If 40 is the new 30, is Wednesday the new Monday? Because if it’s that easy to shave 10 years off your age, we could just as easily remodel a few other things around here. The calendar, for starters. It’s a known fact that the only people who like Monday are employees of Oprah, who can reasonably start each week with the hope that their boss is going to give them something cool. Like a car or a smallish Pacific islands.
Following this line of thinking, a layoff can be termed a sabbatical, in which you finally get to take time for you and your life coach. A divorce can be the perfect opportunity to hone your web-surfing skills. It’s like writing your resume—it’s all in how you spin it. Hate to floss? Could not flossing be the New Flossing? File your taxes in October last year? Maybe procrastination could be the New Proactive! They both start with P. It won’t mess up the dictionary that much.
The only catch is that the New 40 is fleeting. True, you do wake up on your birthday and say, “Man, I look good! I should model for J. Jill!” Two years later, though, and the dew is off the rose and you are the New 42, also known as 75. Whereupon you realize that everybody your age looks younger than you, and you are now living the Dog Years, in which each single year ages you seven. This does not happen to the celebrity who shares your birthday and who appears all airbrushed in Vogue, but can’t possibly be airbrushed on David Letterman, because film is 24 frames per second, and there aren’t enough airbrushers to go around for that.
The New Monday, by contrast, is still dew-drop fresh, mostly because I just invented it, but also because … what’s the downside of a four-day weekend? Surely three days is enough time to spend with those annoying people at work, doing that annoying work-type stuff. Wednesday benefits, too. Instead of being Hump Day, the marker of the dreary interminability of the workweek, it’s now the poster child for extended free time.
Of course, there’s decreased productivity to worry about, eventually leading to a declining gross domestic product, as slacker-mode turns us from America the Beautiful into, say, Spain.* A country content to rely on the beauty of its thousand-year old architecture and the freedom to nap during the day. Also, some people (I guess) like their jobs and derive fulfillment from them, or—more weirdly—have an odd sort of work ethic that requires them to get things done. Like Starbucks baristas and volunteers for Doctors Without Borders.
On the flip side, the lives of dogs will improve during the reign of the New Monday. Two fewer days a week at Doggy Day Care, or less crate-time for you cheapskates out there. Cats might be freaked out and start pooping in the bathtub, though. They don’t like change.
Yes, the world can be a better place, and it’s pretty easy to get to. Just plug in your GPS and spin.
* I have a friend in Spain, so I am allowed to say this. She has a view of the Mediterranean from her window. Plus, in Spain you get to drink all the Sangria you want.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Spitting Out the Window
The nice thing about the Internet is that nobody spits on it while you browse it. Unless, of course, that’s your particular fetish. Then—for a small fee payable through your PayPal account—you can go to spitonmewhileiread.com, and a 19-year old Ukrainian woman in bondage gear will come to your house and spit on you, as requested.
But back to the Internet. Emily Dickinson was known to pause from her work to spit out the window at passersby. Then, the mad little genius (released from her fetish) would get back to scribbling her “letter to the world.” Her blog, if you will. Because blogging is this millennium’s Dear Diary. Our way to connect in our plugged in lives, where we Peapod our groceries and Zappos our shoes and fall in love on Match.com, from offices that consist of a Blackberry and a WiFi connection at Starbucks.
At first, I was revolted by the idea of blogging. Why is everybody so desperate for attention? Why does everyone assume what they have to say is worth hearing? Or that anybody cares enough to listen? But that’s just it. We want somebody to care. For our thoughts to have meaning, to resonate with others. To prove that we matter.
My husband is making me a web site (another project, another day with A.D.D.), and after many failed attempts to convey to him what I wanted—creative, personal, handmade, whimsical, not “store-ish”—I finally told him I wanted it to validate me as a human being. And the sad thing is, I meant it. My car doesn’t represent me, unless: “This is what I could afford and what was on the lot in red the day we wanted a car,” says it all. My clothes are pretty much: “This is what was on sale at Old Navy last time I had a fat day and 20 minutes in which to buy something that fit.” My house says me, inside at least, where there’s a lot of color and clutter and cat hair. Outside it says, “Nine other families are sharing this building to make it affordable for all of us to live in this town.”
So, does what people publish on the Internet validate them as human beings? Unfortunately, a lot of what is revealed is less like poetry and more like a glob of spit. People can be really scary to each other when they’re protected by the cape of invisibility. It’s worse than how we treat each other in our cars, shouting insults and flipping fingers. We do it because we can get away with it. While on Craigslist last week, placing a classified ad, I decided to peek into the writing forums. Ninety percent of the content was somebody flaming somebody else for the crime of simply replying to a post they must have wanted a reply to in the first place. It’s like every word written was an invitation for abuse. Sensitive soul that I am, it really bummed me out, because I read into it all sorts of ideas about the nature of human beings, whether we’re basically good or bad, whether society is in decline, blah blah blah.
If Emily Dickinson were alive today, would she blog? Would her letter to the world go heard or unheard, according to the whim of cyberspace? Would she be flamed for being different, or would agents and editors flock to her, eager to offer her a book deal and a movie option? Maybe she’d meet somebody on Match.com, get married, have babies, get fat, become a Jenny Craig spokesperson, and end up on reality TV. Maybe it’s better the Internet waited to get invented. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve become one of the gigabytes of people taking off the cape of invisibility.
This is my letter to the world. Is anybody listening?
But back to the Internet. Emily Dickinson was known to pause from her work to spit out the window at passersby. Then, the mad little genius (released from her fetish) would get back to scribbling her “letter to the world.” Her blog, if you will. Because blogging is this millennium’s Dear Diary. Our way to connect in our plugged in lives, where we Peapod our groceries and Zappos our shoes and fall in love on Match.com, from offices that consist of a Blackberry and a WiFi connection at Starbucks.
At first, I was revolted by the idea of blogging. Why is everybody so desperate for attention? Why does everyone assume what they have to say is worth hearing? Or that anybody cares enough to listen? But that’s just it. We want somebody to care. For our thoughts to have meaning, to resonate with others. To prove that we matter.
My husband is making me a web site (another project, another day with A.D.D.), and after many failed attempts to convey to him what I wanted—creative, personal, handmade, whimsical, not “store-ish”—I finally told him I wanted it to validate me as a human being. And the sad thing is, I meant it. My car doesn’t represent me, unless: “This is what I could afford and what was on the lot in red the day we wanted a car,” says it all. My clothes are pretty much: “This is what was on sale at Old Navy last time I had a fat day and 20 minutes in which to buy something that fit.” My house says me, inside at least, where there’s a lot of color and clutter and cat hair. Outside it says, “Nine other families are sharing this building to make it affordable for all of us to live in this town.”
So, does what people publish on the Internet validate them as human beings? Unfortunately, a lot of what is revealed is less like poetry and more like a glob of spit. People can be really scary to each other when they’re protected by the cape of invisibility. It’s worse than how we treat each other in our cars, shouting insults and flipping fingers. We do it because we can get away with it. While on Craigslist last week, placing a classified ad, I decided to peek into the writing forums. Ninety percent of the content was somebody flaming somebody else for the crime of simply replying to a post they must have wanted a reply to in the first place. It’s like every word written was an invitation for abuse. Sensitive soul that I am, it really bummed me out, because I read into it all sorts of ideas about the nature of human beings, whether we’re basically good or bad, whether society is in decline, blah blah blah.
If Emily Dickinson were alive today, would she blog? Would her letter to the world go heard or unheard, according to the whim of cyberspace? Would she be flamed for being different, or would agents and editors flock to her, eager to offer her a book deal and a movie option? Maybe she’d meet somebody on Match.com, get married, have babies, get fat, become a Jenny Craig spokesperson, and end up on reality TV. Maybe it’s better the Internet waited to get invented. I don’t know. All I know is that I’ve become one of the gigabytes of people taking off the cape of invisibility.
This is my letter to the world. Is anybody listening?
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