words themselves.  This is something that I’ve struggled with as I debate whether to give in to the allure of the e-reader, but it strikes a different chord when its the OED, a volume so large and so revered that it takes years to update.

Recently, I almost bought a nook.  I was seduced by the thought of travel that didn’t require me to bring 5 different books, but rather one slim electronic device that could hold a library.  It’s difficult to resist the convenience, though in the end I opted to wait and see what comes next.

So where does this leave us, those lovers of literature?

Walking the Thin Line of Privacy

10 years ago, most of us didn’t have online personalities.  Only the more tech or computer savvy among us tooled along on the information highway, coming up with online handles that defined us in chat rooms, relationships that  might occasionally carry over into email or IM, but ultimately made us known to only a small segment of people.  In a way, it was easier than to hide behind these online personas.  Now, our identities online are no longer personas, they are extensions of our physical, everyday selves.  I myself exist on a range of social networks, connected across the interwebs via this blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email and random other services for which I have registered and forgotten.  My job is as a website and social media manager, so a portion of myself extends to that company’s online persona as well.  So many facets of ourselves, how is it possible to have privacy?

To me, privacy is not so much an issue as the emotions behind it.  Many people don’t want their locations tracked, don’t want their personal and professional lives to intersect.  They are ok with one group knowing that they ate breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, but would rather the other set not know that they have a special fondness for Cracker Barrel’s cheesy hashbrowns.  And I can understand that mentality, I suppose.  I am realistic enough to know that spending my day monitoring Facebook and Twitter feeds mean that I have become numb to the lines between personal and professional.  I am surrounded by people whose lives are intertwined.  I don’t so much care anymore who knows where I am, what I had for breakfast, my thoughts on social media management or Sandra Bullock’s recently publicized divorce from Jesse James.

At the end of the day, I care about the emotion behind it all.   We all preach that privacy is no longer an option in an age when all of us are constantly electronically connected, but what about the privacy of feelings?  A bridge that I don’t think I could ever cross would be to broadcast or discuss my own inner monologue, or my true feelings on areas that I’m sensitive about.  Disagreements with friends or family, hurt feelings, misunderstandings…all of those more tender emotions are things that I would never and could never broadcast.  I am amazed when I read articles about couples who fight via Facebook, breakups that happen over Twitter, raw, vulnerable emotions splashed across the web for everyone to see.  In all of this, I suppose that is what I understand the least.  Social media and where it’s heading is a passion; learning about it, discussing it, probing the sociological patterns behind it all comprise my day, and led me to the position I am in now.  That place where peoplle are comfortable exposing their innermost feelings…that is the part of social media that scares me.  

How alone are those of us who cannot do that?  Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, even Lois Lowry and Madeleine L’Engle…all these author’s envisioned futures where we were both completely connected and disconnected from each other.  Futures where technological efficiency has replaced human emotions.  How easy to feel that you have a million friends and acquaintances that stretch across the internet, yet how awful to feel that there is not a single person you can talk to truly, deeply, in any of those places when your feelings are hurt.

The Service Waiting Room at the Dealership

People watching is always fun.  Airports are generally a good place for this, as they see all walks of life, all ages, all levels of affluence and influence, or lack there of.   Similarly, your mid-level car dealership service areas offer the same level of people watching.  You might not find this range of individuals at the BMW or VW dealerships.  But at a car brand that attracts many different levels of economic standing and many different age demographics, you’re pretty much in luck.  This applies to Toyota and Honda, in particular, and perhaps Chevy and Ford as well.  Especially on a Saturday morning.

I, myself, am at the Honda dealership.  I’ve very rarely found it difficult to write, especially when the desire and time are present, as writing for my own enjoyment is not something I have a lot of opportunity for anymore.  Yet here, in the midst of this very interesting mix of humanity, I find my words coming in starts and stops, and I find myself becoming progressively frustrated at the strings of sentences I am producing.  Observational humor is something that I relish and excel at, and when sitting in the movie-theater arranged area that is the waiting room should only produce a wealth of wonderful ideas.  Yet here I sit, bemoaning my lack of inspiration (how can that be, you should see the people around me!) and my mind wanders back to this blog, and my plans for it.

Recently I began posting what is sure to be a very long bucket list.  Recording the things I want to do and see in list form appeals to my list-making soul, and will someday afford me the ability to cross items off my list.  Let me tell you, there is little more satisfying.  So then where does this blog go?  For life in general, I have recently been consumed by a number of desires that I want to implement, and am struggling with how.

Fitness, and that inherent lifestyle, is important to me.  Yoga is something that I love, as are cycling, and running, and going to the gym.  But I find it difficult to balance all these desires.  I have this ideal lifestyle in my head, where I don’t love junk food, and I spring from bed pop-tart like at 5am so I can get in a run or a gym session before leaving for work.  Thus far, that has somehow not happened.  I feel like I have a mental block that is keeping me from figuring out how to work my runs, rides, and mat practices into a schedule that already includes several evenings at work a week and a long work day.  How does all that get balanced?  I suppose it’s just good self-discipline, which I know I possess, but which seems to be missing lately.

To my original point, I am not sure where I would like to go with this blog.  I love the idea of recording my journey back to yoga, but that seems  a bit behind if I have already spent the last three months doing that and not recording it.

So essentially, stay tuned.  As much as I am sure that everyone cares ever so much about my daily thoughts, I know I need a focus, which is part of the reason my writing here has been so intermittent.  So perhaps inspiration will find me.  Let’s hope it’s soon.

The Beginning of My Bucket List

For someone quite near and dear to me, I once made a greeting card that featured an assortment of things I would like to accomplish or experience in my lifetime.  My natural OCD tendencies mean that while the greeting card is aesthetically appealing, I am compelled to put them in a list.  I feel the need to be able to cross them off, or to be able to randomly skim through them, or attach them to the pages of my latest journal.

Without further ado…well, except to say that these are in no particular order.

Bucket List (Part I)

1.  Stand in the Ganges
2.  Take a train through the Indian countryside
3.  Teach someone to read
4.  Live for a time in Italy
5.  Live for a time in Greece
6.  See the Amazon Rainforest
7.  Learn a foreign language (the five years of scholastic Spanish I took do not count)
8.  Enjoy the hot springs of Iceland
9.  See the Grand Canyon
10.  Live in a small beach community on the coast.
11.  Bike up the Pacific Coast Highway
12.  Visit the great old cemeteries of Ireland
13.  Walk the moors the Bronte sisters were so fond of
14.  Ride a gondola in Venice
15.  Practice yoga in a meadow or on a mountaintop…or multiple places were I can feel even more at one with nature and the world
16.  Run a marathon
17.  See the Tour de France
18.  Take singing lessons
19.   Take dancing lessons
20.  Go sky diving
21.  Take a ride on a zip lines
22.  Visit Victoria Falls
23.  See the fjords of Norway
24.  Go to Oktoberfest
25.  Have St. Paddy’s in Ireland
26.  See Estasi di Santa Teresa by Bernini
27.   Run with the Cherry Blossoms in D.C.
28.  Tour underground Seattle
29.  Walk across Abbey Road
30.  Visit St. Peter’s Basilica
31.  Walk the Parthenon in Greece
32.  Sunbathe on a nude beach

I think that might be it for now, though the juices are flowing!

Favorite "Catcher" Quotation

"Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them - if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry." ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 24, spoken by the character Mr. Antolini