Day 01 — The one thing that it seems like everyone else on the planet is into but I just cannot stand is…
In my youth, not too terribly long ago, I was not one to do what all the cool kids were doing.
In the 4th grade, I remember getting sneered at by my brother who would only wear Champion brand socks, sneakers, shorts and teeshirts and when mom asked what kind of shoes I wanted I would shrug and pull a pair of bo-bos out of the dollar bin at the front of Roses…
By the time I got to middle school my friends were starting to listen to new bands like Pearl Jam, Green Day, and Nirvana. I was listening to Richard Marx, Aaron Neville, and Bonnie Raitt…(and eventually my unhealthy love affair with David Bowie)
My 11th grade school picture saw me proudly wearing my father’s entrance into the “ugliest Hawaiian shirt contest” from a decade earlier…
Needless to say – if it was popular, I wasn’t interested; if everyone else was doing it, I was doing something else. I never really thought about it and I wouldn’t say I was “different for the sake of being different” (an accusation of my mother’s F-O-R-E-V-E-R, although I will give her that one for the Egyptian Plum locks through highschool). I just had this drumbeat in my head and it was drastically different (maybe just slower) than the beats everyone else moved to.
The same holds true for me today especially as it relates to our technology. I was rummaging through vinyl at the Salvation Army when friends were buying cassettes and collecting cassette tapes while friends carried neat little portable CD players.
Now, everyone and their mothers, brothers, and uncles have iPhones and iPads. People go out and waste hours in line to spend ridiculous amounts of money on the latest version even though it’s only been 6 months since the last latest version. People I work with will take half days off work on the first day of sale to go get one…and then come back to work and talk about it. Really?! Seriously?! WTF! That’s a lame ass way to spend half your day NOT at work! It’s just another goddamned computer. Sure it may be faster and smaller than the last one but please, shut up about it. I’m not impressed by it. I don’t really know what Suri Cruise has to do with your new phone but I’m so glad she’s there to help you out so you don’t hurt yourself pushing too many buttons.
Way to go, World, you are all -bleet-ing sheep! Baaaaah!
But – as I simmer down, I confess to my iPod, which was killed by boobsweat after shoving it into my sports bra one to many runs (Screw you, Arm Band Nation!). Now it sits in the bottom of my purse laughing at my moral dilemma while the rest of the world plays Words with Friends and asks me why I’m pushing so many buttons, “Oh you dear girl, it won’t just refresh when you shake it? You need Suri.”
Walking the Labyrinth 
“If it was popular, I wasn’t interested” – THIS! This is one of the few other reasons why fate decided to introduce me to you. I’m now realizing, with all that you’ve mentioned above, if Megan is interested, Addie IS interested.” Climbing, Bonnie Raitt, the need to give more love to dogs…wow!
Kindred spirits we are! Going to see Bonnie with my dad in June!! She’s playing at a cozy little venue in Philly.
Lucky beach! Tell her I said hi. 😀
Even though I have no way to play them I still like cassettes. My sister had a lot of mixed tapes and I inherited them. I do have an iPhone but I purchased it reluctantly only because I wanted access to some particular apps. Had I done my research first, I would have realized I could have the same apps on an Android type phone. I am not one of those gotta have it yesterday fanatics.
Yeah I love the touch and feel of things. I love the quality of sound of vinyl. I love the satisfying little “click” as you shut the cassette player door. Even in the fanatical groups today – I don’t get why the version you bought for some few hundres a few months ago now needs to be upgraded. It’s just a waste and so very sad to me.
I used to hoard cassette tapes when I was in high school… although, they were Greenday and Weezer -I was in the “emo-punk-rock-hate-the-world” kind of stage… yeah, tragic, i know! But still, I kind of relate to your post because as a self-professed anti-social and one for grating across the grain… my 30 days of blogging honesty day 1 blog will attest to that…
I too do not conform so much.. but I’m an all Apple user [..well, they did say an apple a day….:)] But on other stuff, like these Kindle/Ebook reader nonsense, for example… really, why do away with the scent of book pages and feel of paper?
Oh and I’m sorry about your iPod but i’m sure if it was a male ipod, it died a happy, satisfied death of being shoved in mammary gland vicinity! :))
Ha! I didn’t think of it that way but you are probably right. My iPod was a satisfied little bugger being kept ever so close to my heart.
Ach!! Perfectly agree about the books. “The scent of book page” I thought I was the only one!! I will never give up on the physical turning of a page of a book. If second-hand books stores ever go extinct I will be sad beyond words.
amen! I wish a lot more people would realize this!! wee! yey for books!
i so relate to the mainstream allergy 😀 it’s what my day 1 post is about!
Great minds think alike, I’ve heard!!
I know we are in the high tech world but there are really things that I’d rather pick than this.
It’s a thing that’s really taken the world by storm and it just seems so silly to me. But then again, my dad is always telling me that he thinks I was born in the wrong decade.
I never saw the point to keep “upgrading” technology while the one you currently own still holds up fine. It’s the wasteful consumerism of North America I suppose, or maybe people just don’t understand how to not waste their money. I for one am keeping my non-touchscreen-non-ipod mp3 player until it either dies or decides to divorce me.
Keep on moving to your own beat, the world needs more people like you 🙂
I miss dancing along to my David Hasselhoff’s, “Do you love me” as it spin round and round.
I’ll take care of the technology sheeping in this family. After all, iLovemyiStuff.
Baa.
What I will admit to is that it’s absolutely a symbol to me. Do I know I could get the same item without the iPricetag? Sure. But these were the things I couldn’t have growing up. Now, I work hard, and I can. As I hand my son my iPhone while facebooking on my iPad, I sigh with relief. iMadeit.
You are so desperately clever. I know what you mean though about the symbol. I never thought of it that way. For me, the thought isn’t iMadeit but instead I didn’t need you then, I don’t need you now. Which sounds so deeply routed in the otherness of my life.
Death by boob sweat! What a way to go 🙂
I love my iPhone and the Apps especially some of the medical?nursing ones… They come handy at times. 🙂
BTW loved what you wrote… made me take a trip down memory lane.
LOL! I love that you are YOU and don’t follow the crowd.