I attended what I now see was a rather progressive high school for the middle of rural Pennsylvania. I say this because when I was 17 I took computer classes--back when computers took up an entire room. You actually had to tell it what to do, so I had an introduction to programming way back in the '70's. I actually won a first-place award for keypunching--typing data lines that got punched into cards, which in turn got fed into that room-sized computer and with any luck made it do something amazing, like add 2 + 2.


I also owned one of the first Apple computers. It was actually purchased for my father to keep his farm records on, but he never got the hang of it, so I used it for word processing, and there was some clunky little game on it, too.

We were early subscribers to AOL, as well, back in the day of dial-up connections, which kept phone lines busy for hours.

So I am not your average bumbling baby-boomer when it comes to technology.

But Facebook makes me crazy.

I joined a few years ago to keep up with my kids in college. Nice--I always seemed to catch my son on Sunday nights, just before he went to bed. It was our special moment (yes, he is a mama's boy). But a lot has changed since those days of innocence, and I don't just mean my son graduated from college, got a job, got his own apartment, and got married. I mean that the face of Facebook has changed. And I don't like it.

Facebook has been a wonderful way for me to keep in touch with the friends I left behind in New England. I've found classmates I'd lost track of, far-flung family members, and former neighbors. It's the lazy man's socializing--I don't have to get dressed, or pick up a phone, or write anything on my calendar. I can just post a note to a friend's wall and wait for an answer. Sometimes someone's signed in at the same time I am, and we have a little IM chat. I'm really not interested in "liking" a myriad of causes, businesses, and the like, just so Mark Zuckerberg can try to match me up with other things his paying sponsors are offering. I don't want to link to applications that access my information. I just want to keep up with my friends.

Over the years that I've been a member, a lot of changes have been forced upon us. When this occurs, there's lots of grumbling, but most of us are too lazy to protest or leave to find a more user-friendly service (we'd have to acquire friends all over again), so we put up with the inconvenience of adapting to a new way of doing things, even though there was nothing wrong with the old way.

Now Facebook is forcing Timeline on us: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150408488962131  I can't just have a personal profile page that makes sense. No, I have to now make a page with blocks all over the place, with access to past posts (I've been on this thing for four or five years now--do I really want to slog through all that stuff to figure out who I want looking at it?). Distracting, hard to follow. I resent that I have to put more effort into ensuring my privacy by having to fiddle with another new feature. Why can't people leave well enough alone? Why does everything have to change?

I know, I'm sounding like an "old" person. But I'm not mourning the death of rotary phones and eight-tracks here. I'm talking about strangers who think they know what's best for me and everyone else, without even asking us what we'd like. People who are not technology-savvy are having a hard enough time negotiating Facebook as it is. Are they trying to lose followers??

If I'm so unhappy, why don't I just cancel my account? Because I've put a lot into Facebook, establishing a friend base, customizing everything to the way I like it. I might not like what they're doing to "my" stuff, but I'm not ready to end it all and find another social network that's more user-friendly. Yet. And I bet Facebook is banking on everyone feeling this way.

Games People Play

I love to play games. My husband and I spent our newlywed weekends with one of several sets of friends, playing cards. I was on a women's softball team for a short while, and my husband played football in high school. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I constructed a giant board game at my library (my third one is currently in use right now).

Yet, I find myself totally puzzled by the world's rabid fascination with professional sports. My husband just spent almost three hours totally engrossed in a football game. I can't imagine sitting still, doing nothing but staring at a screen, for three hours for any reason. (Okay, maybe there was the odd movie here and there that ran that long.) To me, sports spectating is a massive time suck.

I am stymied by the fierce dedication that many people show for their favored teams. Kids idolize their favorite players. Grown men and women scream from the stands and shout at their TV screens. Occasional fights break out between rival fans. Hundreds of thousands of people fill the bleachers to watch a handful of adult males (usually) hitting, kicking, or throwing a ball. Millions of dollars are spent on tickets, t-shirts, hats,  and other fan paraphernalia. Players earn seven- and even eight-figure incomes. Professional sports is big business, and I think that's probably why I despise it.

Call me un-American. I can't be the only person who feels this way, but those of us who object to this massive waste of time and money stay silent on the subject, because someone would probably egg our houses or key our cars, or worse. I can't help but think of how ridiculous it is to put such importance on something so unimportant. Imagine if all the sports fans of the world would pour all their money, time, and passion into something that really mattered--like education, or poverty, or homelessness. Imagine what our world would be like if teachers, police officers, and sanitation workers got paid what sports figures earn. Professional sports, to me, is a huge example of how skewed our society's priorities have become.

Okay, I get that it's entertainment. It's a means for escape from the drudgery of work and daily life for many people. But why does it have to be so all-consuming? I can't have a single conversation with anyone, anywhere, where sports isn't at least mentioned. Even my dad, who knows full well that I could care less about football, will recount the highlights of the Penn State game he just watched while I stifle yawns. Pennsylvanians especially are fiercely loyal to their Phillies. I'm probably the only person within a fifty-mile radius who doesn't own a team t-shirt.

I am not saying that people shouldn't play sports. That's a different proposition entirely. Playing sports is exercise, and encourages teamwork and cooperation. It teaches kids that life isn't always fair, that they can't always win. (As long as parents aren't breaking into fistfights on the sidelines.) Playing games is a great social activity, and sharpens our minds. I'm all for playing. Especially when I win.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

2011. Wow. What a year.

Last winter, I dreamed of all the gardening I would do during our first full summer in our new home. I planted seeds in pots and flats and nestled them along the windowsills of my spare bedroom. Then reality hit--I'd promised to help my daughter, Mulan, sew her wedding dress. (And by "help" she meant that she would cut out the pattern pieces and I would sew almost all of them together. Although, to be fair, she spent a lot of time tearing out seams for me.) We started with a test dress done in muslin (to make sure it would fit and to work out any alterations before setting it in bridal satin). The wedding was at the end of May; by mid-April, when I should have been planting radishes, lettuce, and onions, I was fighting with filmy lining and tearing out set-in sleeves yet again. By mid-May, when I should have been planting everything else, I was fighting the fear of inserting an invisible zipper and tearing out my hair. The straggly little seedlings got thrown into the ground as almost an afterthought, and full focus went on dress and wedding plan finalization.

In addition, my first-born and only son, Luigi, announced that he, too, would be joining the ranks of the happily wedded, he and his fiance Neko-chan setting a November date for their nuptials. Woo hoo. I couldn't even begin to process that prospect. Not when I had to reconstruct sleeves and the hem wouldn't lay flat.

Two weeks before the wedding, Mulan graduated from college with a BA in Social Work and a minor in Accounting. A frenzied week of drawing up to-do lists and last minute reception count adjustments. Another frenzied week of feeling certain we would be buying a gown off the rack at David's at the eleventh hour. Then, the Big Day was at hand.

The wedding dress actually looked okay. More than okay. Mulan was a vision.

I was amazed at how smoothly the day went, all things considered. If there were any hitches or hiccups, I was blissfully unaware. Bride and groom took off for a four-week road trip across the country, after which they returned home to live with us. Just when we had gotten used to being pretty much empty nesters. Mulan had a week of respite before starting her master's degree at a nearby Ivy League school. Ginger, her new husband, got a job as a manager at a local retail chain store, and we all worked on getting accustomed to living with each other.

Meanwhile, Luigi's office closed and he moved to New Jersey to work at the home office. Neko-chan finished her college semester and wrapped up her job and moved down with him during a monsoon in September.

And despite my total neglect, those all but forgotten seedlings grew into mighty tomato vines and sturdy pepper plants. Herbs flourished. Flowers flowered. Free from others' demands of my free time, I could finally devote my time to weeding, staking, and pest control. (Living on the edge of a wooded area invites a variety of critters to my yard, who viewed my little plot as a smorgasbord placed there especially for them.) The harvest was steady and, while not the bumper crop I'd envisioned while snow piled up on the back deck, we had no dearth of green beans and tomatoes, with the occasional Fairy Tale eggplant, zucchini, and Anaheim pepper thrown in for good measure.

The planning for Luigi's wedding was a different matter entirely. First of all, I did not have to do any sewing at all. Neko-chan found the dress of her dreams online and, miraculously, only minimal alterations were required, which she was able to do herself. They planned the entire thing themselves. With them in NJ and us in PA, and the ceremony and reception to be held in an entirely different location altogether, far from both of us, we were not directly involved in the details of the planning. For as totally immersed in Mulan's wedding as I'd been, I was equally removed from Luigi's. It was odd to be involved but not really. Being the control freaks that Big Kahuna and I are, we both felt strange standing back while others took care of details. With the exception of our car (holding all the flowers for safekeeping) being towed from an illegal parking space at the rehearsal dinner, this wedding also went off pretty well.

Then came Thanksgiving, hosted by our newly extended family and attended by Ginger's family, with Mulan and Ginger cooking the exquisite meal. And enjoying it. I feel I have been replaced.

Now it was the end of the year, and shortly before Christmas I learned of the proposed county budget that would cut all funding for my library. (See previous post.) We campaigned, wrote letters, held our breath, and prayed. The community rallied; we got level funding (and a tax increase). I still have a job.

We had to adjust our Christmas traditions to accommodate the new additions to our family, who really wanted to spend Christmas with their families. We held our Christmas Day celebration on Christmas Eve, with much muttering and mumbling from Big Kahuna. The kids took off for merry-making with their in-laws, and we sat in our empty home, wondering what happened to the year and our family.

And so, we look at 2011 as a year of big changes, of adjustments and accommodations, of family gained and responsibilities shifted.

2012. It sure would be nice to have a calm, largely uneventful year for a change.

And lots of fresh vegetables.

A Wake-Up Call to Action

I am politically challenged. My eyes glaze over at the sight of a candidate on the TV screen. Before an election, I always need to go to the "election for dummies" websites to find out about the people I'm supposed to vote for. To me, politics are as interesting as dryer lint.

But now I find myself smack in the middle of a political catastrophe. The county budget proposal has cut my library's funding. Completely. $2 million plus, boom, gone, just because the incoming democrats promised not to raise taxes. Weeping and gnashing of teeth all around me. And suddenly, I find myself writing a letter to a politician. And wondering what else I can do to effect a change.

Just the other day I was thinking about my job, and how I could be doing the same thing for another 10 or 15 years. I think of work always being there, just like I trust that my car will always start when I turn the key, or that a light will go on when I flip the switch. Now, there's a very real prospect, if the community fails to convince the powers that be that a local public library is crucial, that my place of employment will close its doors. Just when I was starting to feel a part of it, a valued member of the staff, no longer the newbie. My coworkers and I are all walking around a little bit stunned, not knowing whether to trust that our patrons will protest enough to change the commissioners' minds, or update our resumes.

I do not relish the thought of job searching, now that I'm just on the downhill side of 50. It only took me two weeks to get this job, but I came from a library and sent resumes only to libraries, and just happened to hit the right place at the right time. Do I really want to risk this happening to me again? And how many of my coworkers would I be competing against? I know, in this day and age, no job is truly secure. But I tend to think that a non-government job might be a little safer--and probably pay more.

I went through all this just a little over a year ago--trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Thinking about what kind of job I'd be able to get with my limited education. Wondering if a 9 to 5 office job would be stimulating enough. Worrying that I would get stuck somewhere where my creativity and imagination would not be valued or needed.

Where else can I go where I can do things like building a giant board game? Where I can spend an afternoon looking at craft books and dreaming up projects and programs? Where I am routinely challenged to come up with new ideas? What other job can I get where children light up when they see me, like when I'm sitting in the back of the bookmobile, ready to read to them? Where else can I share my love of reading by recommending my favorite kids' books?

Tonight at work I was straightening shelves and thinking about little maintenance projects that needed to be done to the collection. Then I wondered if it really mattered, if we are merely trying to bail out a sinking ship. I could believe the evil voices whispering in my ear, or I could have faith that right will prevail, and continue to walk through the doors every day with the same optimistic spirit and sense of fun and adventure that I always do. I don't want this heavy spirit weighing me down at Christmastime. I want to keep thinking up new things to do for and with the kids. I want to expect to be visiting the elementary schools in the spring, getting kids jazzed for our summer reading program. I want to look forward to getting my 5-year thank-you trinket from the library director.

And so I shall. Forget the what-ifs, Satan.

But I'm still updating my resume.

Surrender

For the first time since maybe I was a child, I backed down from a challenge.

Throughout my whole life, I have set out to prove to anyone who tells me I can't do something that I can.  And I generally do.  Not that anyone told me I couldn't do this particular thing.  It was, in fact, mastering the playing of handbells with extremely challenging music.  I can play handbells.  That's not the point.  This particular choir of handbells is the "varsity team"--a higher level of playing with harder music that contains intricate rhythms and techniques.  I tried it.  Gave it several weeks.  And I was getting it, but still blundering through.  The people around me, more adept and musically gifted, waited patiently while I struggled.

I thought I was equal to the challenge.  And maybe I am.  But I guess I just got tired.  It was hard, but I never before backed away from hard.  Somewhere in the midst of all this, I felt that I was holding the rest of the group back, that my pride and stubbornness were ruining what could otherwise be a nearly flawless performance. 

And so I suggested to the director that she give me some bells that weren't so crucial to the melody (where my flubs are more glaringly evident).  I'm still on the varsity team.  It's still challenging.  But when I make mistakes (and there are many) they're not nearly as noticeable.  I still feel as if I've conceded defeat.

A friend once told me that I do everything so well.  I told her that I only do things that I can do well.

I thought I did handbells well.  If I worked hard enough, I was sure, I'd be able to succeed with this new challenge.  But then I decided that I didn't want to work that hard.

Does that mean I'm getting old?  Or am I just too busy with everything else I'm doing to devote the energy to tackling this?

I've reached a time in my life where I'm starting to let go of some of my dreams.  When I don't believe I will achieve things that I thought one day I might do.  Because of physical limitations, decreased abilities due mostly to the aging and settling of my body and my mind.  It doesn't matter how impractical or improbable those things might be (did I ever think I'd try skydiving?), it's depressing to consider that I'm probably beyond a reasonable time in my life when I could accomplish some of them.

I'm now an avid reader of AARP magazine, and I marvel when I read about octogenarians running marathons and running corporations.  This should give me renewed incentive to work toward the things I'd like to do before I die.  My life is far from over, and I can be active and productive for decades.  But there is this slow dawning that time is running out.  And honestly, I'm not sure I want to work that hard anymore.

Maybe I'm just tired.  I can tell myself that for a little while longer, at least.

Who Are You?

I was shocked recently to read that Australia had instituted a third "gender" on their passports: Indeterminate. For those sexually ambiguous folk, mid-transgender, or what have you. Meaning, I guess, that what lies underneath doesn't match what's seen on the surface.

It makes me think of a child who regularly visits my library. Or, more accurately, the adult who brings him. This person is quite apparently his parent, as the facial resemblance is unmistakable. But is that person his mother or father? The parent in question sports a short, spiky hairdo and wears baggy, unisex-style clothing which masks any telling body shape. The voice is most assuredly feminine, yet one day I noticed a five-o'clock-shadow. The name--Shawn--really doesn't nail it one way or another. I am itching to know: Male going female? Female going male? And why is it so important for me to know if this is the little guy's mother or father? Why is gender identity so inherent in our society?

I was raised on a farm, where chores needed to be done no matter who did them. I heaved hay bales, drove tractor, and helped castrate bulls and boars alongside my brothers. Okay, so the boys got to run the heavy machinery, while my sister and I cleaned the house and cooked--it was the 60's, after all. And maybe that had less to do with that being "women's work" and more that my sister and I were diminutive in stature (hard to believe if you could see us now) and physically unable to meet the demands of field work, and Mom worked full time and the house had to get cleaned. During the summers we all made our own lunches, and my brothers could whip up a mean fried hamburger or scrambled eggs all by themselves. (I don't, however, recall them ever having picked up a dust rag.)

So I grew up not so bound by perceived gender limitations as some of my contemporaries had. I never thought there was anything I couldn't do simply because I was a girl. I barreled through life expecting to do whatever I wanted to, no matter what society thought was proper. I was raised to be my own person, and bristled whenever anyone suggested I couldn't do something, working to prove that I could. I was glad that I knew how to run a household, but fully expected my partner in life (and yes, I did play with dolls and expect to be a mommy someday) to share the task.

I managed to marry a man who, while growing up in a more "traditional" household, had a father who regularly cooked dinner and washed the dishes. (He also had a very domineering mother and was used to being told what to do by a woman.) While we fell into the customary patterns of the wife doing the domestic thing and the husband doing the outdoor tasks, my Big Kahuna is not averse to periodically throwing in a load of laundry or regularly scrubbing the pots and pans, and I do the lion's share of the yard work (although he has dibs on the ginormous riding mower, even though at age 12 I was driving a beast three times that size). But never once did he chastise me for installing a new bathroom sink faucet or assembling our daughter's bicycle one Christmas or erecting the backyard swing set. I grunt just as loudly with a power tool in my hand as Tim Allen does. And he has spent dozens of hours waiting outside women's dressing rooms while our daughter has selected school clothes, because he knows shopping is just not my thing.

Yet, despite the fact that I will choose denim and flannel over satin and lace every time, that I'm much more graceful in work boots than in pumps, I am most decidedly, and proudly, a woman. I would be insulted if anyone suggested otherwise.

But what, really, does that mean? Am I proud of having breasts? Of the ability to bear children? Because, technically, I am capable of doing most anything a man does--aside from any physical limitations.

Which brings us to the physical differences between men and women. And is that the sole reason why we need gender identities? I would sure want to know if I were attracted to an "indeterminate" someone. Why? Because I personally desire natural purity. I'm a farm girl. I can't help thinking that a girl physically desiring to be a boy or a boy physically desiring to be a girl goes against nature. On the most basic level, that arrangement can't naturally reproduce. (And, as a bona fide red-blooded female, it gives me the willies.)

As a Christian, I believe that this isn't what God had in mind for us. You may say that God created a person "that way". The jury's still out on nature vs. nurture. All I know is that in all my years living on a farm, I have never observed a gay animal. I think our minds have a lot to do with our physical desires. God allows us free will, but I don't think He is happy with a lot of our human decisions. I can't know the struggles of someone who feels her soul was placed in the wrong type of body. But I do know what it's like to fight against what God has intended for me. It's so much easier to follow our human desires, but deep down each of us knows what is truly right, and I wonder if the "indeterminates" regularly squelch an innate sense of wrongdoing, or if they truly feel at peace with their decision. I'm a big believer in that gnawing internal uneasiness as a moral warning.

For medical reasons, it's important to know true gender. I will never get prostate cancer. My husband will never experience the joys of menopause. If the "indeterminate" Australian person's plane goes down, how can we identify the body? Are we looking for a man or a woman? Bottom line, I think you should go by the equipment you own, no matter how much it pains you.

I'm trying to imagine a future world where gender doesn't matter. Will it ever happen? I think there are too many sirens who enjoy displaying their womanly figures and too many men posturing to win their attention. Too many men in positions of power and too many women content with it that way. On a sexual level, I think we will always want to know. The "indeterminates" will eventually be socially tolerated, because the people who don't accept them will be labeled as rigid, homophobic racists or something and be shamed into silence. But will they be pigeonholed into their own "gender" or mixed in with whichever gender they prefer to identify themselves as, leaving the poor heterosexual purists to discover the truth in an embarrassing and possibly painful way?

As for my little library friend, growing up in a sexually ambiguous household? (And yes, I've seen the other parent, who is undeniably female.) Are the kids really all right?

Aftershocks

I had been at my job as children's librarian when a patron announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. How tragic, I remember thinking. A random incident, an unfortunate pilot error. Minutes later, another plane hit the other tower. Not so random. The world suddenly shifted.

Americans could no longer be complacent. For the first time ever, many of us felt fear for our personal safety. We were no longer invincible. Terrorists had struck our Achilles' heel, momentarily crippling us.

Two weeks previously, we had taken my parents into New York City for their 50th wedding anniversary.  We'd taken a bus tour, which took us right under the walkway connecting the twin towers.  My mother took a picture of the towers from the Ellis Island ferry.  My California brother, who'd flown out to join us that day, called me on September 11 to make sure I was okay. We both were reeling from being so recently there, seeing those buildings so sturdy and unshakable, unable to imagine them reduced to dust and shrapnel.

At home, just a 50-minute drive away from New York City, it was difficult to believe such tragedy was happening on a day so serene in my neighborhood. Six local families had lost loved ones. Friends who commuted to the city for work regaled us with stories: The man who stayed home that morning because it was his anniversary. The man who worked in another part of the city who spent the rest of the day trying to get home, eventually walking because mass transit was stalled, until he found a motorist--a stranger--heading in his direction who gave him a lift home. The family who fled Battery Park to rent the house across the street from us.


The worst situations seem to bring out the best in us. 9/11 made heroes out of everyday people. There were plenty of heartwarming and heartbreaking stories.

So what has happened to us in the last ten years? We're at once comforted and annoyed by the imposition of security measures in public places. We do a double-take at swarthy, Middle-Eastern looking men. We wonder if some other covert plan is in the works to take us out. Who is friend? Who is foe?

I think it was good to revisit that day, to remember how our country bonded in those days and weeks afterward. Because time and distance has caused us to forget, a little bit, who we are, how we should be. Even those of us who weren't there that day were changed, and it's good to see how it strengthened us and unified us.

We have moved on. But no, we should never forget.