Eastern Standard Time: a brave new world
The sun set at 4;49 this afternoon, one day into spring forward, fall back, the changing of the clocks that I forget, season after season. This autumn, however, is different. Oh, we have fallen back -- in so many ways I don't care to enumerate them.
All I can do is hope that tomorrow, this country springs forward. Please, let the map turn blue. Let's have a president before midnight, the one, for once, whom I want.
It seems that recently, I can remember 40 years ago and my third-grade class better than I can what I told my best friend on the phone yesterday. As daylight shrinks, so, it seems, does my capacity to hold on to anything more than, say, the fact I am growing my hair to donate it in memory of Dona, my dear friend who died of cancer last Halloween.
Then, there are my menopausal marches, those hours in the park that I am free from computers, telephones, any form of electronic connection to the world. Mile after mile, all I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, check my pedometer for speed and my heart rate monitor to see if I'm in the right zone.
Sometimes I think I hit my zone in the last century. So much about me remains twentieth century, and damn proud of it. For example, I am not a willing member of the DIY economy. Specialization of labor had its good points, and with the computerization of the world, we appear to have lost it.
I particularly liked the part where human beings answered telephones and it wasn't considered outre to wish to receive physical bills in the mail. Then of course, there is the lost travel agent. I preferred it when I was not in charge of booking tickets, screening hotels from Web site descriptions, and guessing which company had the best tour guides. I liked a little knowledge from those who possessed it and were happy to share it for a fee.
But that was then and this is now: let's just hope that our brave new world brings us something genuinely for the better. If not, I fear we are, how to say it delicately? no, no way -- just about doomed.
All I can do is hope that tomorrow, this country springs forward. Please, let the map turn blue. Let's have a president before midnight, the one, for once, whom I want.
It seems that recently, I can remember 40 years ago and my third-grade class better than I can what I told my best friend on the phone yesterday. As daylight shrinks, so, it seems, does my capacity to hold on to anything more than, say, the fact I am growing my hair to donate it in memory of Dona, my dear friend who died of cancer last Halloween.
Then, there are my menopausal marches, those hours in the park that I am free from computers, telephones, any form of electronic connection to the world. Mile after mile, all I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, check my pedometer for speed and my heart rate monitor to see if I'm in the right zone.
Sometimes I think I hit my zone in the last century. So much about me remains twentieth century, and damn proud of it. For example, I am not a willing member of the DIY economy. Specialization of labor had its good points, and with the computerization of the world, we appear to have lost it.
I particularly liked the part where human beings answered telephones and it wasn't considered outre to wish to receive physical bills in the mail. Then of course, there is the lost travel agent. I preferred it when I was not in charge of booking tickets, screening hotels from Web site descriptions, and guessing which company had the best tour guides. I liked a little knowledge from those who possessed it and were happy to share it for a fee.
But that was then and this is now: let's just hope that our brave new world brings us something genuinely for the better. If not, I fear we are, how to say it delicately? no, no way -- just about doomed.
Labels: be properly scared, brave new world, technological hazards
posted by alice, uptown at 11:44 PM
1 Comments:
I'm going to take a moment to be a bit whiny, so prepare yourself.
Among my greatest lasting regrets about the 2008 election will be that I was unable to enjoy Obama's victory in the moment with the rest of America, because just as he was delivering his acceptance speech, the devastating results of Prop. 8 started to trickle in. I was at work until midnight with my largely gay staff of coworkers, and we had every reason to be overjoyed right up until we opened our final present under the Christmas tree of Democracy—hoping to find the thing we were wishing for the most—and were confronted with a great big box of homophobia, just like our friends in Arizona, Florida, and Arkansas.
I think every Democrat and fan of equality in general will always remember their "Where were you when Obama was elected?" moment, and I hate that that will be mine.
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