Another Year, Another Blog Entry

2011-01-23T19:00:00.000-08:00

By Catherine the Prolific

To celebrate the one year-ish anniversary of my blog, I thought I might honor the occasion with an actual blog entry. My third! Who would've guessed I'd come this far!

Below is something I started scribbling more than a year ago, I think. It may even pre-date my other entries. So take any words related to time with a grain of salt.

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So perhaps not all tiny glowing screens are evil. The proliferation of handheld gadgets in recent years has forced me to mount an internal and perpetual soapbox about how the human race is addicted to little interactive screens. Also—like any sensible, self-righteous person—I tend to scorn anything that the multitudes feel the need to pre-order, get personalized protective covers for, or wake up in the middle of the night and stand in a thousand-customer-deep line in a freezing cold parking lot to buy.

Recently*, however, I acquired a shiny red MP3 player with a tiny glowing screen.

Having music along for the ride (or walk or drive) isn’t entirely groundbreaking for me. Within the last six months I have, in public, listened to music via my portable CD player. For a 2002 model, it’s cutting-edge. It boasts mega-anti-skip technology, a sleek futuristic design, and a velcro hand strap that provides a firm grip and tones your right arm all at once.

Alright, alright, I know what you’re thinking. What’s a CD player?

I’m not typically embarrassed by being behind the times. The other day I saw a replica of my cell phone at the museum and I couldn’t have been more delighted. I flipped the phone open and held it up next to its glass-encased cousin. I was about to pretend my phone was meeting his father for the first time and make a cute dramatic scene of it, but then I realized the museum was eerily quiet. The field trip children had quit their running and screaming and now looked at me with mouths agape. I might as well have pulled a prehistoric spear from my purse.

But my CD player has been showing its age. After learning the hard way that treadmills are no longer designed to cradle 6”-wide devices and that swapping out CDs on the train makes people look at you with deep pity in their eyes, I figured it couldn’t be so bad to try something new. I mean, the masses aren’t always wrong about things.

With my MP3 player I’ve been enjoying the freedom of listening to whatever suits my current state of mind, and not being constrained to that one CD I merely hoped would take me from early morning enthusiasm to post-work weariness. You know how it is. Sometimes you need a jolt to get the day started—a sturdy beat one can stride to. But by day’s end that same energized thumping will be about as soothing as a jackhammer on your skull. Then there’s the unpredictability of your mood. Sometimes you crave a little Lerner & Lowe to accompany an inexcusably cheerful disposition, and sometimes sacred motets are in order to keep you from bursting into flames when commuting delays overlap with hordes of sticky tourists.

A recent and otherwise dreary ride home was transformed by the accordion.

It was a long day, and I was bemoaning the fact that teleporters have not yet been invented for real. I so badly wanted to be beamed home. I reluctantly boarded the train, wondering whether my 50-minute commute would actually manage to be 50 minutes. I settled onto an empty bench, drew the curtains on my eyes, and thumbed the MP3 player til it reached the Yann Tiersen tracks. As soon as Tiersen’s accordion came piping through my little black ear buds, the metro became le métro. The passengers became passagers. The conductor announced with a deep, sultry voice, Les portes ferment. His tone was so soothing I could’ve been told les portes were ferm-ing all evening long.

At my penultimate stop, the train paused longer than usual and I actually thanked le conducteur for more time with my accordion. Opening my eyes to an entirely new set of commuters, I soon spotted a darling old man in the train on the opposite track. Petite and bearded, he grasped an imperfectly folded newspaper whose crossword puzzle held him in a trance. Despite the abundance of empty seats in the car, he stood by the door. Who needs to sit down when you’re 75? With the accordion’s lilting rhythm flooding my imagination, I proceeded to think this man an aging Frenchman who would slip into a wool beret the moment he emerged from the train and hum Les Feuilles Mortes all the way to his apartment, where he would certainly spend the rest of the evening with un café noir and his yellowed dictionnaire.

Right. Where was I? Tiny addictive glowing screens? I guess they have their purpose.

*More like two years ago maybe.

2010-01-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

Lately the public transportation system I use nearly every day has assailed my happiness. Losing even three minutes to circumstances outside my control during the morning commute can produce a ridiculously and frighteningly peevish version of myself. The announcement of a delay is made over the loud speaker, and I take personal offense at the news. I stand contrapposto--with a hand on one hip, for emphasis--and put on the most sullen face I can muster. If more than a minute slips by, I close my eyes and tilt my head toward the heavens. Why, Lord? Why me? As though God, while brushing his teeth that morning, forgot to ensure that the universe swirl ceaselessly around me.

In commuterland, the seconds feel like minutes and the minutes feel like hours. When the doors finally open, I burst through them like I've been trapped in a small crevice for days. I might, in desperate impatience, even brush against a fellow traveler who just isn't rushing for his life fast enough.

To compensate for lost minutes, I sprint, I leap, I scale, I dodge. I become something of an unhappy action figure in red mary janes. And I demonstrate remarkable agility, encumbered as I am by layers of winter clothes and at least two bags bouncing gracelessly behind me.

Thankfully, there is such a thing as traveling mercies. The rather mundane (though lately maddening) ritual of standing around a bunch of strangers for nearly two hours every day can be quite magical, even illuminating, at times. On occasion, it is hilarious. Most often, it is humbling.

During a particularly busy day in December, for example, I found myself smooshed against an enormous man who was draped in black fur. Real, ankle-length fur. How could I not smile at this absurdity, riding along as intimately as I was with what remains of King Kong?

An experiment...

2009-12-02T17:44:00.000-08:00

Against my better judgment, or at least my usual ways, I'm joining the so-called blogosphere. I think it's a real shame that, though it saves us loads of oral energy to compress the words "web" and "log," we ended up with the word "blog." Years after its debut in our lexicon, the word still conjures up just two things for me: "The Blob" and "bog." Who feels warm and fuzzy now?

Anyways, hello blogland.

is that a red ski?

Another Year, Another Blog Entry

An experiment...