On Scrapbooking

When I was a boy, I was a motor-head. I worked on cars. I went to car shows. I fantasized about cars. I subscribed to car magazines…But when I became a man, I put away childish things, and I socked all my attention into the girls draped over the cars in those same magazines. That impulse, too, came to pass, and now I’m an old married man.

It is not so different for most people. Instead of cars, my brother was a sports fanatic. He can still rattle off statistics from any major sporting event ten or twenty years back. My cousin was a letterman in every sport—his letter jacket was weighted with brass bangles and patches. Now, he has a bad back, and he’s content to sit it out on the sidelines or the couch. A co-worker is very involved in fishing, and to this day he makes lures and excuses to go fishing regularly.

For some folks, however, an innocent interest can become a fixation. These hapless souls find their lives governed, their time and purchasing powers under the complete control of their obsession. Like smarmy drug traffickers, commercial vendors sprout up on every street corner, eager to cater to the need, whether it be jewelry, baseball cards, used books, or…the most addictive mania of all: Scrapbooking.

It begins with a simple book you glue pictures and mementoes into, but it evolves into so much more. One usually discovers Scrapbooking-gone-mad too late. First, the wife will be a little preoccupied, flipping through magazines. (They have names you will never understand, unless you’re on the inside.) Then, she’ll have a fender-bender making an impulsive turn toward a scrapbook store. A phone call or two will go un-returned. A meal will be missed. Some bills will go unpaid while “hobby expenses” in the family budget grow like the national debt. Sooner or later, she will be at a crop on your anniversary, or she may miss a child’s birthday for a good online auction of scrapbook supplies. Your children and pets often will have their hands or paws “inked” for a cute print on a scrapbook page. Eventually, strange things end up missing, only to be incorporated into a scrapbook: your driver’s license, a letter from a friend, a candy wrapper. I recently woke to find my wife hovering over me with scissors, cutting a lock of my hair to scrapbook.

One would be wise to listen for some warnings, too. Alas, I was not attentive, but now, in reflection, I can easily document these snippets of conversation that should have led me to intervene:
Stand over here, honey, the light will work better for a photo.
Oh, and can I get an extra French fry box-thingy for my scrapbook.
Would you wear this? it will coordinate better with my page.
Let’s visit [city-of-choice], I hear they have a nice, new scrapbook store.
Let’s go to the zoo/carnival/fair/camping/city-of-choice…new stamps I like.
We should celebrate Kawanza; there’s so many neat stickers for that holiday.
Let’s buy the blue house, it will match some papers I’ve been planning to use.
I think we should have another girl, ‘cuz there’s some cute new dye cuts out now.
Can we reenact your mugging? It would make a clever scrapbook page.
Can we save the [placenta, umbilical cord, circumcision remains] for my scrapbook?
I can’t attend [your commencement/our wedding/your internment]—scrap crop today.

I did an Internet search, and there is no 12 step recovery program out there. Either the field is too new, or as I suspect, one simply cannot recover. They do have their own support groups, called “crops,” which are strange soirees of paper cutting and picture snipping. Smells of hot glue and bizarre fixatives hang in the air. They speak of coluzzles and xyrons and sizzix and sizzlets—words that would tongue-tie Dr. Seuss himself. These scrappers huddle over their work, clucking and chattering with one another, comparing pages and products and prices—sometimes to the wee hours of the morning…then come the scrapbook retreats, and then the conventions…some rumor there may be Scrapbooking resorts and monasteries.

I have hauled supplies and machines to these scrapbook get-togethers, then been shooed away. Scrapbookers are addicted, yes, but they are also people of great passion for preserving memories, telling stories, sharing family and folklore with one-another. One without the passion has no place at a crop or a camp. I feel much more secure back at my house, at my computer, aimlessly surfing the Internet for some hobby of my own which might be so rewarding.

Temporal Mechanics Union

Temporal Mechanics Union
Please come to my concert! I'm doing all I can to muster up a good crowd for what should be a great show!

Greeeeeeen Acres is the place to be!

Though it may be premature, for something could still go awry in the closing, yesterday we bought the farm! (Not in the colloquial, the literal...The farm I've always wanted!) It has about 5 acres of woods, 6 acres of pasture, a swell little home, several out buildings and four garage bays.
Indeed, I am like ol' Oliver Douglass and my wife is a bit like Lisa. I may be "citified," but I think I can still turn some soil and make something happen. Lora, like Lisa, is a bit reluctant, for she's never lived in the country before. (If you know Green Acres, you also may remember how they had to scale a pole to use the telephone--likewise, our mobile phones don't "get good tower" out there, unless one marches to the high end of the pasture.) Whitewater is no Hooterville, but it will have to do.
Overall, this is so much better than I even dreamed of a couple years ago, when I thought I would move to/take over the family homestead out in ugly ol' Ulysses. Sure that place had heritage, but this place has trees! With any luck, I can transfer some of the vibe from my dad's farm to my farm. I hope to be able to raise my boys like I was raised, but better! I can't wait to get them into 4H, to buy some livestock, to live on the land...
Amazing how things fall into place, too. Just yesterday evening, I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR when I encountered a brilliant agri-bio-theorist, Michael Pollan. He has a swell new book out (which I ordered moments ago) The Omnivore's Dilemma.
Among other things, he suggests that eating return to the sacred relationship it once meant with the land, that every meal should be an expression of our relationship to what keeps us alive. He suggests conscious living, sustainable agriculture, and conscientious consumption. As I transition back to my agrairian roots, I hope to put such theories into practice. (I already have a great garden designed, and I've found a good source for chickens and windmill parts.)
At last, it might seem, I may be able to live closer to my values. For the next month, during closing, all these mights and maybe's are going to drive me mad, but I'll just work off all the angst by packing a few boxes.

Mad Science

Yesterday on Science Friday, an NPR program I seldom miss, the discussion centered on medical advances and what may be on the horizon. It was timely, for just that same morning, I'd had a 1/2 hour conversation with a student about cyberkinetics (brain chip implants) featured in her research essay. For lunch, I spent another 1/2 hour brainstorming a research paper on animal-to-human organ transplantation. I read related blogs daily, and encountered one just yesterday (again) on how eyes work, how they may be "bionic" in the future, and how virtually all vision problems will be conquered in our lifetime, unknown to the next generation. WOW there's so very much going on in medical-technical applications and advances!
Neurotechnology is about to break out. So will advances in stem cell exploration and celluar if not complete organ manufacturing. Designer traits and implanted thoughts are NOT science fiction anymore. Just last week someone was able to generate an internal organ, a bladder, for installation in a person. (Personally, I would have chosen a more flattering organ, not wanting my name to be permanently associated with a bladder; he claims it was one of the easier to make.)
A caller to Science Friday raised a good issue: artificial, bionic limbs and implants, newly-generated or animal-transplanted organs...all of it is grossly expensive to research and practice. The actual 'body modification' might cost and individual a hundred thousand dollars. The caller was puzzled, himself an MD, that so much money is going into research for the benefit of so few. He claimed basic health care needs are not adequate nor available for all, even in the US. His point was refuted, the counter argument running something about it being a matter of distribution rather than access.
I think there's much more to it than that. Someone stands to gain (financially) from engineering expensive eyes. I hear the coins chinking in the temple of technology, like a jackpot payout of jingle bells. I smell money, and not the old wallet, butt sweat, dog-eared dollar--big money (like those 2ft x 5 ft checks you always see being awarded to folks). I can taste the bitter beer of big business, and it's making me girn (not to be confused with grin, no not at all).
Though I love my technology, I don't know that I want so much of it incorporated into my body. I don't want to be a cyborg. I don't want to compete with cyborgs. I don't even know what to think of those who's upgrades are wholly organic rather than mechanical. It all feels a bit like grafting a sixth finger on a pianist's hand. It changes everthing. It plays plate techtonic tap dances with what was once a level playing field.
...and all this is to say nothing of the future of full-blown genetic engineering and the potential of human cloning. That, I guess, will have to wait for another post.
I'm now of an age when I can say I saw things coming. I'm happy I can get it in writing on this blog, so later on down the road, as many of these come into the news again (and ultimately to fruition) I can say "I told you so."

Spring means More Stuff

Yes, it's garage sale season, and most every weekend, I'm out there picking over other people's stuff. It's more than a hobby; it's an obsession. The darker side is the Estate Sale, where one picks through the remains of the dead. At least, I guess, it's not as commercial as a flea market. And hey, I'm not buying retail. Reduce, re-use, recycle...and all that. I burrow through some of the nastiest stuff, spend a tank of gas every weekend, work up quite a sweat in the summer, and seldom to I ask, "for what?" (though my wife does, if I go solo and return with a truckload).

We would like to get our own home again, something in the country. Something with outbuildings, like I grew up with. Of course, the truth is, I likely just need more space to store more stuff. On that, I leave you with insighful words from George Carlin:

A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it. You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane. You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff. All the little piles of stuff. And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up. Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff. They always take the good stuff. They never bother with that crap you're saving. All they want is the shiny stuff. That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!

(if anyone has not heard the entire bit on "stuff" it is well worth downloading)