How I Survived My Week in the 80’s – Part Two

Day 1: Big Hair and Disappointing Lunches

OK then. Let’s do this! Internet was switched off last night and for the first time in many, many years, the phone remained downstairs in the kitchen – rather than its usual space within arm’s reach on the bedside table. Woke up before Manpanion TM’s alarm went off and, before I could remember which decade I was now in, I was reaching for my phone. Several times. Feels weird, like a part of me is missing or that I’m waiting for something. First difference – the Keurig coffee machine was off-limits so off to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee instead. Unfortunately, it turned out that the coffee grounds that were in the cupboard were also from the 80’s so our first cuppa joe was just horribly bitter and Not Good. We decided to take a short walk into town to Starbucks which didn’t feel as if it was cheating too much (“there must have been coffee shops in the 80’s right?”). This was my first of what was to become a recurring theme throughout the week – ie that of multiple little “microquestions” that you have constantly throughout the course of the day that previously you could just Google, find out the answer to, and then just move on with your life. Now – I had no way of finding out – in real time – whether Starbucks was in existence in the 1980s. (POST EDIT: the first Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971 and the first store in Illinois opened in 1987 so we were definitely within the rules!).

I had on the first of several flamboyant 80’s outfits for the week and was feeling suitably self-conscious so OF COURSE we meet someone we know in Starbucks! We did explain what we were doing – but I did wonder what they would have thought, had no explanation been provided. (although the millennial 20-something cashier at Starbucks commented that he liked the color of my coat so I guess there was that). Mild embarrassment aside, it was actually quite nice to get outside and go for a short early morning walk with ManpanionTM. It felt like a healthier use of time than just lying in bed with a Keurig coffee mindlessly scrolling through my phone.

Next up, more fun awaited as I had my Monday morning session at my lady gym at 10am. And yes – I committed to the appropriate gym wear and began this week’s love affair with pink neon. I’d been trawling the local thrift stores for the last week to find suitably dreadful vintage clothing and had also ordered a few things from Ebay and Etsy (of course, I have no idea if they will turn up in time as I’m not able to check their shipping or delivery dates!). I’d also been to a trendy vintage 80’s store in Wicker Park, close where I used to live, and made a couple of strategic plastic jewelry purchases, including a pair of earrings for $14, which was $13 more than I really wanted to pay for them. The finishing touch for my workout outfit was the personal CD player that I’d found in a thrift store for $3.99 as – of course – I wouldn’t be able to listen to our band’s playlist on Spotify with my lovely bluetooth AirPods headphones as per usual. Aside from gobbling batteries like they were going out of fashion, I had realization #2 – 80’s technology SUCKS! Portable CD players were a terrible piece of kit – one teeny tiny jostle or nudge and the CD skips like hell! I’d totally forgotten this major design flaw – so it was completely unusable while I was on the treadmill – but was OK once I’d moved to the stepper and nestled it onto this little shelf. I’d pre-warned the lady gym owner of my plans the previous week, so she thought it was hilarious and put some 80’s music on, to keep with the mood. I think the other ladies in the gym thought I was totally mad.

Right. Back from the gym and fingers still twitching to use the phone. There’s something about going out, leaving the house, and then coming back – but not being able to check if anything has changed in your absence. So rather than twiddling with my phone, I had also found a radio cassette player at the thrift store, so decided it was time to fire that up (more batteries) and see what local radio held in store for me. Tried to find NPR to listen to the world news – but instead could only find Christian music channels and local news. And traffic and weather reports. These seemly weirdly anachronistic – who listens to them and relies on them now, vs using their phone?? I also discovered a hip channel called Reset so actually learned about the movement to celebrate today as Indigenous People’s Day, rather than Columbus Day. (POST EDIT: You can read more about the discussion here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/why-some-celebrate-indigenous-peoples-day-not-columbus-day)

First lunch of the 80’s – and its a choice between Lunchables or a Hot Pocket! I did the shopping for 80s week yesterday and I have to say I was genuinely embarrassed by the contents of my shopping cart! If I’d have been behind me online at the checkout, I would totally have been judging me for the processed and junky nature of my weekly shop. Plus it took AGES! I was discovering parts of the grocery store I’d never before visited (I mean, Hot Pockets?). I can attest that a Buffalo Chicken Hot Pocket cooked in the microwave is genuinely disgusting. I was skeptical about using the microwave – but was assured that the Hot Pocket Crisping Envelope would do the trick and deliver me a crispy savory treat. It did not. It was mushy, flavorless and – in defiance of all laws of physics and thermodynamics – was ragingly hot in the outside corners and still a solid frozen lump in the middle. I was not impressed. Had I had access to the internet, I could have looked up the answer to the question “How Does a Hot Pocket Crisping Pocket Work?” and then have made my choice – but alas. The benefit of making more informed decisions was not available to me at this time.

I wanted to text ManpanionTM and tell him how rubbish my lunch was – but obviously couldn’t. This is the thing I’ve been struggling with the most today – not being able to get in touch with people easily. I do still have the phone cell signal on so I can call – or be contacted – in case of emergencies, but I’m really missing the convenience of texting. ManpanionTM is being a good sport this week and playing along with this crazy experiment, so he actually called me just before lunchtime to let me know he wasn’t going to be home for lunch, rather than text me (our preferred method of staying in touch).

One thing – Mum is loving my outfits so far this week and has already bagged several for her closet once this week is over! She’s lent me a wristwatch as I can’t use my phone for the time – as well as a little wind-up travel alarm clock. After lunch, I had to go out again – this time to the liquor store to buy Galliano liqueur (it was just too obscure for Mariano’s). At this point, I’d showered after the gym and was attempting my first true 80’s hair style – the one where you stick a ton of hair mousse into your hair, scrunch it in, then turn your head upside down and blow dry it with a hair dryer diffuser. Oh. My. God. HOW can hair get this giant??? HOW can my hair hold the shape of a triangle, in defiance of gravity and all that is good and decent? And WHY is no-one at the liquor store giving me funny looks??? Do they think this is NORMAL???

Anyway, almost at the end of Day 1. Part of this week’s fun is to experiment with some classic 1980’s recipes and cocktails, so I’d planned out this week’s menu to feature some classics that came to prominence in the 80s. For cocktails, think brightly colored, sweet and with suggestive names. For food, lots of different trends and themes to choose from – one was an increase in the availability of “foreign” foods such as pasta, as well as the popularization of convenience and prepackaged foods requiring only a light nuking in the microwave. So today’s menu was:

Cocktail hour: Harvey Wallbanger cocktail

Dinner: Beef Stroganoff, accompanied by a delightful Chianti in a raffia decorated bottle

After dinner, we settled down to watch The Fly on video cassette – remember to be kind and to rewind, folks! Of course, we were watching a VHS on a giant 4K UHD screen so it looked pretty crappy – but the film was still entertaining enough AND it saved me from having to watch live cable TV and a 2hr special of Bachelor in Paradise. Watching Jeff Goldblum slowly liquidize was still way more preferable. I remembered the arm-wrestling scene (shudder) but that was about it – so had forgotten how gross it got at the end!

And that was Day 1. I survived. Only 4 more days to go….

Day 2: It’s Only Tuesday?

So I got through the first day without cheating and without going completely nuts. We have band practice tonight and I usually cook for the boys, so I knew I’d have enough to keep me somewhat occupied today with a fair amount of time in the kitchen. I also have a session at Orange Theory Fitness at 12pm today, so another vintage exercise outfit will be required! Breakfast was a toaster pastry with ragingly hot apple filling – marginally better than the Hot Pocket – and I saved myself from instant diabetes by not drizzling it with the icing that was included. Not sure I’d have it again though – its just too much damned sugar.

After ManpanionTM left for work, I suddenly became VERY conscious of the passage of time – specifically how much there is of it! Rather than sitting and scrolling mindlessly through my phone, I was sitting on the couch in the kitchen area wondering what on earth I was going to do. It was odd and a little paralyzing – imagine FOMO but without having a clear idea of what OMO you are worried about missing out on. And it was forcing me to think about what I could do right now, vs thinking or planning about future activities because – yep – they would require use of the internet. And – while I’d managed to do a fair amount of planning in advance for this week, I hadn’t planned the rest of my day over and above my gym sessions and cooking. So I have no idea what events might be happening locally – and have no easy way to find out. So I stuck the radio on again to pass some time and managed to find NPR to catch up on the news. And I remembered how annoying listening to an FM radio actually is – you find that tiny spot on the dial where you’ve got great reception – then you move away from the radio and sit down, and it immediately goes all fuzzy and staticky! Terrible!! Yet another example of how the tech from the 80s quite rightly became superseded by better solutions!

My session at the gym this lunchtime was super hard – my outfit was slightly different this time as I was wearing black workout pants with a vibrant neon pink top, along with bright pink wristbands. I felt like a total idiot and very self-conscious but – yet again – no-one even looked at me askance or gave any indication of giving a shit about what I looked like. So – realization #4 – no-one genuinely gives a shit about what you look like. It’s one of those truths that would be profoundly liberating if you really believed it – I’m not quite there yet, so I guess I’m still too vain. Although I am posting all these terrible pictures of yours truly, so I guess I don’t take myself entirely 100% seriously…

Spent the afternoon in the kitchen cooking – breaking out a few of the classics! Made my own shortcrust pastry AND choux pastry and both turned out great! I’d decided to make a Quiche Lorraine, accompanied by a cheese and potato pie. As a little appetizer, I just had to go with spinach dip served from a bread bowl (so delicious) and to top it all off, homemade chocolate eclairs! It was all very tasty – although not particularly slimming (my trainer at the lady gym is NOT going to be happy with me at my next weigh in). Cocktail hour today was… the oldie and goodie, the Tequila Sunrise! It was surprisingly tasty so definitely one I’d have again (ManpanionTM agreed!). We had a good rehearsal too, despite one of our band members not being able to make it cos they were sick – we’ve got a gig coming up in a few weeks, so we need to get everything all tightened up in preparation.

So… that’s day 2 done. The novelty of 80’s week is starting to wear off a little and, to be honest, I’m starting to feel a little disconnected – not from the world per se, but from people. I’m not missing social media per se (though I am curious to read any comments from my last blog post about my crochet triumph!) but I am missing not being able to text people or to send little messages through Messenger. My nephew is going through a very exciting time right now planning to move back to the UK as he continues his training to become a pilot – so its kinda annoying not being able to contact him for the latest update. It is going to be very interesting, when Saturday rolls around, to see just how many emails, phone calls and text messages are piled up waiting to be read and – even more to the point – how many of those turn out to be time-sensitive. Or whether nothing is really that urgent that it justifies always being glued to your phone “in case you miss something important”. Of course, there’s no way I could do this experiment if I was still working, so it’s going to be quite enlightening.

Day 3: The Bermuda Hair Triangle

Did I say already just how much I am hating what this decade is doing to my hair? Its just so…well, big and damned frizzy. It takes me back to the days before I discovered there were professional hairstylists in the world who would actually just do blow-drys as a service (who knew?) and who could magically transform you from a frizz-monster to sleek and smooth and polished. And all they wanted was money! I think my long love affair with getting blowouts started in the early 00’s, after I got my first job (I was a sales rep for a drug company) – I used to spend all day driving around, visiting doctors offices, so had hair salons lined up all over the south of England! To this day, there’s nothing like a good blowdry to lift your mood – if your hair looks fab, you feel great! Even though – yet again – no-one I have encountered today has seemed to give a rat’s arse about how my hair looks or what ridiculous outfit I have on today.

So today I’m feeling the pressure again to Spend My Time Wisely – when you aren’t able to fritter it away quite so easily, it becomes weightier. I couldn’t face the struggle with the radio dial this morning, so I’m just sitting here, on the couch in the kitchen, having a cup of tea in silence. All I have lined up today is a session at the Lady Gym at 4pm, so I have the whole day stretching out ahead of me in a quite intimidating fashion. I did have the presence of mind to have joined the local library a few weeks ago, so my day will probably involve a trip to the library at some point.

One of the reasons I’d joined the library was that I thought I would need to use it as a potential reference source, given I wouldn’t be able to use the internet to look anything up. However, what I’m finding – which is quite interesting – is that the library really wouldn’t be all that useful for the types of micro-questions that keep coming up in the course of the day. I decided to start keeping a list of questions that I’d ordinarily just hit Google up for the instant answers to. These are questions that had relevance in the immediate here-and-now and that no doubt would have lead me down other rabbit holes themselves. But today, they are left asked and unanswered. Here’s the running list so far (you get bonus points if you know the answers to any of these without looking!):

• What’s the weather going to be like this weekend?
• Was Barbour big in the Eighties?
• What is “light” molasses?
• What is a broasted chicken?
• Are there any shows tomorrow at the Tempel Lippazans in Gurnee?
• Is Lambs Farm still open?
• What was Chicago’s 1933-1934 Century of Progress all about?
• Is my ebay stuff gonna make it here in time?
• What is teddered hay?
• Is 25ml the same thing as 1 fl oz?

I decided to distract myself with a trip to the library where I picked up a selection of fiction and non-fiction books – one was on How To Write Funny (?!) and another was on 100 Side Hustles. But both felt too much like hard work to start reading. Not sure whether my brain was starting to shut down a bit due to lack of digital stimulation, but I found myself quite listless and de-energized today. The weather outside was gloomy and overcast, so that probably didn’t help – and I just couldn’t seem to wake up. I spent a good part of the afternoon alternately reading and dozing until it was finally time to peel my lazy ass off the couch and head off to the Lady Gym for my session. Today’s outfit was really quite something, if I say so myself – I know I wouldn’t have been ballsy enough to wear this at my Orange Theory Fitness class! I know I was being a bit of a pussy, but I felt too tired to stay for the 30mins cardio afterwards so instead I walked over to OTF to change my scheduled session for tomorrow. I had to go to the studio to make the change in person because I couldn’t use the app – and I didn’t know the phone number of the studio! Yet another example of how today’s technology just makes everything easier and less hassle!

As yesterday was quite an intense day of cooking, I had planned for today to take advantage of one of the biggest innovations in the 80’s – that of the rise of the microwave and the TV dinner!! Lunch for ManpanionTM today was a Hot Pocket – he was smart and cooked his in the Toaster Oven. I think it marginally improved the taste a little but even he, after consuming it, made the comment “This isn’t really food, is it?”

Tonight’s supper didn’t get all that much better – cocktail hour was the Blue Lagoon, made with the inscrutable blue curacao liqueur, vodka and sadness. This was accompanied by ham and cheddar Lunchable stackers as a post-work snack – so delicious and nutritious! I’d given ManpanionTM the choice of the classic Stoueffer’s lasagna or a HungryMan meal, while I’d opted for a Lean Cuisine sweet and sour chicken entree. Mine was really quite bad – the little chicken nuggets reminded me of scooping out the cat’s litter tray. It’s only redeeming feature was that it was less than 400 calories and soon gone. Matt’s was slightly better – he’d chosen the lasagna and apparently used to eat them fairly frequently when he was younger. Reading the instructions on the back of the box, I had to laugh at the rather dubious claims of meat sauce superiority! That must have been a very late night at the ad agency when that was conceived…..

To finish out the day, some more random questions that marched through my unedited mind:

• What is blue curacao made from?
• Is blue curacao classified as a liqueur or what?
• What’s the Rotten Tomatoes rating for Kelly’s Heroes?
• And what the hell is Donald Sutherland’s accent supposed to be in Kelly’s Heroes? I’m just so confused….
• How old is Davina McCall?
• Is it Saturday yet?

Day 4: In the Home Stretch!!!

I didn’t sleep all that well last night and woke up early, around quarter to five – but bizarrely had more energy than I did yesterday. Have actually got quite a bit of stuff to do today, so I guess having a defined purpose is giving me a bit of a boost – plus I have a day off from the gym – yey! So hopefully today will be a bit more productive than yesterday. I am already starting to count down the hours until I can leap back into my own decade. As I’ve mentioned (probably several times already!) the hardest thing about this experiment hasn’t been missing out on social media (Facebook, Reddit, IG etc etc) but its been not having ready access to information at the time that you need it. Case in point – I wanted to get in touch with a friend of mine to ask about potential caterers for this party we’re having on Halloween – but I’m not able to contact her because I don’t know her phone number and we usually connect via text message. So am gonna have to wait til the weekend – grrr.

Anyway, this morning I deconstructed our front porch veggie garden and afterwards hit the shops to get the supplies for this evening’s feast, chicken Kiev! My outfit today was fairly tame by 80’s standards (minimal pink!) though the hair was still frizzy, so I felt less conspicuous than usual. As I haven’t been able to get online and do much planning for our Halloween event, I figured I could go analog and pick up a couple of magazines instead for inspiration – particularly for the catering (we’re assuming around 50-60 people). Mariano’s didn’t have any Halloween-specific magazines on the rack, so I popped into the big Walgreens next door instead. Success!! I found 3 which promised to give me The Best Halloween Ideas so I scooped them up and checked out. HOLY COW!! When did magazines get so bloody expensive??? Those three magazines (Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens and Halloween Crafts) cost me almost 50 bucks!!! All for menu suggestions and decorating tips that I could get for absolutely free from the interweb! All I need to do is log onto Tasty.com and I know I’d be sorted with 10 mins of surfing! And – to add insult to injury – they were pretty useless for giving me adult-oriented food ideas – the vast majority of the recipes were for various spooky cookies – great – but I don’t want an entire table’s worth of icing-drenched Oreos!

Lunch today was another 80s classic – spaghetti hoops with meatballs on toast. Now I definitely remember eating spaghetti hoops on toast as a kid, as well as those Campbell’s meatballs (“the meat you like to eaaaat!”) and these tasted way more synthetic than I recall. I guess our taste buds must just change as we get older. The flavor was improved by a big dollop of Heinz Salad Cream – my love for that hasn’t changed.

And so on to the last of my 80’s supper specials (we’re going out tomorrow with friends) – what would 80’s week be if the cheese and pineapple hedgehog didn’t make an appearance, right?? So much to Matt’s confusion, his post-work cocktail hour drink and snack today was the gloriously named Slippery Nipple, paired with Wisconsin cheddar chunks and pineapple. He really didn’t have any idea what was going on (“is that a potato covered in aluminum foil??”) but he’s a good sport so he just went with it. Slippery Nipples are shots made with a layer of grenadine, then sambuca and then Bailey’s. It sounds bad. And it was bad. I’m not a fan of anise at the best of times, so was always going to struggle with the sambuca, but who in their right mind came up with the idea to pair that with a creamy whisky liqueur and a tooth-achingly sweet syrup?? I think there are various iterations of The Nipple that perhaps might have gone down better (steady) – I think the Buttery Nipple is made with Baileys and a butterscotch liqueur which at least sounds as if there are in the same alcohol color wheel! Food wise, I’d decided to tackle a Chicken Kiev for supper – and it actually came out pretty good. Its a bit of a pain in the arse to make, but once every couple decades or so, I can manage that.

After dinner, we again delved into our extensive 15 VHS cassette video library to select the entertainment for this evening – and decided on Robocop. I’ve seen this film many times and – as it turned out – seem to recall most of the dialog too! (which I’m sure wasn’t annoying for Matt at all!) And with that, it was time to retire – and to get ready for my very last day in the 80s. Thank God.

Day 5: Going Out With a Bang!

Here we finally are. Almost done – and just in time as its really starting to get old now. I cannot wait for my hair to be a normal shape again.

The main activity of today was going to be heading off to the salon to once again commit myself to the magic of my hair and make-up team, Jessie and Sam, while they professionally transform me into an 80’s goddess. Originally the plan was going to be to meet ManpanionTM in the city for date night – drinks and dinner at a fancy steakhouse – all dressed up in my 80’s finest. But instead, we were going to be meeting an old work colleague friend – and fellow games nerd – for dinner in the pub, followed by a visit to the Galloping Ghost – home of the largest collection of video arcade game machines in North America. https://www.gallopingghostarcade.com/ Matt and I have been there before – and they also have another arcade just a couple of blocks down the street, this one housing dozens of pinball machines! Being surrounded by so much vintage and old tech actually felt like a pretty appropriate way to finish off the week – this is how we used to game, back in the day, before the advent of the Nintendo switch and the Meta Oculus. I have already warned my friend that I’m living like the 80s and I might be dressed.. um… appropriately – she thinks its hilarious and is not in the least surprised by my latest crazy project.

So obviously coming to the end of this experiment, what have I learned? Well… I guess I am fundamentally more aware now of how much time there actually is in a day (I know that sounds daft) and much more conscious of when I am consciously wasting it. I am also much more appreciative of how the internet can actually foster and support creativity, vs being this black hole deadening time-suck. For example, last week I learned how to crochet. This week, I wanted to dive into my new Miffy rabbit project – but I still needed instructions to get started and yes – they were provided online. I thought about doing a Bob Ross painting and picking that back up – but I knew the results would be pretty shitty if I tried to do it without watching a lovely, soothing Bob Ross video to guide me through the steps. I wanted to make a pineapple upside down cake to use the leftover pineapple from my hedgehog yesterday – but I didn’t have any self-raising flour in the pantry. So – although I had the basic recipe – I lacked the ability to look up how to convert plain AP flour into self-raising flour (none of my cookbooks had that info in it) so I wasn’t able to move forward. So I guess I learned that the internet is a wonderful tool to grease the wheels of many, many creative pursuits. (I think I’m late to the party here with this realization – ManpanionTM is always watching YouTube and learning about some nerdy project or other, so he’s definitely used to harnessing its creative power).

Dammit. I just looked at my phone to make sure I haven’t had a call about tonight (that’s allowed) and accidentally saw the notification that Robbie Coltrane has died at the age of 72. That’s really sad – and also makes me wonder who else might have popped their clogs this week that I don’t yet know about??? (POST EDIT: Angela Lansbury died at the ripe of age of 96). I’m going to be really interested to see tomorrow how many emails, texts and calls I have missed – and how urgent (or not) they were. I suspect the vast majority of communication I will have received will be a) spam or b) non-urgent chatter. We shall see.

Right. Finally its time to head to the salon. I’m not sure whether I’m looking forward to this or not – but it does mark the beginning of the end of 80s week, so for that I say Bring It On. I’d popped into the salon the day before to chat to Jessie about styling ideas – and also to let her know that I wasn’t going to be able to look anything up for inspiration but that she’d have to do it instead! So I know it was kinda cheating and yes, I know I could have gone to the library to see if I could find a yearbook from the 80s for authentic styles, but I think I’m allowed one little tiny bending of the rules after being so good all week. Anyway, we found a look that we thought would work – so Jessie fired up her smallest barrel hair curler and got to curling. After about an hour, I hopped over to Sam where she took care of the facepaint, before heading back to Jessie for the final finishing touches. Here’s how it went down…..

OK, OK – I have to confess – I am kinda digging the crazy make-up! Its sooooo much fun. And with the pink streaks in my hair with the giant black bow – totally 80s all the way! By this time it was around 5pm, so just enough time to get changed into the rest of my outfit and “surprise” Matt with my look. Alas my e bay stuff didn’t turn up in time for tonight, so instead I’m having to recycle one of my previous outfits from the week. I’m sure re-wearing fashion was much more common in the 80s than it is in today’s fast fashion, disposable culture, so no biggie. The weather had gotten a bit rubbish by this point, so I knew my beautiful curls wouldn’t withstand the rain and moisture for all that long – but for a couple of glorious hours, THIS was my final look to finish out the week and to party like its 1989:

The Day After.

Oh man. Sweet sweet internet. How I have missed thee. I would love to be able to report that I was super cool about checking my email, texts and messages and that I didn’t feel the urge to check them immediately after waking up, but instead strolled into town to get coffee, smelled the roses, chatted to the neighbors and marveled at the beauty of the day before lazily glancing at my phone.

Nope. Me sorry everybody. I woke up needing a pee just before 6am, so I was sitting on the pot, scrolling through my messages before my eyelids had even had the chance to unglue themselves from each other. Maybe TMI but just keeping it real. Anyway here’s what I missed from Monday – Friday this week:

690 emails – 90% of them were promotions from mailing lists I’d signed up to previously. A few of them were Evite updates for our Basement Rock Fest in a couple of weeks. Maybe a handful were emails from actual people about actual stuff that had some relevance to my life. Of course, this would have been completely different if I’d still been working (but then I wouldn’t be doing this in the first place!). Learning – reduce some of the noise and unsubscribe from all those mailing lists!

46 text messages – half were spam. Of the remaining ones, about half again were from the band (but nothing urgent); a few were again from Evite; a few were travel-planning related and just 1 was a message that had been time sensitive and that I’d had to then send a note apologizing for not having been in touch sooner.

3 phone calls – 2 were spam, 1 was from ManpanionTM. Not surprising as I hardly ever make phone calls and, more often than not, the ones I receive are always from this same guy, Mr. Spam Likely. So nothing of any urgency to report there.

1 MS Messenger from my nephew giving me an update on his flight school plans which was nice – but again, nothing requiring immediate attention. Other than that, no other messages – but this was not surprising as my family knew I was incommunicado for the week, so didn’t bother sending any.

My big takeaway from this – there is truly very little here that is urgent or time-sensitive or that requires you to be constantly checking your phone to see what’s come through. The permanent tethering to your phone is simply not necessary if your prime motivation is to be “up to speed” on what is happening. Maybe for other folk its different but, for me, there would be no tangible difference in my perceived responsiveness or ability to communicate effectively if I limited myself to checking my phone once in the morning, once at lunchtime and once in the evening. Outside of this, there’s no need to keep looking. Now – to have the phone available to answer, in real-time, those little micro-questions that unexpectedly pop up throughout the day – that’s a different issue. It can lead to the same outcome – that of being unhealthily glued to your phone – but I think its probably easier to control and put a check on it. So I am going to try my hardest to let go of the Urge To Check Constantly and instead be more comfortable in viewing my phone as an information source, to be consulted when I need to, vs as a mindless distraction to kill time.

The other big takeaway – as I take a step back and just compare the difference in technology that I had available as a teenager in the 80s to the technology available today, we really ARE living in the future. Its just incredible what we all have available to us today with our iPhones and tablets and laptops and VR headsets and all the rest of it. Its crazy how easy it is to access any piece of information you could imagine and how that has vastly improved our ability to learn, to dream, to create, to communicate and to plan. I really did think that I would feel very nostalgic and miss the good old 80s and those “simpler times” – but I really don’t. I appreciate all the awesome stuff (Morten Harket, I’m looking at you) but it must have been just harder (or required more pre-planning) to get stuff done in the 80s. Think of how easy it is to change plans today (and to quickly communicate them) because we all have smartphones – it must have been a giant ass-ache if you were running late for the school pick-up in the 80s!

That’s not to say that today’s limitless access to technology and information and all the various sources of that bombard us every day doesn’t come with a cost. It’s not all positive. For me, I mentioned a few times that I didn’t really miss Facebook or social media (although I’m always curious to read any comments following my posts, so I was looking forward to catching up on those when I got back online) but that, for me, it was the texting that I missed most. I do wonder, though, if a teenager today would have a very different response to this experiment? Immersion in the crazy world of social media is all these kids have ever known. At least I can remember a time before Facebook and TikTok and Instragram where my every move wasn’t documented and dissected for the whole world to see. At least my whole identity isn’t defined by my social media persona and the number of likes I get. I’d like to say I can put it into perspective – but I realized that I can only really do that because my formative years were not shaped or warped by the opinions of internet strangers. How would today’s teenager (or even younger) cope with zero access to the internet for a week? If I missed some elements of social connection, I can only imagine how utterly bereft they would feel.

So… there you have it. That was my week and associated musings. Tomorrow, I shall pull a new task from Rod and see what fresh delights he has in store for me. Right now – I’m off to check the weather for the weekend and to get on with planning a trip to Egypt and Jordan for next year……