Oh, Earth, You are Too Wonderful

There is an old saying-- actually, I don't really know if it's old or not but, if it's not, one day it will be-- that goes something like, "Half of life is just showing up."

If that's true, then there's an awful lot of people out there who aren't very good at life.

Actually, maybe that's not true. Lots of people show up for things-- usually late-- but, even when they do show up, far fewer of them are actually present. In the moment. You can attend a play or a class or a meeting without actually attending.

And that's sad.

What's sadder is that I recently attended a small children's play, and there were the children's parents in the audience, glued to their iPhones, thumbing the little wheels on their Blackberries, totally tuned out to what their children were doing in earnest before them, having worked for weeks on this little performance.

And that's sadder.

I pined for a long time for a smartphone, and I have one (actually, I've had several-- purchased used through Ebay. I think I finally learned my lesson and bought one from the evil orangey retail store) but if you asked me today why I needed one so badly, I wouldn't be able to tell you.

At work, I sit at a computer all day long, and have my personal email on one screen, and my work email on another screen-- so it's not like I'm "unplugged" from the interwebula. At home, the computer is on 24 hours a day, like the domicile of Mr. & Mrs. Apron is some sort of NASA substation or emergency dispatch center. I am not a first-responder (not an active one, at any rate) nor am I a high-powered CEO with a receding hairline and custom-tailored Brooks Brothers shirts. Who am I that I need to receive e-mails while I'm shaking off the last droplet of pee-pee or eviscerating a grilled Reuben?

And yet, with a cheery little "blong!" I am instantly alerted whenever my eldest sister feels compelled to send me the latest Consumer Reports washing machine crash-test results or the local county's update on prevalence of rectal cancer in the area's white-tailed deer population. Why? I don't know.

After the little children's show, I overheard one of the balding parents pontificating to one of the saddle-bag mothers about the ever-growing importance of being "plugged in." He recited some story about someone he knew who received an email at 5:45 on a Friday asking him to come in "stat" for a job interview first thing on Monday morning.

"Well, if he didn't have his Blackberry, and he went away for the weekend-- he'd have screwed himself out of a job-- which he got, by the way. This is the world we live in now. You know what I mean?"

Yeah. I know what you mean. Dog eat dog. Early bird gets the worm. Snooze, you lose. I've got it. It's just that, in this world we live in now, when you smile, your bluetooth looks a little crooked to me.

I wanted my smartphone, but I was scared of getting it, because I thought it would ruin my relationships with people. I saw what it did to my former best friend the last couple of times I visited him in New York. We were sitting at a diner in Chelsea and, every five minutes or so, he would grimace a tad, and I knew he was getting a text or an email from his girlfriend. Yes, he made a "sorry about this" face, but, if he was really sorry, he wouldn't have pulled out the device and pecked out a reply. He might have even done the unthinkable and *gasp* shut it off, to be with his friend who he only saw three times a year.

You know, before he decided to stop seeing me altogether.

Sometimes, my wife and I will be sitting together on the couch, watching television or reading, as we married folk do, and my phone will "blip" or "blong" on the coffee table in front of us, and I will keep reading, or keep watching Sally Field endorse Boniva and play with her fake grandchildren, and my wife will give me an affectionate hug as a thank-you for ignoring the insistent little piece of plastic in front of me. She likes when I don't jump to see who it is, or what it's all about this time. Sometimes being a good husband is less about the things we do and more about the things we don't do.

I hope I'm a good husband. I hope at least I'm a better husband than I am a smartphone user.

I know I'll at least be a better father than those schmucks tapping and scrolling their way through life, while their children perform for, well, nobody really-- because, what's a performance if nobody's watching? There's a beautiful passage in the play "Our Town--" if you've ever seen the play or read it, you already know where I'm going with this. Act III. Emily, dead in her lovely white dress, asks the Stage Manager to go back to Grover's Corners, just one more time. He reluctantly agrees to take her back to a long ago birthday, and she is able to see her parents, puttering around the house, doing parenty things, and she calls out to them, but they cannot hear or see her. Emily tries to tear herself away from their young and smooth faces, from her memories of what was and will never be again, but she cannot. She cries out in anguish:

"Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?"

If only Thornton Wilder had known about the smartphone. I guess he predicted it.

Cell-Phone Ditty

O, I do sincerely hate the AT&T store,
A visit there always makes my asshole sore.

They rob you and rape you and, o! how they hate you,
For interrupting their coffee-break, at eleven-o-two.

They hit you with charges and extras and fees,
They'll stomp on your balls while you're down on your knees.

And they know that they've got you for two more long years,
As they shove bluetooth headsets and such in our ears.

I tried to avoid them by shopping on E-bay,
For a refurbished Treo, way back in the day.

But it liked to shut off and take frequent naps,
I thought it would pass, just a phase now, perhaps?

But, no, the phone showed it had a mind of its own,
And it died a few deaths in a constant dead zone.

So I'm back to the store with tail between legs,
While for a small bit of lube my raw asshole begs.

And while I've got a sleek, cool new friend on my belt,
My dignity and pride has sustained a nice welt.

Hello, (Again), Treo

We all have watershed moments in our lives.

You know what I'm talking about-- those moments where time just stops, and we have a great epiphany, a realization about the world or, if we're 20somethings, about ourselves. 20somethings don't have realizations about the world, generally speaking, unless they're significantly enlightened or seriously cracked out.

Last year, probably at around this time, I had a watershed moment about myself. I came to the difficult and painful conclusion that the way I operated was no longer working for me. The way I "functioned" from day to day, well, it just wasn't cutting it anymore. See-- when the old Mr. Apron needed to remember to do something, he wrote himself a note on a tiny scrap of paper, and he put it in his right hip pocket. This scrap of paper, (it might have been a reminder to get the oil changed in the PT Cruiser, or that an allergist appointment was coming up, or there was a 9:10pm G&S audition tomorrow night) would join several other scraps of paper in the old Mr. Apron's right hip pocket. At night, while the old Mr. Apron snored the night away, the scraps of paper would all have a party in his trouser pocket-- they'd invite their friends Overdue Library Notice, Inhaler Prescription, Vacation Request Note and Random Scribbled Thing over to join in the nocturnal pocket merriment.

And, oh what fun they had.

The trouble was, the old Mr. Apron changed his trousers maybe twice a week, although he was admonished for this habit by his father ("Mummy, you have to stagger! If you're going to wear the same pants all the time, okay, but, Jesus-- stagger it! Wear the navy pants for a day, then the brown pants, then back to the navy, maybe for two days in a row, then back to the brown. I mean, if you don't stagger, people are going to notice.") and, although twice a week isn't much in terms of changing pants, the old Mr. Apron had to make sure that all of his little notes and scraps of paper made it from one pair of pants to the other, or else he'd never remember all the things he had to do.

Of course, he also had to remember to put his hand in his pocket every now and then, so he'd feel all the scraps of paper, which would then send a message to his brain that these scraps of paper were worth looking at, and then, hopefully, he'd look at them, and go get the fucking Cruiser's oil changed.

"Renew CPR certification." "Get Finley's ear medication." "Pay the PECO bill." "Haircut at 4:30 - Thursday." "Pick up supplies for work." "Email.... somebody."

Even unimportant losers have lots to remember-- it doesn't seem fair. I really used to be able to keep it all together. Really, I could. But, last year, I hit that watershed moment. I was flaking out on obligations, and with student loan payments and health insurance and other expenses, the bills I had to pay became too numerous to keep all in my head and in my pocket. So I panicked and I bought a Treo.

Now, because I'm an idiot, I didn't just walk into an AT&T store and buy one. I bought one on e-bay. It wasn't the newest of the new, either. (Apparently, brand-new, this thing cost $379.00-- which is a sum I won't pay for anything that isn't a home improvement.) It was a gently used Treo 650 and, while it has the proportions of a brick, it's by far the most technologically sophisticated piece of equipment I've had at my disposal since the Commodore 64.

I used this device from June of last year through November, when it started shutting off mysteriously, frustratingly, and constantly. I was very upset, not because I had spent a shitload of money on it (I got it for around $80.00) but because it was actually working for me. I was putting in appointments and events in the calendar, and I was actually looking at it! I was remembering to go to rehearsals and appointments and things were getting accomplished and I was feeling less harried and incompetent. But, as someone who did not have a landline, I needed a phone that would turn a cold shoulder to me whenever it felt tired or had a headache.

"That's it," I said to Mrs. Apron. "I've learned my lesson. No more cellphones from e-bay (I'd purchased three that way already). From now on, I'll just suck it up and get raped at the AT&T store and at least get a brand new phone." The only problem was, I wasn't eligible for a new phone. But my wife, who's had the same phone since 2003, was.

No problem, I'll just use her upgrade. Thanks, honey!

Turns out, something good actually came from entering the AT&T store. "Ask about employee discounts" a small sign implored.

"You don't give discounts to emergency medical technicians, do you?"

"Oh, yes," the woman with the unpronouncable name tag said, "15% a month off."

ZING!

Of course, I haven't worked on an ambulance since February of 2007, but I'm still certified as an EMT until October of 2011. I figure, I worked for a year-and-a-half for $11.00-an-hour, I got psychologically abused by a psychotic partner who threatened to kill me, I had to wake up every day at 4:30am for three months doing the 6-2 shift, I got pissed on, puked on, bled on, cursed at, Heiled Hitler'd at (by a 92-year-old nun, no less), so, you know, why not milk that shit?

Shit = Milked.

Yes, the phone I got had a calendar, but it wasn't the same. With a numeric keyboard, it took forever to insert dates and appointments in there, and I never looked at it. It wasn't helpful, and I started slipping again. A few days ago, I confessed to my wife, "I'm slipping again. I can't fucking remember anything. I'm totally useless."

"Well," she said, "why don't you try the Treo again. Maybe it just needed a rest."

So I slipped the SIM card in that bad boy and, cross your fingers, we seem to be back in business. I spent a good part of Sunday night putting all my important events and reminders in the calendar, and it's a wonderful thing to have a QWERTY keyboard, I must say.

I hope it helps. I hope it doesn't start turning itself off again. I hope I don't get addicted and then forever need a converged device like this just to keep myself afloat and operating like someone without early-onset Alzheimers.

Of course, I have to confess something to you. The greatest thing about having my Treo back isn't the keyboard, or the calendar, or the internet capabilities, or even the plethora of games (yeah, Coconut Fern!). It's the pictures that were saved on its memory, that I haven't seen since November.

I'm specifically referring to one picture in particular. It's a picture I took at great pains and great risk, at my barbershop. Of two ladies. Look closely at the woman on the right. Look at her left ear. Look closely.

Yes. Those are rolled-up dollar bills. The shampoo girl's tip.

Welcome back, Treo. I've missed you.