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When the masses of civilized post-post modern society has electronic devices imbedded into their brains, I will be the old fogey still irrationally attached to good ‘ol paper and pencil, journal and hardback;
who still refuses to answer her clunky cell phone 90% of the time, and travels with 12 lbs. of reading material in her industrial size backpack (see the lady with the killer patent leather boots and snazzy outfit yet a horrific colour clashing government-issue/military pack?? That would be me).
My quaintness and advancing uncoolness descends swiftly these days.
No point getting all bent outta shape about such things. I am already resigned to my future as a bona fide relic/antique.
Heck, take today for example.
I am utterly miffed about the postage rate increases. When I gripe, my colleagues look at me blankly.
"I haven’t sent a letter or card in….I don’t know how long ago…"
"I don’t pay bills with mail anymore anyways."
‘Who writes letters?"
Well, SOME of us still harbor extensive stationary collections & enjoy finding an expressive bit of thought from afar amidst the beseeching fundraiser appeal mails & bank statements.
Call me quaint, but as much as an e-mail or e-card is sweet,
it can never hold a candle to the postcard from a foreign land, or greeting card, or wrinkly note on binder paper that someone selected & personalized for me alone.
Often I complain that the academically rigorous, creativity soul-sucking process of writing a doctoral dissertation left me with post traumatic stress….and worse yet, a devastated ability to write creatively.
All attempts to assert my inner author were bashed in by the American Psychological Association Nazi Style guide (and they revise the damned thing every few years so one must purchase updates).
No original thoughts were allowed-any opinion one dared to express necessitated a slew of citations and references.
Amazing that I have any authentic ideation to speak of after all that.
"Higher" education, legal matrimony, taxpayer ID…such are the institutions we shackle ourselves to for the sake of a sane and reasonably functioning society.
Yet at the end of ‘06, sudden bursts of writing began to consume me.
Eavesdropping on BART, ruminating during my runs, meditating on farmer’s market produce, visiting existentialism-suddenly everything was fodder to fill 3 simultaneous notebooks and countless showers of multi-colored post its.
All of this, vida y muerte, was my muse.
That repressed artiste was waking up with a vengeance - in the midst of a Bipolar Mania the likes of which hadn’t appeared since 1992.
Futzing around on Craigslist in the midst of all this, I came across an offer to take free writing classes in exchange for volunteer work. Hmmm. What kinda chintzy classes are these…?
I e-mailed the dude, and it turned out that I was soon hooked up with the empire of
www.mediabistro.com
The classes have been great, from a hardcore 3 hour analysis of proper grammar from an actual professional editor (unlike my own rather opinionated self taught work) to children’s books, magazine article writing, personal essays, socially conscious stories, and everyone’s fave: travel writing. (although next month I have a class scheduled for the best of ALL things: Food Writing for the Traveler!)
Even better than the courses are the hours I spend hanging out with people who are absolutely NOT in my dayjob line of work. Just sitting and chatting in those classes I come up with reams of ideas for future reference to file away.
It’s explosively, obscenely fertile in comparison to my lonely, antsy bouts facing the putty colored monitor (which faces in the less auspicious direction for me according to our Feng Shui friend. My spouse, unimpressed, will not switch our respective sides of the office. c’est la vie.)
In 2001 I told my single male friend Steve, that if he wanted to meet women he should take classes. The year I took salsa, Thai cooking, and kickboxing, I met enough people to occupy me for years. Not terribly useful as an engaged person, but tons of fun, good meals and friends came out of it.
At the mediabistro classes I have met all sorts of writers, copyeditors, authors, journalists, PR and other media folks, and a few refugees like me from other fields (disgruntled former attorneys seem rampant). If any of y’all readers want to attend monthly travel writers happy hour in Sf give me a holler…
At last Thursdays class I befriended a journalist from the Merc.
Hey, that’s our paper! I’m partial to the Mercury since I used to be a true South Bay-er, but also because the Oakland and Sf papers have become so wretched.
Anyways, as a multimedia analyst and music writer, she has what one of my friends termed "a dream job."
Her piece from this past Sunday:
http://www.mercurynews.com/hiphop/ci_5869850?nclick_check=1
See? I am out of date already! Earlier this year our AYPAL youth group printed event flyers that said amongst other things: "Get Hyphy with it." Those of us who serve youth in Oak-town and Richmond were finally getting a little hyphy and now Marian tells us it’s already "done"?!
I gave her a lift to her car, which is the least any petite woman who’s a long way from home at 10 pm can offer to any even more petite nice young woman who is even further from home. She kindly offered to reciprocate , telling me "if you ever want to get into any shows/concerts…"
As I mulled over that nice, if throughly unnecessary offer, it occurred to me that the only 2 upcoming shows I am currently thinking about are:
"True Colors" featuring Cyndi Lauper/Erasure
and taking my mother to see "Jersey Boys" at the Curran theatre (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons).
So apparently my head is situated somewhere in the 80’s or early 60’s.
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