A Commonplace Book

I’m not anti-technology so much as I’m anti-complication–I don’t want to have to worry about listening to my cell phone voice mail or checking my text messages. It’s just another layer of detail that I hesitate to let into my life.

And I think that cell phones are affecting our abilities to relate to people in public spaces. We don’t even really speak to each other in public spaces anymore. We’re all too busy talking to the friends and family who are in their own, different public spaces. We’re missing opportunities to connect with people outside of our “tribe.” Our shared cultural experiences, like ball games, concerts, and Harry Potter book release parties, become less significantly less shared when we’re all on our cells.

A couple of years ago, three of my sisters-in-law (I have five) and I spent the afternoon at a local craft festival. Our husbands were all manning the kids, and watching the game, together. It was less than an hour before the husbands (except Reg) started calling and calling. We even turned it into a kind of contest to see whose husband called the most or the least. The idea was that we moms could get some time together away from our kids, but three out of four of us weren’t really away from our kids. We might laugh and accept this scenario as normal these days, but the effect is that our time together and away wasn’t really either.

It seems that once we get into the habit of using our cells, people always expect us to be available for conversation at any time. I’ve seen this happen with many of my friends and family members, and I’m guilty of being one of those people who call the cell when I can’t reach Roxie or M. Lipsticky at home. So it’s easy to say, just don’t answer the phone, but if answering the phone is our habit, when we don’t answer, people worry about us. So we answer, wherever and whenever.

Text messaging, although more discreet, from an outsider’s view (I’ve never sent one) seems downright addictive. Many of my recent conversations with some of my most thoughtful and compassionate people have been punctuated by glances at the cell phone screen. My students can’t go an hour without checking for texts. The other day at the gym, I noticed the woman next to me was texting in between sets; then I looked around, and I realized I was the ONLY person not talking or texting on a cell.

I keep resisting this kind of habitual cell use because, I confess, I would instantly become one of these people. I would become a servant to my phone, constantly checking, losing my sense of time and place. Just a couple of days ago, I spent a good twenty minutes at the craft store engaged in a conversation with my mom before it occured to me that I was exposing other people to my private family business.

And I don’t think it’s healthy to be in this kind of minute-to-minute contact with our loved ones all day long. Reg doesn’t have his own cell, and if he did, I’d probably nag the hell out of him. I’m all for checking in during the day, but that’s easily done with the office phone. But I think it’s good and natural for us to spend some time in the world on our own and then go back to our loved ones and share our experiences. We get to save up our stories for a “wait till you hear this” moment after dinner.

I also think it’s good for us to be a little out of touch sometimes. We can listen to NPR, notice the trees, turn the volume up too loud on the Disco Hits CD. We can have time to reflect and consider or to think or to smile at a memory of an ordinary moment from the day– a moment that we may have missed if we were on the phone.

Then, just as I got clear of wheelie guy, another guy started chasing me with a flat iron. I had just come from the salon; my hair couldn’t have gotten any straighter. I was REAL clever with him. I said, “unless you have a Gryffindor scarf, I’m not interested.” He then kept following me, kept talking, so I walked faster and ignored him.

Then today, one of the dads at Mira’s art class kept trying to catch my eye. I know this guy, and I’m not proud. Let me just say that in my first couple of years of college, I drank. Alot. At a college bar where this guy bartended. For the past five weeks of art class, I’ve managed to dash in and out of the room with a quick smile. Today–cornered. Him “I know you.” Me “Maybe from college. Maybe we had a class together.” Him “Were you in a sorority?” Me “No.” Him “Did you go to [college bar]?” Me “Yes, too much.” Him, “Who did you hang around with?” Me “These two sisters. You probably remember Jenny (name changed). Everyone remembers Jenny.” (This is true. Jenny was my pretty friend, and all the guys wanted her). Him “No, I remember YOU.” I turned nervously away from him and said to the art teacher, “Okay, so you have my cell.” and left.

Yep, this guy, who knew me as a drunken 19-year-old just hit on me at our children’s art class. He used to hit on me back then, and I turned him down EVERY TIME, even when I was VERY DRUNK –those were the times when he came on the strongest. He seems to be unaware that the past 21 years have not been kind to him. But he never really was attractive. Maybe that’s why he tries so hard and in inappropriate places and borderline circumstances.

I know that I could have/should have asserted my boundaries more clearly with all three of these guys, but I’m really uncomfortable with people who are this forward, especially men who are this forward, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s me or them? Are they normal and I’m socially weird or backward? Do these kinds of aggressive come ons really lead to better sales or to clandestine affairs in the art class parking lot?

It was their persistence that really stunned me. They seemed to miss all of the social “go to hell” cues I was sending. Or maybe they counted on stunning me, disarming me. Every single one of these situations felt a little predatory to me. Clearly, all of these guys wanted something from me, and they were going to go after it. I guess I need to start working on my bitch vibe.

I frequently forget about bake sales. Reg and I don’t attend the local high school football games, including tailgates, on Friday nights. And usually, I’m the only mom at any school holiday event not wearing a holiday-themed sweatshirt/sweater/sweatervest. This makes me smirk. I don’t shop at 5:00 am for “doorbusters” on the day after Thanksgiving. I don’t buy Marketday food. I don’t make goody bags for the class. I barely participate in fundraisers. I’m just not there. But I’ve learned to fake it pretty well. I can pass. I’m much better off than I was five years ago, when I truly worried about what these women thought of me, when I desperately wanted to fit in.

There is this sort of “on-the-fringes” aspect of my personality that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to shake. It’s always been hard for me to relate to my peers, even when I was a child. Other fringers, usually those who were also raised in deeply messed-up families, can relate. It’s hard to understand the mindset of the mean girl who won’t let me in her club because I don’t have pierced ears when my mother has had a suitcase sitting by the front door for a week as threat to my alcoholic father. I can’t begin to comprehend the “do you like me? check yes or no” note-passing when my mom woke me up at 5:30 to take the garbage to the dumpster behind the laudromat so that my dad didn’t know that she hadn’t paid the trash bill. I never asked for a slumber party like the other girls had because I knew I’d never be allowed….the fringes.

These memories used to make me feel very sorry for myself, but finally, at age 40, I’ve started to get over it. I like myself a lot better than I like these other people–the ones who fit in. Maybe because I’ve spent so much time cultivating relationships with other fringers, I realize just how boring life on the inside is. There’s a certain amount of freedom in not rushing out to the Veteran’s Day Sale at Justice or in not taking the kids to the Disney Princesses on Ice show. Now, I find this banality just plain annoying.

Today, for example, I ran into two preschool suburban moms at Target. I said hello to them, and they were both all a-twitter: “we’ve been out since 7:00 this morning, and we’ve gotten almost all our shopping done, We just had to stop at Tarjay [the stupid-effing french pronunciation of Target] to pick up some stocking stuffers.” I almost reflexively rolled my eyes. These are the women I used to think I wanted to befriend. Imagine a life of shopping and still thinking that calling Target Tarjay is clever? I need my people to be a little edgier and a lot more flawed.

And I love my other fringe people. I love that my favorite sister-in-law Crse openly refers to her meds at family functions. I love that Roxie once stood in a Best Buy and asked if she had to set herself on effing fire to get some service. I love that M. Lipsticky walks down the street with bloody Mary in her hand. I love that Nina will defend Kim Carnes with a well-timed, “kiss my ass, it’s a good song.” I even love that Vic once accidentally told Nina to suck his dick during a particularly heated game of Taboo.

This is the good stuff. This is life. These are the stories for the grandkids. Think about it, which is the better tale–the one when Aunt Roxie threatened to set herself on fucking fire in the video department or the one when we went out shopping, in our matching Christmas sweaters, at 7:00 am? Exactly.

There are benefits to a life on the fringes–it is a life, for all of its vulgarities, lived genuinely because we never had the time to learn the intricacies of achieving and maintaining group popularity; we had different priorities. Out here, we’re messy and loud and hilarious. Out here we seek truth and we speak truth (props Christopher), and we medicate and we yell, but we laugh and we love…louder and harder than is proper or appropriate.