JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

I like him. 

He seems to be a normal, un-theatrical, creative guy, who participates, and innovates, but goes with the flow of the times.

I don't buy anyone's CD's or learn lyrics of songs, but whenever I see Timberlake -- hear him, hear about him -- yes, even if it's fan gossip -- I pay attention.

Researching his background gave me a sense of an ordinary person growing up -- a smart kid with an aptitude for music and real talent -- with a winner's self-confidence, plus a business man's instinct of what to do with his talent. 

Was this inherited from his father, who was a Baptist minister in a small town on the outskirts of Memphis? I skimmed the family stuff -- it didn't seem important to know. What drove the young man seemed to be personal, practical thinking.    

Actually,  whenever I see Justin Timberlake in today's news, or performing, he seems relaxed and just there -- he IS what he Is -- not a guy who decorated himself with a style, a speech pattern, or personality that he chose from other males whom he admired.

I keep feeling this guy has a lot of nerve -- he listens to his inner voice, a voice that we don't hear.

How did he grow into being 32, producer, actor, performer -- a star in music as well as films -- a performer who's  been awarded six Grammys, four  Emmys, has his own recording label, and co-owns two restaurants?

Timberlake was discovered on "Star Search," a  popular talent show back in the days before "American Idol."  He became the youngest member of a group called "N Sync" that grew into a very famous boy band.  During their hiatus, Timberlake released his solo albums, "Justified and FutureSex/LoveSounds, which spawned "Cry Me a River" and "Rock Your Body," and his singles "SexyBack," "My Love," and "What Goes Around...Comes Around,"  The albums sold more than seven-million copies worldwide.

I know Timberlake is now married to actress, model, singer, Jessica Biel. I know he was romantically involved with Britney Spears, and later, with Cameron Diaz.  I was one of  the140 million viewers that saw the 2004 super bowl show when he, while dancing with Janet Jackson, tore off a part of her costume that exposed her breast briefly. I liked the way he apologized, later, and said it was something they'd actually rehearsed.

What delights me is the way Justin Timberlake has been expanding himself as an artist for the past five years, putting his music career on hold while focused on acting -- starring in the films, "The Social Network," "Bad Teacher," and "Friends with Benefits."

Recently he released a third album, "The 20/20 Experience," which includes his hit single, "Suit &Tie."

He's still that same, regular sort of guy -- not outlandishly wild -- no hair all over his face or weird outfits, but that easy-going, natural way he moves, dances, sings -- and his choice of songs, I really like.

He fits in, wherever he goes. Here's a bit of what he recently  did when he performed at the White House for the President and Michelle.

And yay -- here, after his five-year hiatus, is Justin Timberlake now.

TRASH INTO GOLD

Do you remember life before recycling?

Gee, it was nice -- just to throw stuff out, not have to separate, not have two bins in your house, or outside.

Recycling is a chore -- a bore.

Ron Gonen, a 32-year-old guy, is firing up the issue of garbage disposal.

He's made a business out of recycling -- a profit-making venture that encourages you, rewards you with cash, for what you've bothered to separate from your garbage. Enroll, and you get a container with a computer chip that weighs the amount you've recycled, rewards you with points that you can redeem at 1,500 retailers (like Bed & Bath, Target -- a lot of stores are jumping on the bandwagon).

I remember how stunned I was when JC and I were writing a musical about garbage, and we learned that each person in the US produces about four-and-a-half pounds of garbage every day.

We'd set up a temporary office on our roof during a heatwave. Worked nonstop on the plot -- before, during, and after a July 4th weekend -- while our son played in his playpen, Teechi, our Lhasa Apso snoozed, and remnants of lunch and dinner were on the grill above coals that were whitening with ash.

"Rosanne" -- that was the title. Rosanne was the name of a garbage disposal machine, that a baritone singer, "Bill." the inventor, and his dancer fianceé, "Betty" were promoting -- selling to the city --harmonizing about the junk they'd found in the sand, in a song we titled -- "Me & the Beach & Betty."

This marvelous idea (a sure-fire hit on Broadway, we thought), was inspired by JC's cousin Bill, a brilliant inventor, who'd created a garbage disposal machine -- gotten a $300,000 grant from a think tank group in California, to develop the idea of converting waste into atomic power that could run a city.

Collaborating in that heat wave -- phew -- JC was like a commander of a ship, terse, overly precise -- you do it HIS way, and HIS way is generally "according to Hoyle."

I was frustrated. Every idea I got -- all my wild, theatrical ideas were deflated by JC's approach. And his ideas, in my opinion, were stodgy, square.

Too bad the idea (what a brilliant idea it was), never got off the ground! A month later we auditioned it for Phil Burton (Richard Burton's stepfather), who headed the American Musical Theater Academy, and Phil, in his scholarly, knowledgeable, English-accented way, thoroughly deflated our script. So, we immediately did it for Alan J. Lerner's number-one assistant, who was JC's pal, and drinking buddy, who said, "Nobody wants to see a musical about Garbage."

They were wrong, but that's show biz. What I loved, still love about cousin Bill's concept -- I can't explain it scientifically, but it was based on using the Air Force's discarded jet engines to power a garbage machine that could "eat"everything (except bottles and glass).

Bill was working on that problem, when he got side-tracked into another government project, but that problem (separating out bottles and glass), is being solved right this very minute, today!

By Ron Gonen – he's got people separating stuff --bottles, glass, paper, metal and other valuable recyclables -- teaching his enrollees about trash. inspiring them, motivating them -- not just because it's the law, but because it benefits them, financially, and economically.

The government booklet says four-and-a=half pounds of garbage is 29 pounds per week and 1,600 pound a year. According to Wise.com, with the the garbage alone, you could form a line of filled-up garbage trucks and reach the moon. Or cover the state of Texas two-and-a-half times. Or bury more than 990,000 football fields under six-foot high piles of waste. According to WM Recycle America, LLC, we throw away enough aluminum to duplicate the full commercial air fleet of the U.S.

Golly -- if went back and recycled that play -- ho ho -- I'd make the baritone a 32 year old singer dancer like Ron ...

I'm picturing us up on the roof, Jc commanding the ship ... me ... a peppy, zesty, indefatigable first mate . We'd create an opening song about weighing your junk, using the rhyme scheme from the song we wrote .....that wonderful old script ...

Well, maybe it's good that I don't know where the old script is.

Here's a truism about old projects (like my unpublished novels, and plays, off the shelf -- out there on my Website, The Readery).

Projects that almost happen, but don't happen ... they're a part of you. Like an amputated limb, you keep thinking you can still use it -- reach, walk, touch, stride. Whatever that part of you did, it lives on somehow -- in reflexes, in a feeling that you can grab on, stride from here to there.

There is where?

I mentioned just the other day in a post ... JC and I, the two of are us tip-toeing toward a way to get Em's Talkery to a larger, broader audience ... maybe audio, or the two of us reading posts, audio and video podcasting.

APPLIANCE FIXERS

Behold our bedroom. The red blanket is a two-year-old electric Sunbeam Imperial.

In my mind, the brand name, stands for "reliable, solid, dependable, Good Housekeeping approved."

The blanket was a carefully researched purchase. Two years ago when we had a dial-up modem, and excruciatingly slow internet, I went on line and checked all the stores, price, color, looked at pictures of the controls. And finally ordered the deluxe Sunbeam online from JC Penny's.

Well ... It's not heating properly.

Actually, I didn't want red, I wanted brown -- rich brown -- to replace our ten-year-old brown electric blanket that fits in with the old-fashioned "attic" decor of our bedroom -- exposed raw beams in the ceiling -- exposed brick walls.

Our dear old brown blanket provides hi-lo-adequate heat, but the LED light doesn't work in one of the two controls that lets you adjust the heat on your side of the bed.

Actor/singer, self-educated electrician JC, who has infinite patience once he's on a FIX project, had us both kneeling on the braided rug, comparing the two round, plastic controls -- the one that worked, and the one that didn't work.

The bottom of each control has a DO NOT OPEN sign on it.

As JC bravely proceeded to open his control, following his directions, I opened mine. In the course of an hour, peering with magnifying glass, flashlights, and tiny screwdrivers, we discovered that one control had a teeny, tiny, loose wire.

With his trusty soldering iron, JC labored over it, and finally soldered the teeny, tiny wire so that it connected a tiny, skinny, half-inch, bulb-like tube.

It took a while to test; to realize the light still didn't work, but if I turned the switch on my control to a twelve-noon position, my side of the bed would heat up. By moving the control to different positions on the imaginary clock, I found a position at 5 that gave me the heat I needed.

We laughed because of the time it took (because it wasn't very convenient to use the imaginary clock), but we saluted each other with a high-five and a noisy air-kiss.

That's when I noticed a bump, a small egg appeared just below my knee. "Housemaids knee" said my Malibu doctor pal, whom I chat with on the phone.

Though it took all winter (at least three months) of nightly massaging with an electric massager to get my knee back to normal, we successfully used the dear old brown blanket, and put it away for the summer.

Alas, the following October, the one control light that worked, no longer worked either. That's why I did the research, and purchased the Sunbeam.

Ah me ... Why is it that new things create new problems, and problems with new products take hours, sometimes drag on for days? The Sunbeam's manual ... oh dear, I didn't seem to be able to follow its overly detailed instructions, and I needed a magnifier to check the serial numbers, the who-to-call number.

The first winter with the Sunbeam we re-read manual, more than once, before calling customer service -- called twice, but listening to the long announcement, got impatient, annoyed, and hung up.

(It was an extra cold winter. We used my office's portable radiator, and a quilt, till the weather got warmer. Reprieved, we put the problem out of our minds, as we put away the Sunbeam, radiator and quilt.)

Okay -- winter's coming again. My toes are cold. The Sunbeam's plugged in, and it doesn't get warm enough. We re-read the manual. Got out fat file folder with its warranty, all the warranties, receipts for everything. (Even stuff no longer in use that ought to be thrown out that we don't throw out -- it's a history of how we went from poor, to financially stable, to HEY WE GOT MONEY, to sensible, logical get what we need and stop dealing with malfunctioning appliances!)

JC and I called Sunbeam's Customer Support number, rehearsed and ready to say give us back our money.

We tolerated the long announcement, then a pre-recorded, pleasant voiced, energetic female, with a press 1, for this question, press 2 ,...question 7 was "Blanket won't heat..."

She asked questions. Had we done the heat test? Yes, we'd folded the blanket 3 times, put it on H for high heat, for 7 minutes and there was warmth but not enough to warm my toes. With us answering yes or no (pressing 1 or 2), the lady guided us to a final recommendation: Put the control on high for 30 minutes, then adjust.

It works. (I didn't get a good night's sleep --I was too busy wiggling my toes, peeking down at the floor, squinting at the LED light, adjusting the number, but my toes -- gee, they were more than adequately warmed.)

Yay -- problem solved!

I don't have an egg on my knee from kneeling, just a sinking feeling that I'm getting dumber and slower, while my other self, the confident Dr. Em, is whispering "Haha -- beware -- you've got a new, reliable, Good -housekeeping approved G.E. stove with all the latest newest innovations -- to HATE, CONQUER, SOLVE!"

WHAT DO I WATCH ON TV?

Life and death in real emergency rooms, in an unimportant town somewhere — that I'll watch, if there isn't an old or new movie that sounds interesting. Or the cable "Forensics" show -- I'll watch it. Not "Scrubs" or "Grey's Anatomy," but I'll sit and take in an old "ER" -- I've met most of the cast -- JC played the father of Dr. Greene, the main doctor.

The news -- the repetitious selling of the terrorism scares, scandals, murders, political-congressional wars -- though I like Maddow, Brokaw whenever he appears, and Anderson now and then, lately, it's not what I want to watch at the end of the day.

Sitcoms? "No, no no!" I moan, grabbing the remote the moment I hear a laugh track, or see a NCIS or CSI in the title. I do not want to see manufactured crimes --NOT with what's going on in the real world these days!

The acronym titles are a meaningless jumble so I Googled them. (I prefer to complain with a modicum of accuracy.) NCIS = Naval Crime Investigative Service, CSI = Crime Scene Investigations. TV's got CSI Las Vegas, CSI Miami, CSI N.Y., NCIS, and NCIS Los Angeles.

Their brilliant successful wealthy creators loom in my mind as foes -- the indefatigable Don Bellarsario, and Jerry Bruckheimer (See my post, "Off with his Head" 8/12). I've seen Bruckheimer's name on too many violent shows and megahit films. And though I've dined at Bellarsario's home and met his kids, I'm bored and repelled by what he loves to dramatize.

Sometimes I watch Dick Wolf's "Law and Order, Special Victims." Maybe because JC's been a lawyer, and a judge on SVU, I feel Wolf's shows occasionally ring with truth and are based on issues, not just shocking events.

"Forensics" is easier to take. Fingerprinting, DNA, tests, techniques relating to the investigation of a crime -- the plainer, duller, the less dramatically enhanced, the better. I can chat and watch -- cook/snack and watch -- or watch while I clear the table, run the dishwasher, set out the vitamins and coffee for tomorrow.

The dry narration of who-what-when-how facts ... yes, they're repeated too many times but the salient plot points stay with me. Instead of watching actors act/react to manufactured horror -- bang bang visions of cruelty, pain and blood hitting me -- I'm seeing a story unfold, as told by a police person, or an ordinary looking relative, who explains what happened sadly (but not yucky emotionally).

The actual forensics -- colors, tubes, droppers, flagons, DNA imprints, patterns of fingerprints -- it reminds me of OP art, POP art of the sixties, but isn't boring -- it's a kaleidoscope in motion.

Alas ... last night, making popcorn watching "Forensics ID" a new version of last season's show, a purring sympathetic voiced female narrator kept making comments ...

Is she where they're heading? I've noticed that quite a few new network shows are trauma-dramas, and they keep flashing that word -- "interactive."

Oh God, will it be like "Idol," or "Next top Model," "Biggest Loser," "Dancing with the Stars"? Will we be voting on guilty, not guilty? Live or die?

Gee, I've never really be able to sit and stare at a cartoon show ... gee, do they have p.m. re-runs? Maybe I'll be popcorning, dishwashing watching the "Simpsons," or "Family Guy?"

WHIRL OF TECHNOLOGY

Wait a second, hold on -- nobody makes that screw? No plastic substitute?

Oh dear! Nothing 33 inches wide? Only 36 or 32? Golly -- I don't need six sockets? Can't I get two?

Sure, sure -- new stuff is better, faster, more efficient, less energy-consuming. Naturally it costs more, along with higher taxes, higher delivery costs, and sky-high prices for professional installation!

Ahh yes! It's the very latest, newest, electronic, wireless technology!

And it's not just hardware, software, home, office, life-improvement appliances, and fix-it stuff. Just about everything has been wonderfully re-conceived, remodeled, modernized, and standardized.

(STANDARD, just like your neighbor, is what everyone desires, right? And needs, with a warranty policy for a not exorbitantly large additional fee.)

Did you buy the latest phone? One of the new lighter, smaller, super-durable laptops? If you didn't... well ... the model you bought last year can be updated, but ... well ... updating costs about the same as investing in the new version with its Wi-Fi-APC, DTV-DVR-TVO, VR capabilities.

Huh?

You don't want all that stuff? . You have no use for it? You think it's dumb? You think people look crazy when they're walking on the street talking out loud to unseen companions?

(I'll bet a hundred years ago, your mother's mother your father's father felt the same way and muttered what's that for? And wondered why in the world would anyone want something like that? )

Well, quietly, secretly I find myself thinking -- if I don't get it or do it and stay in tune with the times ... gee, one of these days I'm going to feel like I don't belong here, and then what?

Desuetude? (Ah, I love the mellifluous, echoing, sort of boxed-in sound of d-e-s-u-e-t-u-d- e --the sense it gives, of being FINISHED, in a formal state of DISUSE.)

"Dammit, not I!" says Em.

Complaining, warring with obsolescence is better. Stick to your guns! If you don't have a cell phone, don't get one! If you can't use a computer, you can't go online -- thank your lucky stars!

I'm beginning to think "Dot com" belongs in one of those black holes out there somewhere, in the space beyond space.

BRILLIANT SHOPPING

JC needs a new computer. He's using the Dell I bought nine years ago, and upgraded all by myself upgraded. Yes, it's still operating, but with all the wireless high speed internet stuff I've added, it's creeping, inching along unbearably slowly.

Diligent Em reads computer magazines. The latest gizmos fascinate me. I breeze through the big print, browse though the smaller print, squint at the fine print, absorbing numbers that indicate restrictions and additional costs. A good shopper has to know what's going on.

The latest stuff doesn't bewilder me, though it's bewildering. I browse online, and learn, by wandering in the black forests, and overgrown jungles of various websites. Even the unclear directions, clicks that get me nowhere, take me to something that tells me what I want to know -- like bits -- 64 bits versus 32 bits.

It's not boring, just enormously time-consuming. And almost fun. If you called me and asked me what computer I think you ought to buy, I'd impress you with my educated knowledge and opinion.

So ...
I called Dell. I know the number. I waded through a twenty-minute talk with sharp, knowledgeable Bryce. Impressed him with my educated questions and got myself a pal. He emailed me a list of what we'd decided on -- 38 items, an order number, a price.

I told my pal Bryce I'd check it out with my husband and call him back.

Didn't need permission -- knew JC would be delighted, but gee ... boxes arriving, unpacking, plugging in, installing the midi, the high speed stuff ... gee ... not next weekend ... the week after?

That was April 14th. Brilliant, decisive, knowledgeable shopper Em has been hemming and hawing -- worrying, fretting -- installing and configuring our thirty software programs is a three-day, full-time job. I called Mike, a high-priced professional who'd helped me in 2007 -- got an even higher price per hour for him to do the job -- no way José-- ridiculous! waste of money!

On my breaks, I scribbled lists, hunted for installation CD's -- tore up my office looking for one -- had double-double-toil-and-trouble nightmares about templates, virus protecting, old versions, updating drivers ...

Boom! July 4th ... Sarah Palin breathlessly, illogically quitting her governor's job -- soccer Mom letting us know she could face the music, "you betcha."

Em picks up the phone and calls her pal at Dell. Didn't expect he'd be at work, but he was. Gave Bryce my credit card numbers and bought it. Called Mike the high-priced professional, and you betcha -- did the most brilliant thing a computer expert like me can do -- I hired him to do the job.

Whoopee ... I'm facing the music.

BIRD TIME

I just read an article in my Time Magazine -- "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live ... (in 140 characters or less)."

Hey, gee ... whoa ...

Communication in 140 characters, OR less? And IT is imparting opinions, reactions, philosophy, advice that's already got advertisers and corporations studying it, creating new companies to develop tools and markets to sell, sell sell us ... what?

Holy, cow -- and it's getting more popular every day -- tweets are quoted in the news -- blogs are blogging about tweets!

Oxford Dictionary: "... twitter v. make a series of light tremulous sounds. talk rapidly in a nervous or trivial way. noun: [1] a twittering sound. [2] trivial talk. phrases in (or of) a twitter informal in a state of agitation or excitement."

Wikipedia: "Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others' updates, known as tweets ... Tweets are text-based posts ... SMS, short message service, was created in 2006 ... daily users estimated at 6 million, monthly visits 55 million, Nielsen rates tweet.com monthly growth at 1382% ... " (Poor old Facebook is only increasing 228%.)

Thesaurus synonyms: chitter, cheep, chipper, chirp, chirrup, pipe, screech shrill pipe up, peep, peeping ...

Okay, the internet is changing communication. Bloggers ("hybrid diary writers" according to Wikipedia), blurt out personal private stuff in an essay form, while Tweeters, in 140 or less characters, are briefly conveying a thought.

Okay, it's progress ... But Tweets are being published, read and taken as significant ideas, careful thoughts.

Shh...Maybe if I change the word from tweet to ...burp, a common reassuring human sound, or another animal sound... oink ...?
And here's a haha -- since web log became "blog," why not drop the "G" and the "B" and call Em's post a LO. Spelled low it's a cow's MOO.

So, BEWARE of the oinking, the moos ... Stop the avalanche ... It's snow. Snow is cocaine, or whipped egg whites on a dessert, or white stuff that shuts you in --"snow" is deceiving, persuading, glibly charming a person. I don't want to be snowed in.

CHARLOTTE W'S CAMERA

Picture us -- balmy day, we're burrowed in our offices. I'm writing; JC's deeply immersed in reading the booklets on how to use a digital camera (the one Paramount Studios gave him).

It sat inside a professionally wrapped gift box, blue linen paper with a fat blue satin bow. It had arrived in a crate containing a star's folding wooden chair with a canvas back that has his name and "Charlotte's Web" stenciled on it.

Crate arrived at Christmas, months after JC shot the film in Sidney, Australia. A year later, Xmas, we opened it -- a deluxe color printer. (We rarely use it. JC occasionally prints a script, highlighting his speeches with yellow toner, but it's easier to do this with a highlighter pen.)

(The movie, filmed in 2004, premiered in 2006. JC didn't attend the gala opening. His part, a small nice role, which was supposed to be played by Paul Newman, ended up on the cutting-room floor.)

Inside the printer box was second box -- fancy blue paper, blue satin bow. We figured it was a camera, but didn't open it till yesterday, when I mentioned to JC that Fran who was proofing "Painting Cities" (posted on my blog on the 20th) said it would be great if we had photos of my hallway gallery.

JC, a guy who fixes toilets, furnace, hot water heaters, and electrical circuits, who is a "dunce" on a computer (yep, I said that -- see my "New Stuff" May 13th post), unwrapped the little box and lo and behold: A digital camera.

The "dunce" took 2 pictures (one of me shaking my head in surprise), and went back to his office; read three booklets and called me in. Lo and behold, he installed it -- digital camera and its complicated editing/publishing software program on his computer.

With JC patiently instructing me, and me, agog, following orders, our "behind the times" family is now in tune with the times, where just about everyone takes photos with cell phones and cameras, and makes home movies.

Yippee!

You guys who read this blog (and have iPhones, Blackberry's and other gizmos), must be shaking your heads -- what's so yippee about that?

What's great is that JC, who never visits John Cullum, actor, his own website, was saying, "Hey, I'm going take some pictures, post them for the fans who've been asking for them ." And me, flabbergasted by the fun I'm having planning a post I'll write as soon as adapter arrives. (Just ordered it!)

We won't have to feed the camera batteries while we're shooting pictures of upstairs, downstairs, PR portraits, posters, scrounged stuff, hallway gallery, green room ...

Yippee! Hurray !

DRINKING IN THE KIDS

Got to watch the younger generation, observe the trends, listen to them, hold off thinking No ! They're wrong!

When my Mom started disappearing from her friends, I knew it. She had good reasons ... Marion G was constantly asking Mom how old she was, zooming in closer and closer, and Mom didn't want M.G or any of her friends to know her age.

Then, it was what Mom read and didn't read. She'd never been been much of a newspaper reader. But Time Magazines piled up, unread. She didn't know the names of the newest latest appliances, cars, movie stars, or sports heroes.

She thought all popular music was noise, but Blues, Boogie, Rock and Roll meant nothing to her, when they had so much meaning to me.

Mom tuned out. Finally, in the last years of her life, she didn't answer the phone, or bother with the People Magazine, which I was sure would interest her. The embroidery things I brought her just sat on the table by her bed.

Hey Em, this is something to pay attention to. Never forget. Hand on to JD and anyone else you meet in the younger, (always younger) generations. Don't tune out.

Hear what they're listening to. Make an effort to catch onto the slang. Don't cringe at the verbal shortcuts -- you don't have to use them, but you need to hear and feel where they're heading. Pay attention to their latest style. (Do styles really change? It seems to me they just ebb and flow, return like waves from a thousand miles, a thousand days ago.)

I see myself disappearing like Mom did. Turning off from things that seem, at first ridiculous, later, ludicrous, later nonsensical, stupid, repulsive. Stop it! Turn back on! Reappear! Laugh at their ridiculous vulgarnesses ... (Is that a word? Hey, Em, you your made up words are ridiculous to them.

Grab onto history: Cars and planes were unimaginable. Trips to the moon are real. Clothes that seemed like SciFi, may be the clothes you'd see, if you came back for a visit, after your life was over.

Can't you think your negatives privately? Don't burden the kids with your older generational icks, yikes. Feel what you feel but say it here -- find a remedy while you're expressing yourself in your blog.

Don't disapprove.

Find beauty in what's awkward or ugly. Try on their "wrong" clothes and see yourself freer, nicer, more interesting to them. Let yourself imagine your way into the nightmarish, congested, deafening partying,

Disappearing is WRONG. It's slowly, but surely hurrying you to the end of your life, a time when you have no choices.

NEW STUFF

This is what my husband calls a laundry list. I'm tabulating what I've learned since January when I had a dial up modem. When it took 13 hours to update Norton Virus from 08 to 09; took 9 hours to download just the trial version of Word Perfect Office X 4.

Mid January, everything changed. Our son JD had been nagging me, gently, for more than a year. "You've got to get DSL. You're behind the times, Mom. You can research, you can download anything, everything in just a couple of minutes -- you can't really use the internet, Mom, if you don't upgrade your tools."

Okay. I upgraded. Didn't really feel it was necessary or essential, but when you son says you're behind the times, you pay attention!

Instantly, all my office chores, all the things I did on a daily basis were topsy-turvy unfamiliar.

My ability to download fast got me a fantastic new browser. Puzzling over it, struggling to create a consistent view for all the new things -- whiz bang -- I learned to transfer addresses, forward, open, close, various accounts, while big stuff was going on. We (web designer Fran, JD and I) were building me TheReadery and Em's Talkery, a blog -- html, URL stuff, tabs, bookmarks, with dial-up modem me, mile-a-minute signing in and out of seven -- yes, seven e-mail addresses with a passel of passwords.

Meanwhile, JC had bought a Mac. Big Musical Numbers, choreography, major leading roles JC learns and performs letter perfectly. JC fixes electrical circuits, toilets, sinks, drains, leaks, tiles, locks, pilot lights on the stove, the thermocouple on the furnace. A computer turns him into a dunce. So I, who am a natural computer person, while racing around doing all the other stuff, had to learn the basics on the Mac in order to help JC.

Same time, installing a router, more gigs of Mem on my Dell, fussing with 17 phone extensions -- crawling under desks, tables, behind steel cabinets, book shelves investigating jacks in corners that haven't been vacuumed for fifteen years.

Also trekking into the courtyard at the rear of our building, helping tech guys figure where our ancient wires came in, why we had static, trying to get rid of call-waiting, (I hate call-waiting), while I'm learning to write, edit, post a blog, how to find an IP address, make a link, clear my cache, install stats, gadgets, images, scan and crop jpg files.

Now that I'm 5 months old on the internet, I'm counting on being faster, smarter, more educated, shrewder when I hit 8 months, and brilliant when I'm one-year- old.

Yes, I'm bragging. I really have learned a lot. My head is fat with new routines, and I'm contemplating, yes, looking ahead -- learning about 64 bits versus 32, and quad processors for a new NEW computer, which means ... Holy Moley Minorka, installing all this tricky, bedeviling, intricate, confusing, somewhat unstable up-to-date stuff all over again! But yay hurray -- JD was right -- it's a whole new world, and I've joined it.

FLAT FACES

Analog ... it's going ... going ... gone ...

They've been touting it, warning us, no more rabbit ears, don't worry, it'll work. just get a converter, or apply for one, it'll cost next to nothing.

When CD's were invented, you knew sooner or later all your records, 45's,78's, LP's were going to have to be replaced. Reel to reel tape recorders disappeared. Video cassettes might as well be thrown out. DVD's are IN and JD our son says were heading toward Blu-ray.

We've got a new set in the kitchen. Our favorite channels look great. Our favorite commentators -- wow, they look so young! No frown lines, minimal smile creases, definitely no wrinkles. The background, the foreground ... it looks ... almost unreal, such bright neat colors ... kind of like colored cardboard, a new-fangled cartoon.

(Reminds me of those commercials where they outline the bodies, faces, movements of real actors and make them look like comic book characters.)

Anyhow, we've had the set for more than a week. No doubt about it -- the colors are great, the focus is crisp, and clearer than ever before. We're in tune with the times, right on in the trend.

"Digital" is progress!

Our RCA (twelve years old but still works) is on the red bench in the hall waiting to be given away or put in the trash. It was temperamental, had to be re-booted much too often. And the picture wasn't as clear, or reliably focused. But I have to admit it was, still is what I think of as TV, not what we're getting on the new Toshiba -- that poster perfect vision of reality.

Reality today ......

Well, I'm enjoying the way the set turns on, tunes in, and its wonderful reliability, even though reality today isn't that bright, neat, poster perfect, digital picture.

OUT OF ORDER PHONE

Shh, we have 17 phone extensions. I counted them. The history of how each extension got to be where it is, is mine as well. A friend had a friend who used to work for the phone company -- the company that seemed like a permanent corporation to deal with forever -- was it AT&T? Before or after it was sold to NY BELL, or NYNEX? (Names names go away, come back and haunt me another day)

When, two months ago, JD (our son) finally convinced me that I had to get DSL and stop using a dial-up modem, I picked Earthlink. Wham, I was suddenly into wires, wall boxes, wireless, old phone, new phone, filters? What's a router? Oh? There might be problems, oh dear!

The original phone that feeds all the phone connections in this building that's been my home since I was 17, was installed with a $25 deposit and wired from the rear of this building, a courtyard 5 storeys, 75 feet below. (Our home was a loft building with a lamp manufacturer, a wood shop, a trucking company as tenants). Into our top floor rear window, came one wire.

One now very old wire that has been fixed, secured, taped, split, re split, umpteen times, from which JC and I, with screw drivers, made an extension, another and another, till our friend's friend for $100 made us professional phone extensions -- about 8 of them were necessary since the top floor is 2,000 square feet...about 25 x 85. Numbers numbers -- I'm singing the names names song, ("rain, rain go away") again. The extensions were made when we were renting just the top floor loft. When we bought the building with a down payment my mom lent us, and finally took over the floor below as well, 9 other extensions got created by our fingers, and the fingers of the crew who were renovating for us, with money JC was making doing SHENANDOAH, a musical he was starring in on Broadway. The extensions, most of them, are now hard-wired into the new walls, new partitions. Just like my life and JC's life and JD's life are hard-wired into this building.

So, last Thursday I was working on my Website, merrily answering calls when I became aware that the phone seemed to be disconnecting whenever I answered an incoming call.

When you have trouble, nowadays, you call services with recorded instructions, do this, do that, and wait wait, select another button and hear more music you don't want to hear, and then a person who often doesn't speak clearly, wants to hear who you are all over again, and gives you a new number to call.

It was heavy duty trouble. 4 hours Thursday, 1 more hour that night. It was hours again on Friday, running around ducking under tables, flashlight in hand, trying to plug, unplug, replug, trying to explain to a mumbling technician how this building was wired. Obeying him; looking for where he needed me to install a filter, then another filter -- oh dear, there was no time to take my barre (I do a barre everyday -- barre is what dancers do to keep in shape and I've been doing it since age 12, lotta barres!) No time for anything because life doesn't tick-tick right, if you can't communicate with the other people who are building your website, cleaning your house, delivering a package, needing JC or me for something we promised to do.

Scary it was. It is. It's finally fixed, but MY LIFE, OUR LIFE was paused, stopped. Yes, we had a cell phone. Yes, we even held onto an unnecessary extra land-line that belongs to Verizon, the latest, newest, current phone company in NYC. Yes, it's fixed -- it's been good, fine, normal okay for almost 5 days, b u t ... our life, our tree is shaking, quivering in the wind though the wind isn't blowing.