Tangible Things

Very recently I cancelled our subscription to HBO. Part of this was because we mainly got it to see Game of Thrones, and then binge watch a few of our other favorites. Now that those are over, the network doesn't have an extraordinary amount to offer right now, and even if they do, we would likely wait until those shows have put out an entire season so we could binge watch them all!

We also cancelled a couple of other services, and I ended up subscribing to our state newspaper.

I gotta say I did this through gritted teeth, because I know a couple of the journalists and I don't like them. On top of the fact that some of the articles are just politically slanted gobbledy-gook and I hate giving my money to things I vehemently despise, BUT I also want my 8 year old to be learning more about current affairs, and the last time I saw a news website, I was floored by how disorganized and frustrating it was to read an article, or to find an article to read.

Some things are just better as tangible items, and I think the newspaper is one of those things.

(Some things really never do change)

I love the feel of a newspaper. I love the smell of a newspaper. I like that when I am done reading it, I am left with a bit of the smudge from the ink. I like that I can reuse it for many different purposes and activities. I just really love every part of it.

(I will also admit that I mainly had been buying the Sunday paper for coupons because I have started couponing again, but that's another post for another time.)

Some things are just irreplaceable as tangible items. Books are another one!

I want to hold a book. I want to feel a book, and smell a book and fall asleep with the weight of a book against my chest. My tablet cannot offer me the same experience. Sometimes I am stressed when I read, sometimes to the point of tears, and I end up with tear stained pages while trying to get through one of my books. These are just amazing things that make books so cool. They are like little keepers of life moments. Each dog-eared page is a representation of a time that I wanted to read more but couldn't, either through lack of time or just sheer exhaustion. Every coffee stain tells a story, as well as every tear drop. Try getting that from a used Kindle.

My daughter isn't thrilled to be reading the paper. She of course thinks it's boring and antiquated. I feel so sorry for her. When I was a kid, before we had any kind of electronics (other than Saturday morning cartoon) I was always so excited when my parents were done with the paper and I could go digging for something that interested me.

(I apologize if this is how I come off to you right now, haha. "Get off my Damn lawn you whippersnappers!")

Sometimes I would find comics and cartoons (if it was a Sunday), sometimes I would find an international story of interest, but strangely enough I liked to read the personal ads. It was like Craigslist before Craigslist. It was fun reading people's dating profiles in the newspaper, different things they were selling, and I also was drawn to the obituaries. I remember seeing people that looked really young and had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that they could actually be dead. I remember side-by-side shots of women and men in their 80s that had gorgeous pics of themselves as stunning youngin's from the earliest part of the last century. It was wild. It was fun. It was tangible.

The internet is too damn big for me I think. Its vastness is what makes it so alluring and cool, but also so terrifying and unending. You could get lost forever in the dregs of the existence of the internet. There's just too much of it.

Books are finite. You can finish one.

Newspaper articles are finite. Once you are done with an article, there may be a few more, but then it's done, and you have to wait until the next day to get more news.

With all of the major news outlets having some sort of "immediate alert ticker-mabob", you can get access to everything happening everywhere all the time.

But wait, if that bores you, you don't have to go too far before you start getting to the questionable content.

"This pill will make you the man you've always dreamed of being"

"5 Things you didn't know were making you fat."

"That actress from the CW's SmallVille was in a cult, and you'll never guess who was there with her..."

Endless. The content is endless. It's overwhelming, and certainly something that is completely not navigable by an 8 year old.

(That face you make when you end up as one of those sleazy headlines because you done did something stupid.)

My kids already interact way too much with technology so some things are just nice for them to have away from electronics, and reading is a big one.

My daughter has told me that she doesn't like reading on her tablet because it gives her a headache. I won't say that I'm glad this happens, but it sure is a good deterrent to a reading on a Kindle. We have nightly reading time together and it's really nice. The crisp page turns of a book are the only thing you can hear in the evenings before she goes to bed. It's rather magical if you ask me.

Among books and the paper, I also love shopping in person. It's a weird dichotomy actually.

I hate shopping.

I hate my body shape and my stupid big boobs, and inability to wear button downs or low-cut shirts without looking like a strumpet. I hate clothes shopping. I also hate mindless shopping, and grocery shopping, but man do I love thrift stores!

There is something about the intrigue of not knowing what I might find. There is excitement in each excursion! What a thrill!

This is a complete 180 from my disdain for shopping though. It's very strange. I'm not sure why I hate most shopping but love going into thrift stores.

It is definitely an experience that could never be replaced online however. Our local Goodwill Thrift Shops are trying to move that experience into an Ebay type thing and it just doesn't work. I think a lot of people are like me and they like to go into thrift stores to see what they can see, to touch things, to pick them up and inspect them, and look for markings and dates, etc. You just can't do that online.

There are many things that technology has improved. There are many areas where computers are king and life is so much better with them.

On the flipside, there are many tangible things that for me, just have to stay tangible.

Hope you had a great weekend.

xx - Beth