Did you know that record stereos and Polaroid cameras are making a comeback? I’m assuming they are meant to appeal to my generation, although my niece’s 10 year old friend got a Polaroid camera for Christmas. It definitely makes me nostalgic for my teenage years, when I would hang out in my room listening to my record albums for hours. I have considered buying one, since I still have all my old albums, many of which are so obscure you can’t even find them on iTunes. But I’m sure the sound isn’t as good, and it takes up a lot more room than my phone does, which has thousands of songs on it.
The same is true with pictures. I don’t have photo albums anymore because it’s a pain to get pictures developed. And you have to pay for them. Much easier just to have photos on your devices and scroll through them. I have my phone with me at all times, so it’s much easier to show someone a picture that way, rather than inviting them to my house and having them look through my albums.
My sister-in-law bought me the Michelle Obama book for Christmas, but I had just bought it on Kindle the week before. She asked me whether I preferred books or Kindle. I love holding books in my hand, flipping through the pages, seeing them on my shelf. I liked going to Barnes and Noble and seeing tables stacked and organized by type of book. And I liked the free cookie from Starbucks that I got after my purchase. Well, it was buy one get one free so it was more like half off.
However, my eyesight is not what it used to be, so I have to wear reading glasses. And if I accidentally take my contacts out too early, I have to do this goofy thing where I put my reading glasses on top of my regular glasses, which isn’t very stable. On Kindle, I can just increase the font. I can also look up words, highlight passages, and type comments. In a book, I just dog-ear one corner of the page, so it’s pretty hard to go back and find a quote. But I buy both, so I am middle school on books.
I really love the idea of writing by hand. In theory. Putting a pen to paper makes whatever you’re writing more meaningful. Last year when I read my old journals, seeing my handwriting gave me a better sense of what I was like at that point in time. It’s as though some of my personality got communicated through my script.
But all I ever write these days is my signature, and I usually just make a bunch of squiggly lines, because the merchants don’t check to see if you signature matches the one on the back of the card anymore. And I have a long name. I’ve tried to write journal entries by hand, but I can’t go more than a paragraph before my handwriting deteriorates. After a while, I can’t write in straight line. My script gets bigger, loopier, and finally completely illegible. It was impressive to see how small and straight I could write in my journal for pages and pages of entries without a single hand cramp. I’m definitely new school with writing. It’s much easier just to type everything.
I went shopping with my niece after Christmas. It was a great day, and it made me happy that Sadie said it was the best day of her life–so far–because we ate brunch and dinner at her favorite places, she found almost everything she was looking for, we got a pedicure, went to the bookstore, ate a buy one get one free cookie.
But I hated the crowds. People sometimes shout profanities at me in the parking lot because I’m not looking where I’m going when I’m driving. I hated standing in the checkout line. I refused to give my phone number to the salespeople, and sometimes they were downright pissed off about it. Apparently it threw off their script of talking me into getting a rewards card, where I could get cash back someday after I bought a lot more merchandise. Much easier to just buy it online. Especially if they have free shipping and returns. So I’m new school on shopping.
Actually, after writing all this, it looks like I’m new school in general.
How about you? Are you old school or new school?
Normal in Training 