Lost in My Vista

Back in the caveman days when I took “computer programming” in high school, it was considered a peripheral elective and I remember finding everything I learned in the one credit course to be utterly baffling. I could do the Start:Msdos: If A=(10-1) Then stuff that made the screen flash a message after two minutes but I had no idea why this was useful other than when the kids who got it rigged a program to flash a screen thirty minutes into a very dull lecture by Sr. T as she was known but not to her face, “God calling Sr. T, come in Sr. T.” It was sophomoric humor at its finest, but then we were sophomores.

For a time, I kept pace with the machines. Back in the 90’s, I even installed a modem to allow for faster internet access, something my husband considered an unnecessary luxury. We added a new sound blaster so we could better play “Masters of Orion,” and gradually added more memory chips, feeling rather like mechanics as we would unscrew the back of the case and insert chips. Our high water mark was the attempt to install a new processor, only to learn that SX at the end of a computer model meant the chips was unmovable. I would have preferred to discover this fact before we had removed the casing and unplugged multiple memory chips as part of the pre-op to installation.

The planned obsolescence in technology is nothing new. 8-tracks gave way to tapes which gave way to CD’s. Floppies became 3 ½ inch disc, became zip drives and usb ports and cd’s. Somewhere inbetween Dial up and DSL and Broadband and Wireless, I got left behind.

It seems every day, my computer needs some sort of upgrade though I haven’t the foggiest idea what the machine is tinkering with as it tells me very politely but emphatically not to shut down as it makes corrections. Maybe if the language used by the computer were more user friendly…like, “If you run this program, the entire system will self destruct.” Installing updates for programs so often, I have to wonder, what exactly are we fixing? Do I have a choice? It feels like I’m being given medication prescriptions without a diagnosis. The machine seemed happy and working before and seems no different now.

Now my brother lives and thrives by his management of computers. He can get all these things and bypass stuff. He gets binary code. I wonder why I’d want to. For a time, I viewed techies as the modern day equivalent of Mideval alchemists, hording secret knowledge, sometimes not entirely accurate or valuable and able to live well off the general public’s ignorance.

Having chalked up my 100$ for the restoration of my computer from a virus and preservation of all my documents, I feel a chastened awe at this profession, if only because I’d hate to lose all the stuff over the years I’ve written. My lappie is back in my possession and working. I don’t know what they did and I frankly don’t care. So I’m guessing I’m just like one of those peasants, that ignorance in this case really is bliss. The alchemists said their incantations and my machine got better so it must have been because of them.

Content to remain steeped in my ignorance, I will now begin crafting words once again and hope that the pumpkins I carved and put on the doorstep, ward off the evil spirits but I’ve uploaded a new security virus scanning program and installed a back up hard drive, just in case.

Lock Out

I didn’t intend to cause a screen free experience. I’d just meant to limit children’s exposure to television by locking every channel. I couldn't compete with the 27 channels we got using an antenea, so I knew cable and its 275 flavors of crude would be too much. "If you want to watch something, just ask." I explained.
"But you might say no." they wailed.
"Exactly."

“But Mommmmm….what are we going to do?” Pointing to the bin of unread library books brought howls of derision. “But that’s boring…..” they echoed like a Greek Chorus.

Now I have a stock pile of standard responses to that charge, usually involving the allocation of a dreaded chore. “There are socks to be folded, dishes to wash, floors to mop and carpets to vacuum.” I say to such words. Oddly enough, no one ever takes me up on my offer to fill their free time with valuable domestic duties.

So it came to pass that both remotes to the television got lost somewhere in the home. One child when so far as to remove all books from the floor in an attempt to locate the magic controllers that govern the two TV’s.

I’d also had my daughter create a password I didn’t know to my own computer so I wouldn’t spend too much time surfing the net or blogging, when I should be exercising, getting kids to do their summer projects, preparing meals and enjoying books during the unscheduled hours that define in my opinion, the best part of summer. I’d locked the kiddos out of the net free machine as well when a fight broke out over who could play Miss Spider or I Spy between the five, seven and three year old.

After an hour of unsolicited cleaning, the kids despaired of finding the controllers and resorted to old fashioned entertainment. THEY WENT OUTSIDE. Six children, ages 11-2 were playing zoo, coming in only to grab a cup of water. From 4-6, it was blissful. I cooked pancakes and bacon without worrying about people underfoot or resolving a single fight. The oldest two grabbed their respective assigned books and MP-3 players, plugged in and tuned out. By the end of the evening, two had practiced their musical instruments. Two others had done their math work books. Five had read to themselves and four had helped with sorting socks.

In the spirit of solidarity, I turned on the classical station and stayed off the computer even though my daughter logged me on that evening. Over dishes, the children were talking about what they would do tomorrow using legos and about playing capture the flag and maybe making a cake.

Don’t tell them but, I found the remotes. I’m keeping them an undisclosed location in my room until further notice.

How to Stay Unpublished for Life

10) Avoid reading submission guidelines whenever possible, they take away valuable time from writing, which as we all know, is a craft worthy of pure devotion. Submit using the spaghetti approach. Your stuff is so gold, only idiots would not recognize the opportunity being presented.

9) Publically deride any newspaper or magazine that has rejected your latest offering. Send out a spam explaining your personal vitriol in this circumstance; be sure to link the publication to your blog and sig line in the email to guarantee they get the message.

8) Use clichés and metaphors like salt on popcorn. Write peevish emails to any editor that would dare alter or adjust your deathless prose. Reject their acceptance if they refuse to acquiesce.

7) Submit the same article to at least sixteen publications at once, cc the others in a group email to save time.

6) Resend the same articles to the same magazines using the theory of publication via erosion of editorial will.

5) Write a screed damning everything including young puppies. Make sure it is at least 5000 words long and hand written. Send with insufficient postage but with a personal post-it to the editor using his or her real name and possibly a term of affection.

4) Phone the editors on the hour to ask, “Have you read my piece yet?”

3) Phone them at home.

2) Repeat the process with potential agents. Consider moving into a tent at the park near his or her home. If anyone asks, explain you are doing “research” for a character or engaged in a civil protest. For added mystery, never give the same cause twice.

1) When receiving a rejection via email or letter, throw your computer or notepad or both into the trash, dump motor oil over the entire mess and set it aflame. Repeat as often as necessary while screaming and pulling out all hair, including one’s eyebrows, “I’m never writing again!” Continue until broke, the EPA arrests you, or becoming hirsute free.

For Experienced Non Published Writing Professional Hacks Only...
**Write a journal detailing how the world never understood your secret genius. Leave obvious clues in your will to allow relatives to eventually find this hidden opus. Be sure and tuck a few George Washingtons in the pages to reward them for their trouble.

Editing My Life

There are a few rules for writing humor. Today, I am explaining them as a means of illustrating that not everything I write is 100% pure unvarnished truth...it just feels real because sometimes, reality is a bit too much to bear.

I also want to give pure credit to Leigh Anne Jasheway Bryant who gave a lecture at the Erma Bombeck conference, detailing these techniques.

1) Exaggeration: Blowing things up to create humorous effect. Exploding Toilets that have the water drip down through the vents onto the computer. Well, okay, that actually happened at our last house, but saying that it happened three times...okay, that happened too...Exploding toilets that had water drip down through the vents onto the computer while I was using it...three times...now we've exaggerated.

2) Minimizing: The opposite, dwarfing something huge to make it manageable to minimize the suffering, creating humor. The pile of laundry was the size Mt. Kilimanjaro. I downsized it from the planet Jupiter.

3) The rule of three: Humor comes in threes. Shakespeare always has three couples getting married at the end of his plays, there were three stooges...look to the future for either Jeb Bush or Chelsea to run. Late night comedians are praying for this outcome…and in the interest of full disclosure, having watched late night humor lately, perhaps the rest of us should as well.

4) Clichés: Parody...in honor of the Tuesday Primary: Hillary as Alfred P. Doolittle, fresh from an evening of straight shots with beer chasers...

I'm getting elected in the morning,
Ding, Dong, the polls are gonna rise!
Bill come and kiss me,
and you also Chelsea,
and get me to the polls on time.

I was the presumed nominee here,
guaranteed a win for the DNC!
Please vote for Hillary I cry so don't hate me,
And come and cast your vote in line.

If you are dying, vote absentee.
If you died already,
we know,
you would have pulled for me.

For, I'm stumping here in Pennsylvania,
To be the Gina Davis Commander in Chief
I know I'm a shrill one
But just please vote Clinton
And get yourself to the polls on time!

Obama:
I'm gonna win the nomination.
I'm spruced up and looking oh so fine.
Let's bowl a ten frame,
Don't forget my lapel pin,
and get me to my poll on time.

I'll give another moving speech today.
Sleeves rolled up, remember Hope and Change!
Ignore all my past friends
and their pedaled influence
I never knew it at the time!

If you are bitter,
I'll understand
Vote for me
and you'll become
a transformed man.

For we're running for the nomination,
To win in all in 2008!
And in this campaign
We'll beat John McCain!
Just get us to the dance!
Give us this one chance!
Be sure and get us to the polls on time!

5) Definition: Describing one thing by defining it as another. You know you're a mother when...you pray for rain on game days weeks in advance. This blog is 100% fiction...except when it's not.

6) Observation: Storytelling, which usually uses every other technique mentioned here. It's what I do naturally. The car floor was carpeted with French fries. (usually coupled as in this case, with either minimization or exaggeration, I'm not saying which).

7) Misdirection: Humor goes in directions one doesn't expect...like I want a shop vac, wet/dry for Mother's day. Seriously, 3 Horse power straight vacuuming power to win the war with fast food and dirt everywhere. I discovered I wanted one when I went to a friend's house to pick up a desk she was giving my daughter. Her husband was cleaning out his garage and attacked the Suburban. My car floor is now so clean, you could eat off it...except...now, there isn't anything there to eat.

Happy Earth Day! Plant a tree. Recycle. Kiss the dirt. Drink your tap water and try not to exhale more than necessary.