The talking gamut is jammed like a museum with Facebook, Yearbooks, Scrapbooks, Origami For Letter Writers, Slam Books, Slammin Princess Phones, Cell Phones, Franklin Planners, Palms, BlackBerries, Email, ChainLetters, Holiday Family Letters, Blogging and Twitter Tweeting. Ponder on that....then think quick! Can you name the 2 of the above items that I have not dabbled in or become outright obsessed with as a way to exchange dialogue with? HMMMM....give up?
1. Origami For Beginners...no, no, no, sorry, I have to yank that one after all. Looking back to my tadpole years, I used to fold up paper into these fun little finger thingies that were numbered on the corners. These amazing works of paper art would also serve as a makers of assured destiny for my friends, all based on whatever number was chosen. Then in Jr. High and High School, the skill of writing 2-4 letters per class period was one I mastered very well at the simple request of a"Write Me" as my friends and I would scurry down the halls before that darn tardy bell would move us along our day. Those notes of vital importance had to be folded just so...it was a security measure disguised as intricate art...Martha Stewart could have taken a lesson in stationary folding from us and we never needed her special folding bone tool either!
Ok....so which one are you still guessing? What is the one thing, the one option I have not yet added to my portfolio of yakking mediums? Give up? I am a Tweeter virgin. What in the Sam Hill am I waiting on? Tweeting has to beckon to me the way Facebook did for about 2 years & so I am playing hard to get.
Honestly, "tweeting" has a weird genesis with me that is not a fond memory. It was the first week of November of 2008. Anyone remember what was going on in the world? I was loosing way too much shut-eye....and what did I do to relax? I roamed all over the weird unknown channel offerings the night before the election until I landed on a channel that openly promoted itself as a liberal outlet. I felt like a spy! I felt ticked! I felt like I may never sleep again from worry! I felt beaten before the election (I know, I know, I know... I admit I was totally in that river of the Nile, saying "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swim, swim...") because it was an ominous reality check that from a technical position, my candidates of choice were not engaged with young new voters. It was here that I heard the word "tweet" for the first 2 times in my life. One person wanted young voters to tweet what was going on out in the field as a way to rally the troops and another was a Black Panther who wanted tweets on all things racial on election day. It was a very sick feeling of defeat that left me incredibly cross and even blaming myself for the final outcome to some degree. That is just about ridiculous to many that I would feel that burdened but be of good cheer, I am using this blog to officially get over it already.
But before doing that, let's take things down a notch or too...and have a little fun, shall we? Let's troll through the deserts of our minds as we look back at all the ways we have tried and tested to simply speak to one another. We are a funny & persistent bunch.
Some notables from my personal archives:
- SlamBooks ~ A spiral notebook with a sign-in page and number assignment for your VBFFs, as in "Very Best Friends Forever!". Each page had a different title and participants were to sign their number and their well thought out response to that title.
For example, one page might read something like this for me in 7th grade:
"Would you consider scraping someone's head with your nails as a way to get attention?"
"#7. Better Get Cha Some! Like totally, ok? Oh my gosh, when I see Coach fur shur he'll think like I am so way funny and cute when I scrape his head! Ummm, what if this turns out to be a total gag-me with a spoon moment & like, I get Coach's scalp skin under my nails! Oh My Gosh, that would be so grossy-gross! I am not using my nails, no way! My metal goody hairbrush will do the the trick! This is going to be so tubular!" By the way, can I like borrow someone's kissing potion lipgloss? Love Ya'll Like A Sister!
- Slammin Princess Phones~mine was baby blue and slept in my bed every night....and slammed like no other.
- Yearbooks~I spent time this summer with my best friends from school, Devon, Heather and Trina, scouring over the pages of Aquila 1984, all I can say is what were we thinking? And I could say it again and again and again...Truly, the miracle of sharpies has made it possible to even show my yearbook to my children.
- Cell Phones~well that really started with pagers. But when I got my first brick, someone called me a rich yuppy. I remember feeling like I had arrived and promptly went out and spent $250.00 on Serengeti sunglasses to look the part. What a gullible idiot I was! But then a merge of information and dialogue starting taking place thanks to....
- Franklins, Palms, Blackberries~ all tools of the trade to organize all of my life complete with who to talk to and what hour of the day to schedule talking. I still have my Dooney & Burke Franklin binder that my boss gave me as a new sales rep. for LS & Co...and now I get all Kenny's hand-me-down electronic organizers. Still need to load that Palm device & use it just once, after all, Sparky has had it charged up for me going on 3 years now. I find that he taunts me with that "crack"berry and so I steal it when he drives, looking up random stuff on the Internet while we run errands together, because I can. Whenever Kenny does finally get an IPhone...I will be a force to be reckoned with again~minus the stupid sunglasses purchase!
- Chain letters, Family Holiday letters and Scrapbooks~sharing vehicles of intimidation. Really, I promise that I do want to partake in the catching up and bragging on my kidlets, & I swear I am planning on forwarding 2 prs. flip-flops or recipes at some point of life to 20 of my closest friends. Surely, I must scrapbook at some point because there are tubs reaching the ceiling that are filled with enough scrapbooking supplies to stock a Hobby Lobby. In tandem with all of the really cool scrapbooking stuff I own is the reason for scrapbooking. Also stacked to the ceiling are mementos from just about every day of my children's lives. The history of 4 kids ages 6 to almost 15...all waiting on me. Plus, if you have ever sent me a card or given me a billion dollar check, I have it in a bin, box or bag, also begging to be immortalized in a scrapbook. Or crapbook as Sparky likes to say. All I know is I have gargantuan guilt thanks to such gorillas on my back. Oye-Vay.
- Email.~I hate email...more like e-stale. In a word....BORING!
- Facebook and blogging~ For a rookie writer, these 2 forums are honestly, extremely addictive for me. Sometimes, I admit, I beg for an intervention. But most of my time it is like sticking me in a shoe store and saying "Wear all you want LeLe...after all, you must wear shoes!" If I were a guy, it would be the equivalent to working for ESPN. However, this summer I had no laptop....do you know how much I can get done if I am not attached to this appendage???? Is there no mercy of balance???? For someone who tauts free agency as a gift, I am an admitted zombie in the zone when it comes to using this compilation of metal & magic to communicate with just about anyone I have ever met in my entire life. What a cool time to live because we can talk about so much...for so very long...until someone needs me to do something, like be the mom! Oh, is it 2am already?
Now back to my serious side. Want to know why I was so cross with myself back in November? It was BFB & BB (before Facebook and before Blogging) for me. I was already so over email as a an effective way to reach out. So, I let APATHY just plop right down in my life and it brought it's BFF, COMPLACENCY to join us for Slacker-Fest. And yet, our country and democracy is so important to me, so my actions (or lack of) did not make any sense, especially given that I like sharing my views, I like asking questions and I like learning from others, especially when it comes to politics. I crave the equality, the responsibilities, the awareness, the doing that comes along a healthy tenet of being an American citizen. By 2004 I had engaged & my focus was to improve my children's school district, so I cannon balled right dab in the middle of the School Board election and helped elect not just 1, not just 2 but 3 candidates. In 2006 & 2007, I poured my heart, soul and husband into a school bond election because I knew it was what my children needed from us to do for them. Never mind that I thought I might collapse from exhaustion and have the physical scars of being drug down a retention pond by my Portuguese Water Dog while grass rooting on the phone with the head of our local Chamber of Commerce. My purpose was before me and I was a doer to the best of my abilities. That era let the genie out of her bottle and I became a better person because of it. Not everything I touched turned to gold...my zealot passion for PTO's that are ethical and true to purpose, is still my personal holy grail!
But with the election of 2008, you would think I could have been found doing all that I should to support issues that are fundamentally a part of who I am....you would think I would have used my marketing experience for all it is worth...you would think I could have at the very least, talked to my peers more to encourage myself and encourage them to get involved. You would think I would have made myself available and tapped into the heavily populated pool of young adults I am blessed to be surrounded with well before election day. But no, my fair share did not go beyond taking my kids with me when I went to vote. Shame on me. But I am forgiving myself.
I want to close this post with another post. I have permission to share the following by it's author, whom I only know as a blogger named "Keep The Change" who posted on a 8/13 thread from Glenn Beck's link from Fox.
Keep the Change says:
August 13, 2009 at 8:24 pm
"Everyone keeps asking this question so here is a little true story for all of those who wonder how this man became the leader of the free world. I have a college age daughter. She is a conservative on most issues, but has a very loving heart and accepts as friends, those who are also good people, regardless of their political beliefs. One day she overheard me exclaim “How on earth did this man become president?!”“Well mom, if my friends are any indication let me tell you that, (The following are not real names)Stephanie voted for him because he was just ‘Sooooo adorable’, Jeffry voted for him because he was taller than Mc Cain, Joe voted for him because he likes basketball and Lauren voted for him because she just liked feeling included in the whole blackberry/texting thing.” These are all students in a very prominent college. I know most of their parents and they would be appalled to know the methodologies of their child’s selection for the highest office in the land. People, teach your children well, the other side sure is!"
I think what this blogger said is profound and underscores what I also know to be true.
After the initial comment, there is some follow-up from me and others, which you can look up if you are so inclined by copying/pasting the link here:
Suffice it to say, the exercise of forgiving myself is more than building a bridge and leaving my mistakes behind, crossing the bridge means = learning from my mistakes. In this case, not going back to the other side of that bridge where my nemeses known as APATHY and COMPLACENCY wait to drag me under the bridge, WILL enable me to "change" the outcome of my family's future. "Hope" fully, you get my point.
I love my children and this God-given country of ours enough to choose the better part of what I can offer from this day forward, by being the "Talking Do-Er".
One goal I have as an engaged mother is to include talking to and with my own children about my role as a citizen, thus teaching them along the way. I know it takes more than just telling them who I vote for, it means I really do need to explain the essentials of my political idealogy that guide my path, much like the North Star. Maybe then when my life here is complete, my own children will remember me to the liking of how Maria Shriver eulogized her own beloved mother, as "Momentum On Wheels" rather than someone who just liked to hear herself speak!
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