The Complications of Blogs.

I was led to believe that Blogs are designed to simplify your life; yet every time I try to write in mine it only complicates mine. Yesterday I wanted to write a new post (Is that what each new entry is called? It doesn't sound right somehow.) and I couldn't find the orange pencil, so I gave up.  Today I was looking for something else on Google, and suddenly my blog popped up, pencil and all. Now I have to post one, not to waste the opportunity. But I feel as though my blog is controlling me, not the other way around, as I assumed it ought to be.

Probably some of my problems are caused by my age. In many ways I feel that I don't really belong to the current culture. Rapidly approaching my hundredth birthday in October, I have no sense of being at home in the current world of communication. So many channels are available to me that I am lost in their midst. So many people seem to claim my friendship or my attention or my experience -- some of them are already familiar -- old friends,former schoolmates and workmates, even my own family members -- while crowds of strangers turn up unexpectedly, asking me to 'friend' them or 'twitter' them or any other new kinds of relationships. And in the middle of my efforts to reply, the screen changes to some new program or offering and I lose what I've composed.

Oh, for the simple life of my youth! I remember so many advances which we all welcomed with delight, so obsolete now that it's hard to remember life without them. Yet that life was so much easier to live. How to find the happy medium between yesterday and tomorrow?

After over 90 years it's still a good story. When I was a little girl sitting on Papa's lap, I played with his mustache and fingers. I often noticed that his right thumb had a sharp ridge. "Why is your thumb so funny?" I asked him and he said, "That is what kept me out of the army. You can't be a soldier if you can't pull the trigger on your gun." Many Jewish boys did such things to avoid having to serve 25 years in the Russian Army. You may read more such stories in my memoir "Weather of the Heart."  

Back in Business

Once again I've neglected keeping up my blog, due to disappointment with all my efforts to create an effective connection with people who read books (or the new substitutes thereof.) But by now I've found some help from people who are not computer ignoramuses like me. So there is new hope.

My books are now available as E-books, as well as on my website and www.Book-Hub.com. The three memoirs are receiving reviews. which I hope will create interest among booklovers. I want to share my life while I am still living it, for it has much to help today's young adults understand their world, which evolved from mine. 

Once again the days  are slipping by without new blogs in them. When nobody seems to be reading them it's easy to become discouraged. But I will try to persevere in the hopes that someone will relate to my efforts to join this new global society. Just now I am nursing a bruised shoulder and my growing unstable legs. My daughter scolds me for not using my walker more. I know she is just trying to keep me from falling down, but I can't help  trying to hold on to the remaining scraps of independence. Apparently I am not going "gentle into that good night."

Now I must turn away from  my daily conflict  with my computer and try to Skype with a friend in Israel      -- I must admit that my ill temper with the machine does not keep me from being grateful for its daily miracles -- Pax

TO THE DEVIL WITH "READ ONLYS"

For two days now I have been struggling with this heinous program, wasting hours and hours, when all I wanted to do was download or print out a new roster of our HCW club membership. Whoever devised this inscrutable complicaton and inserted it into  computers to bedevil the lives of simple souls like me should be  transported into a complex maze in which he can wander forever. What earthly use can a rad-only be,  anyway?
I suppose there must be some subtle purpose for it somewhere. But why can't it be optional, at least? It wastes the time I could spend in friendly chat rooms and makes me throw up my hands in despair and turn my back on what was supposed to be a user-friendly computer.

FUTURE USES OF THE PAST

Because of my strong feeling that offering our own histories to today's readers will give them wiser perspectives on bettering their own lives, I have written three memoirs of my experiences in the most critical periods of the past century.

 As the country -- in fact the world -- stands teetering on the brink, trying to escape another major slump, my tales of living through the Great Depression of the Thirties becomes more and more pertinent. That was in my student days, when we learned a hundred ways of surviving -- even enjoying -- life with much  ingenuity but little cash.

 Now we become maudlin over old memories of dates spent on the Hudson River on summer evenings, when the ferry to New Jersey cost a nickel, no matter how many times you crossed. Or how we could see a Broadway matinee -- and lunch for a total of $1.05. Them were the days, as Archie used to say.

Had a lovely day yesterday. My writers' group (HCW) held their annual Book Awards party, and it was a  roaring success. Many members dressed up in fantastic costumes and awards were given in eight categories. I got one for my third memoir, The Whirligig of Time. Many kind and flattering speeches were made and I felt wonderfully cherished and even  admired -- nothing like it to perk up a threadbare ego. What a great spirit pervades this fellowship -- women and men; old, young and in between; natives and immigrants -- all imbued with a passion to string words together into ideas and feelings to share with each other and the world. Our second and fourth Thursday mornings together are precious to me; they warm my spirit. VIVA HCW!