Stranger than Fiction (Parts Three and Four)

This is a continuation from the previous blog entry about a week I couldn't have made up if I'd tried. It will make more sense if you read that one first.


Part Three: Situation Comedy

After Tuesday's crisis, you would think I'd had enough drama for a good long while. Apparently, there is never enough drama in my life.

This storyline actually started at the very beginning of the week, when we turned our 2 1/2 year-old Little Monkey's doorknob around to lock from the outside. This was a last resort effort to help him learn to get to sleep on his own, without .5 mg of melatonin every night and a parental song-and-dance that ranges in length from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.

He used to be a great sleeper until we transitioned him to a big-boy bed, about a month before Fozzie was born. Once he learned he could get out of bed and stake a claim on some of that attention his little brother was getting, we were done for. Nearly seven months later, we have become desperate enough to reclaim our evening peace that we have begun locking him in the room (after books and kisses and water and goodnight) and letting him work it out by himself. It actually did seem to help after a first night of chaos and destruction.

Monkey's doorknob is very old, one of many we've been meaning to replace upstairs. It's the kind that locks inside and has a key lock on the outside, for which we have never had the key. We put gobs of masking tape on the lock as a temporary solution the first day we moved in, planning to replace the doorknob ASAP. And here we are over a year later... Of course when we turned the knob around we removed the masking tape so we could lock it from the outside.

We were planning to meet some friends at the park Wednesday morning. I had just put Fozzie in his crib, and Monkey and I were discussing our differing opinions about whether I would be allowed to change his diaper and get him dressed before heading off to the shower myself. As a show of personal power, he attempted to lock me in his room, but I caught the door before it closed (whew!), unlocked it (I thought) and closed it behind us so our diaper-clothes battle wouldn't wake Fozzie up in the next room. When he was dressed and ready, I headed out of the room to get a quick shower.

I headed out of the room. Out of the -- oh, no. Are you kidding me?

It was nine o'clock in the morning. Hubs had gone to work for the day and was not expecting to hear from us until at least noon for lunch, and probably wouldn't get worried until one or later since he knew we were going to the park. Fozzie would be asleep in his crib in the next room for an hour and a half, tops. My phone was downstairs, along with anything else remotely useful. We'd done a great job childproofing the room - no tools, keys, wire hangers, or blunt objects in sight. Hell, I wasn't even wearing a bra.

Locked in a second-story bedroom with nothing but an energetic toddler and a few toys and books. Ho-ly crap.

It was easier not to freak out since the previous day's adventures had really put things in perspective, and I told myself that even in the worst case we'd all be hungry and miserable but safe. (Deep down, though, I didn't know how long I could listen to Fozzie cry when he woke up without tearing through the wall to get to him).

Monkey was calm and brave through the whole thing. He stood on his bed next to me and we shouted out the window, hoping to attract the attention of neighbors, walkers and/or passing cars. Every time a car would pass, we'd call out fruitlessly for help, and then he'd look at me and say, "Oh, well!"  Can you tell we've been practicing handling disappointment?

We were lucky that it was cool outside and not raining, or we might seriously have been stuck there until Hubs came home after work. But a passing jogger - our Good Samaritan - heard us and came up the driveway to help. He didn't have a cell phone, but he was very nice and tried to break into our house. No luck. He went across the street to my neighbor who works from home, but she was understandably hesitant to open the door to a strange man in jogging clothes. So, he took off jogging back to his house a few neighborhoods away and promised to return with a phone as soon as he could.

For the next little while, Monkey and I played with his trains and waited. After a little bit had passed, the slight possibility occurred to me that maybe this guy would get home, realize he was late for work or something, and think I'm sure they've already flagged down someone else by now. So I went back to the window, just in time to see another neighbor pull up in their driveway caddy-cornered to ours.

We don't know these neighbors well at all, but we did attempt to introduce ourselves when we first moved into the neighborhood and were greeted somewhat brusquely. Still, in an emergency they'd respond, right? We shouted to them for help and, when they turned in our direction, I tried to yell out the explanation of what we needed. They turned and headed toward the door. "No! Wait!" I yelled, "I need to borrow a phone - we're trapped in my child's bedroom!" They looked at me for another long minute, went inside and closed the door.

Fortunately for us, not everyone is so jaded, and the Good Samaritan returned with his car and a phone. He called Hubs for me, explained what was going on, and chatted with us for a minute to make sure everything was okay before heading off. It turns out we have a mutual acquaintance who lives in his neighborhood, so we are going to try to track him down to thank him properly. He also reported that on his way home, he tried to flag down several people in cars to get help to us faster, but no one would stop for him.

In any case, Hubs was home in a few minutes to release us and appropriately, to laugh at me. Crisis #2 of the week brought safely to an end.

Part Four: Friends and Neighbors

When I was a little girl my mom and the other women in the neighborhood spent more time in one another's kitchens than they did in their own. We kids flowed freely back and forth between the houses and up and down the streets. We knew which neighbors would let you cut through their yards and which didn't. We knew who would buy candy bars for the school fundraiser and who wouldn't. We knew their pets' names, their kids' names, their cars. We had friends in other places, too, but that little community was the center of our world. It wasn't pleasant all the time, we had our issues, but we knew each other.

Nowadays I feel more connected to people on Facebook than I do those who live within a mile radius of my house. I can tell you what someone in another state who I haven't seen in person for more than two decades had for dinner last night, but I couldn't tell you the name of the guy who turned his back on me when I was locked upstairs. We've lived here for a year and a half, fifty yards away from his front door.

Maybe this is a function of the age of our neighborhood and the fact that it's a relatively busy residential street. But I can't help but notice that more of us are paring down our relationships to the known quantities and easy connections. The friends we know through other friends, the people we've found on pinterest. Texting, status updates, blogging (ahem). We can gather and send information and feel 'connected' without having to actually connect at all. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm no Luddite. I love technology and social media (insofar as I can keep up with it) and I'll continue to use it. But it seems to me that we are taking fewer and fewer social risks as a culture, choosing the perceived safety of our computer screens rather than braving the challenge of getting to know new people. We lock away 'Others' and the world outside.

I don't pretend to know all the facts of the Trayvon Martin shooting, nor do I even remotely compare my scary experience last week with the hell that his parents are going through. What I do know is that while I got relief after forty minutes, Trayvon Martin's parents have no relief or justice in sight. Their unarmed child was murdered by someone who was supposed to be the neighborhood watch captain. He was supposed to be looking out for the safety of all the children in their neighborhood, and instead he let baseless fear turn him into a perpetrator himself. I can't help but wonder how that situation might've ended differently if the 'neighborhood watch' had focused more on bringing neighbors together and less on rooting out potential villains.


This probably sounds weird, coming from someone who had a scary experience with the stranger I hired to care for my child. Part of me wants to quit my job and stay home so that I never have to trust anyone else with his safety again. But I believe we do not make ourselves safer by disconnecting from 'Others' or 'Unknowns.' Ours is a global village, and it's time we all took responsibility for getting to know our neighbors. In the flesh, warts and all.

Losing our real, live, imperfect connection with others means losing our village, along with the fundamental thing that makes us human. And that is dangerous.

Sure, we're in a relationship. But are we Facebook material?

I've spent a good bit of time on Facebook in the past couple of weeks, promoting THE MARRIAGE PACT, and it's had me thinking about how social networking is changing the way we think and talk about relationships. I've never been someone who pays a lot of attention to how many FB friends I have or, sometimes, even manages to scroll down past the fold on my news feed each day. In fact, it's not unusual that I will miss out on fairly major announcements from my friends until someone actually passes the news on in person. Though of course I expect all 350+ of my friends to take an active interest in whatever I've posted. It's very passive-aggressive social networking.

The other night, however, a good friend of mine commented about how he notices when his friend count goes down by a few numbers and wonders who has defriended him and why. So naturally I have started noticing that, too, and am suddenly obsessing about it. Why did my friends circle shrink from 354 to 351 today? Which three people did I lose? Was it something I posted? Something I liked? Or did those folks just close their accounts or decide to eliminate anyone they hadn't actually had a conversation with in, say, the last 15 years?

I was talking to Hubby today about this absurd new source of social anxiety, which of course prompted him to make fun of me relentlessly for a bit. A few minutes later, he said "You're going to defriend me now, aren't you? I'm going to be dumped on Facebook by my wife." Possibly, sweetheart. Quite possibly.

It's funny, though, that Facebook has added a whole new layer to romantic relationships and friendships alike. We learn quite a bit about our friends and lovers through their Facebook postings and habits. Sometimes it's great to have information we wouldn't get any other way; other times, it's way more than we want to know.

The relationship status itself is also pretty interesting. My status has been unchanged since I opened my Facebook account (despite my idle threats to the contrary), but through my single friends I've learned that updating one's relationship status is a delicate matter. How far into the relationship do you update from "single" to "in a relationship," and at what point do you actually link your status to the person you're dating?

The same friend I mentioned earlier actually had a fight with a girl he was dating a while ago, because she was upset he hadn't updated his relationship status in what she considered an appropriate amount of time. Her concern, of course, was that he still wanted his cute female friend base to see him as single. But if you do update your relationship status, it pretty much comes across as a major announcement; and the congratulatory comments start pouring in from everyone in your social network. I'm not sure where that is on the relationship ladder, but I think it's somewhere between meeting one another's parents and moving in together...

The flip side is when the relationship doesn't work out and you're faced with returning your status to 'single' in front of the whole world. Breakups and divorces used to be something we could do quietly, sharing with our friends and family in private as we felt ready... but now it's either hang onto a false status or share, share, share -- with everyone from your best friend to your third-grade teacher. And do you stay Facebook friends with someone you're no longer dating? How about someone you became friends with because he or she was dating one of your friends, but they're no longer speaking to each other?

Another interesting element in all of this (at least to me) is how the mechanics of Facebook insert themselves into the way communicate with our friends. Those who choose not to do Facebook at all miss out on lots of interactions and online conversation, but they at least miss out on everyone equally. I don't know how the little hamster on the wheel writing the algorithms behind FB makes decisions about what's 'important' enough to go in my news feed; but I do know that I see much more of some friends than others. In fact, I have several friends who post A LOT, which is great, and I guess because they post so frequently I comment on their stuff more often. So, I see more of their stuff. Lots and lots and lots.... Up to the minute news.

On the other hand, I am almost always missing out on the posts by 3 or 4 of my closest friends, who post less frequently -- and since I talk to them in person much more often, I am less likely to comment on their posts because whatever I might say has already been said. I guess to FB, it looks like I'm not interested in them. But that doesn't mean I don't want to see what they've posted; in fact, those are the updates I'd like to see the most. So how to tell the little hamster? I can't. Facebook doesn't work on a spectrum, doesn't allow us to "rank" friends according to our viewing preferences or categorize or own posts according to importance.

I can't assign an importance value of 100, for example, to the birth announcement of my child, or a 15 to the funny thing my cat just did. (Alright, alright, a 5 for the cat). I can't tell Facebook that my best friend is my best friend and that I want to see every one of her vacation photos, even the blurry one that no one else found remarkable. Facebook only allows for "Like" or not, comment or not, and "Hide" for when you just can't take it from a particular person anymore. It doesn't reflect the subtlety and nuance of real relationships, and yet it can impact those relationships simply by what we see or don't see when we log in for a few minutes at the end of the day.

I'm wondering if this will evolve over time as social networks become more sophisticated -- allowing us to organize in detail what we want to know when, and from whom. As though I'm not already spending enough time lost in FB-world, I really need to add a couple of hours a week managing it...

Eat Tuna Bagel, Publish Book, Take Nap

I spent most of this morning finishing up the formatting for THE MARRIAGE PACT for Amazon Kindle. It's sort of mind boggling how quickly someone who is reasonably adept at computers can start to feel very old. Five or even three years ago, I would've rated myself somewhere around the 80th percentile when it comes to knowledge of and ability to navigate basic technology. Today, however... Well, let's just say many of the relevant e-publishing websites don't have answers to my questions in their forums because, what idiot wouldn't know that?

When I came to a stopping point, my family and I celebrated with our weekend tradition of visiting our favorite deli for some yummy bagels. We got home about half an hour ago, and Monkey is not yet asleep in his crib for an afternoon nap, but I have already uploaded the book for publishing. That fast.

Six months of writing and editing, a few weeks of trying to comprehend the mechanics of converting a word processing document to an ebook, and then 15 minutes to upload and click 'publish.' It's sort of an astonishing process.

I am starting with publication for Kindle, and then I'll move to other ebook formats and paperback in the next couple of weeks. The book is not yet completely perfect, and this is causing me some mild anxiety, but I've worked very hard editing it and had lots of great help, so it is far more readable than it was when I last updated. One cool thing about self-publishing is that I can make changes with relative ease moving forward (so, yes, you should let me know about the typo you spotted on page 39 if you're an early reader).

It takes the amazon system about 24 hours to make the book available for purchase, so I'll keep everyone posted. In the meantime, here is the dust jacket summary for those who may be interested in reading:

Marci Thompson always knew what life would be like by her 30^th birthday. A large but cozy suburban home shared with a charming husband and two brilliant children. A celebrated career as an established writer, complete with wall-to-wall mahogany shelves and a summer book tour. A life full of adventure with her friends and family by her side.

Instead, Marci lives alone in 480 square feet of converted motel space next to a punk rock band, hundreds of miles from her friends and family. She works in a temporary accounting assignment that has somehow stretched from two weeks into nine months. And the only bright spot in her life, not to mention the only sex she’s had in two years, is an illicit affair with her married boss, Doug. Thirty is not at all what it is cracked up to be.

Then the reappearance of a cocktail napkin she hasn’t seen in a decade opens a long-forgotten door, and Marci’s life gets complicated, fast. The lines between right and wrong, fantasy and reality, heartache and happiness are all about to get very blurry, as Marci faces the most difficult choices of her life.

So, obviously, this falls under the genre of 'contemporary women's fiction.' But I will say that a few of my alpha readers were men who confessed to enjoying it, too. And just so you know, it's a grown up book - there's some explicit language and sexual content. YUM!

I'll try to update the blog when the book is available in various formats. You can also stay in the loop by "liking" my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/MJPullenbooks.

As a side note, there's some debate among writers and emerging writers about whether self-publishing is a "legitimate" way to get started, or if DIY publishing is the kiss of death for a new author. Some people say it's a great way to build an audience and get your work out there where it can be noticed by publishers, others say it ruins your reputation forever.

I can't speak to that with any authority, but I will say that writing a novel -- even light summer reading -- is darn hard work. I'm not sure how motivated I would have felt to keep at it over the last half-year if I'd thought that the only thing waiting for me at the end of the process was a slew of rejection letters from agents and publishers. It's nice to know I can sink or swim on my own. And instead of spending the next several months trying to convince someone in power that this book is worth reading, I can get to work on the sequel instead!

In the meantime, it is time for me to take a well-earned nap.

PS - If any agents or publishers are reading this, I didn't mean any of that stuff about sinking and swimming on my own. I need you desperately. Call me?

Life's Questions Answered... Or, Not

A mommy first today... I got a call about an hour ago that my sweet baby was vomiting "everywhere" and I needed to go pick him up from preschool. Yuck. And poor baby.

So I am busy scrapping my plans for the afternoon, desperately rearranging my work schedule, and waiting for a call back from the pediatrician. MLM is sleeping soundly upstairs, while Mommy waits. And wonders.

When I feel nervous, my anxiety tends to take the form of a need for information. In situations like these there is almost always a period of time during which we have no information, like between the time the school calls and the time I get there to see what's going on for myself. So it ends up being sort of an internal Q & A session...

How sick is he? Sick enough that the school felt the need to call you. Is it too much to hope that he just showed the teacher his new trick of sticking his fingers down his throat? Probably. Did I remember to pack a change of clothes for him today? Yes. Why isn't DH answering his phone? It's been 6 minutes. Why didn't I take the time to find a new pediatrician yet? Have you met you?

Once I pick him up, give him a big hug, and bundle him in the car, the questions seem to snowball. Should I call the old pediatrician or try urgent care? Would it be better for DH to come home early or for me to shuffle my clients? Should I take him home to nap or try to feed him? Is that vomiting I hear in the backseat? Is this a stomach virus or the beginning of strep throat, as the preschool director suggested? Do we have anything that gets throw-up out of car upholstery? Is it my imagination, or am I feeling a little queasy myself? What is my schedule like for the rest of the week and how disastrous would it be if MLM and/or myself were sick at home? Could it be the milk from this morning that expired today?

At home, I decide to pack MLM off to sleep, talk to DH and realize he knows exactly as much about what to do as I, check the milk and pour it out even though it smells fine, and continue waiting for a callback from the doctor's office. Now, maybe someone in the health care industry can explain this to me, but why when I just need to make an appointment for sometime in the distant future, I can call the office and talk to a live human being right away; but when I'm trying to figure out if and how to organize the rest of my afternoon around a spewing 16-month old, I get to wait 2 hours for a triage nurse to call me back? The need for information strikes again.

So, getting no answers from all the reasonable sources, I begin to direct my anxiety in a new direction, one that only mommies of my generation can really understand: the Internet. Fortunately, I'm wise enough to know that putting "baby vomiting" into a search engine is going to do me zero good. So I begin to cling to one of my amateur theories about what could be making MLM sick, and I google "can expired milk cause vomiting?"

Seriously? I am 35 years old, relatively intelligent, and I just asked the entire universe if old milk can make you sick. Someone should really go to my office, take one of my 4 degrees off the wall, and smack me in the head with it. What I really want, I realize, is to talk to a health care professional and have him or her put my anxiety to rest by giving me some direction, telling me what to look for, assuring me it is more likely this or that. At least then I'd know what today's next task would be, and I'd have some idea how to care for my little guy.

But in the absence of such reassurance, I really, really want to be able to rule out (or in) the idea that MLM just has what my grandmother used to call a "sour stomach" from drinking milk past its prime -- which would be great because it's not contagious or overly dangerous and he would likely be back to himself by tomorrow.

So I find myself trolling through chat rooms, looking for pieces of a puzzle that I wish I could put together immediately -- when deep down I know I just have to wait and see what happens.  For me, that's one downside of the Internet, it allows me to continue feeding my anxiety by searching through infinite information (some credible, much more of it not) hoping for reassurance; rather than forcing me to deal with the uncertainty and move on with my day. Sometimes what we need is not more information, but more patience.

If you're wondering whether expired milk can make you sick.... Not really. Or, yes, but only if it gets thick or smells bad. Or sometimes if it is neither thick nor smelly. You should never, ever, ever drink it after the expiration date. EVER! But many people successfully drink it up to two weeks after with no problems. It can make you mildly sick. Or be fatal! Or it's fine. And never, ever drink unpasteurized milk. Unless you prefer raw milk and believe it's healthier. So listen to your mom's advice. Or conduct a testing procedure with lemon tea before drinking it. Or just throw it out. All clear now? Good.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go see what the symptoms are for Avian Flu...

Isolation and Connection

Earlier tonight, I had a nice opportunity to catch up with a colleague I don't see outside of meetings very often. You know, it's odd, private practice therapy can be a bit of an isolating profession -- one that attracts people who are generally very sociable. I got into this business because I enjoy being with people, and I find them (us) fascinating as a species. And yet, the friendships we make in this line of work are often of the "passing in the hall" variety, because the work itself is done behind closed office doors.

Our therapeutic relationships, in which we spend most of our professional time, are -- intentionally and appropriately -- completely one-sided. For that 45-50 minutes, my personal needs don't matter, there's very little small talk, and no one asks questions about my life. And if they do, I have to graciously deflect them anyway... [I once had a friend who told me he felt guilty because every time he went to see his therapist, he just sat down and started talking, and never once asked her how she was doing. I told him that the fee he pays at the end of the session should totally absolve any feelings of guilt on his part. On reflection, he agreed.]

This contrived pseudo-isolation is just part of the weirdness of the job, and most therapists get used to it pretty quickly. But unless we plan specific ways of getting together with colleagues, we tend to miss out on those little conversations that most people experience at the water cooler. This could be one reason the occasional late client or canceled session isn't always devastating -- because it gives us an opportunity to chit chat with one another, or surf the web like normal people do during down time at work. Albeit, our gossip sessions and social networking aren't generally paid, but still... it can be nice.

As I chatted with my colleague, she asked me about some little detail of my life, and then followed up quickly by explaining that she reads my blog (I guess so I wouldn't think I had a stalker, though I have to say I'd be flattered). And, if she's reading this: sorry, it was either write about this, or the weird guy at Starbucks who reached down from the drive-thru window to pull a hair off my sweatshirt this morning...

Anyway, I thought it was funny because she is definitely not the first person to say that to me. It's funny how many people read this blog but don't comment (not a problem, of course, and in fact that's how I tend to be as a blog reader myself). The weird thing about being a blogger is that you put something out there and sometimes you get a big online reaction -- comments, e-mails, Facebook responses -- and other, times, silent.

And you don't know if it was silent because it just didn't hit home with anyone -- which is okay, too, it happens -- or because lots of people read it, nodded their heads and went "mmm-hmmm," and then went on with their busy days. Or, maybe it was such a spectacular post that there was simply nothing else to say about the subject. Who knows? I'm lucky that I do get lots of great feedback, so please, don't think I'm fishing here; but it is sort of a vulnerable feeling to write something about your life and send it out into the world, never knowing how it will be received in the moment or even down the road.

I've had people come up to me weeks after I published a post, people who I didn't even know followed my blog, and tell me that something about it made them laugh or resonated with them. And that's cool. It can also be sort of weird, because even though my blogs range from quirky observation to fairly personal confessions, I tend to forget what I've written... oh, about 5 seconds after I click 'publish post.'

Of course, I don't publish ANYTHING that I'm not 100% comfortable with anyone, anywhere, all over the world knowing -- clients, friends, ex-husband, mother-in-law [who is very sweet and always tells me she enjoys my posts], bosses, etc. That's a good rule of thumb for all of us with regard to things we put online, even things that we *think* are private, like FB status. But still, when you're chatting with someone in a different context and a topic emerges that you blogged about weeks ago, it can be a little jarring.

The internet is funny that way. It connects us in ways we never would've been connected -- someone I haven't seen since high school can enjoy frequent pictures of my kid, for example. And when I write something I'm going to put 'out there,' I generally do imagine the people who might read it and wonder what their response will be (internal and expressed), and in that sense I do become connected to them. I also become more connected to my emotions and my intellect, as I try to squeeze my internal experience of the moment into something tolerably readable.

But then it's gone.

The connection comes and goes quickly. I update my status, publish a blog, flip through a friend's photo album, and then log off again. Sometimes an actual connection is made -- a comment or a message -- but more often, not. There are times where a blog entry I write or read actually does lead me to a deeper understanding or at least a real conversation with someone; but so often it's all fleeting.

As with my profession, blogging and social networking represent a weird sort of pseudo-connectedness. It is there, it is real; but it is not a full and equal conversation in the traditional sense. And in a way, I'm glad. Like therapy, online connections can serve their purpose, but they are always a means to an end: better, real connections offline.

Dear Microsoft: Please bite me. Love & Kisses, Manda

Here's one of the annoying things about life in the 21st Century: Over-designed technology that actually gets in the way more than it helps.

Take Microsoft Word as my current, though not singular, example. The other day I was out and about with time on my hands but no internet access, so I decided to do a rough draft for a blog in MS Word. This morning, I decided to cut and paste the text of said blog into this site so that I can do a few more edits and - hopefully - click "publish" a little later this week, once I've made it passing readable.

So I did a quick copy and paste, the same seamless motion I've been doing on a near-daily basis for over a decade and a half, and tried to quickly save the blog so that I can get on with my busy day and return to the post later in the week.

But the blog won't save. "Form errors." Hmm.

I deleted the text, went back to the document, and saved it in a text-only version. Closed, reopened the text version, cut and paste what I hoped was really just text, and tried again. Form errors again. So I went to the "Edit HTML" tab in Blogger, and deleted the (no-kidding) HUNDREDS of lines of Microsoft gibberish that automatically attached itself to my text BOTH times I tried to paste it, and was finally left with the basic text I expected.

Now I realize that this only added about seven minutes to my life and for me, a relatively computer-savvy person in her mid-30's, it was a simple fix. But this sort of thing was never a problem until I started using the most "advanced" copy of MS Word (which of course isn't even the most advanced copy anymore - I think mine is the 2007 version). In the past, when you needed to cut and paste text, you just did it, and it worked. That was nice.

And it's not just this most recent issue or this version of Word. Every time there's a new iteration of software that's "easier" to use, I find that there is less and less control over all the little automated things that Word wants to do for you. Why all the sudden do all paragraphs have to be 1.5-spaced unless you manually go in, every time, and fix it? Why can't I decide what I want to indent and by how much? Have you ever tried to un-indent a numbered list, draw a long line for writing in text or -- Heaven forbid! -- delete a blank page in MS Word? Aaaack!

I realize how much I sound like my Grandfather when he used to complain about the price of cigarettes when I say this, but it "used to be" that with a little bit of knowledge and intuition, you could move around in Word really easily and get it to do pretty much whatever you needed it to do. At one time in my life I was close to an expert-level user of MS Word, and I even helped teach classes on how to use it to my teacher colleagues five years ago. So if anyone can figure it out, it should be me, right? Wrong!

Nowadays it seems like if I don't want to do exactly what the software designers thought I might want to do with their software, it's going to add an extra 20% to 40% of time and hassle to the project while I experiment with trial and error or research solutions online. The "easier-to-use" versions of the software are increasingly automated and there is seldom any easy or intuitive way to "undo" the automation. That's fine if you're using Word for the first time and don't want to have any control: which probably means you're either six years old or from another planet.

And more versions of more products with more features and more stumbling blocks means the solutions are harder to find, even online. Most of the time the "help" offered by Microsoft answers only the most basic questions -- as though "how do I create a new document?" is really a commonly asked question. Really? By the way, good luck finding the "help" button in Word, anyway...

What's even more frustrating about this whole situation is that -- unlike a stodgy old coot who keeps her antique typewriter and correction fluid, thank you very much -- I'm not really free to stick to the old familiar versions of Word, even if I want to. They become obsolete and incompatible with what everyone else in the world is using, limiting my ability to share documents via e-mail, etc. Plus, as soon as the computer on which the software is loaded has lived it's short little life, I'm forced to upgrade whether I want to or not.

This is a love-hate relationship I think we often have with technology. To keep up with standard levels of communication, to maintain even minimal levels of professional competence, we have to adopt new and widely used technologies and then adapt to the differences in using them. In some ways, the changes can improve our experiences by offering new features, etc.; but often the arrogance (or maybe just hurry to the market) of those who develop the tools does not give enough power or control to the end user.

It seems that authors of many technologies fail to consider the possibility that the person on the purchasing end of their product might have a different idea about how it would be most useful; or at the very least want to be able to simplify or minimize the features presented.

I'm sure my technorati friends will have some interesting views on this that I will be fascinated to hear, and I'd also love suggestions if anyone knows of a good MS Word substitute that actually works. Otherwise, I guess this 'old coot' is going to need some tutoring, or at the very least a dartboard with a picture of Bill Gates on it.

Unsociable. De-networked.

The dust has all but settled after this past week's Adventures in Hacking. The only remaining fallout has been that Facebook disabled my account on Tuesday and has yet to reinstate it.

On the one hand, I'm sort of annoyed about this, because I followed the recommended steps and sent an e-mail right after the account was disabled, and then a follow-up three days later, and I still haven't heard a word back from them. Not so much as an automated "thanks for your inquiry, we're looking into it" e-mail. I think it's poor customer service at the very least.

On the other hand, it's a little bit of an eye-opener for me being cut off from my "social networking" world. Until this week, I don't think I realized how often I used Facebook as a time-killer or tool for procrastination. As much as I enjoy finding out what my friends are up to at all random times of day, and I truly have enjoyed reconnecting with some folks I don't otherwise interact with very often, I don't know that the time I spend on Facebook could really be considered quality time.

My days tend to be divided into chunks. I work at least part of two or three days each week outside the home, and I have lots of little tasks to complete in support of that work in between. I go to class one or two nights a week, with reading in between. When I'm home, I take care of MLM when he's awake and do some minimal housework while he's napping. And as for writing and reading for pleasure, taking care of myself, and relaxing.... well, it all happens in between.

So given that most of my life occurs in the "in between," it's not hard to see why the appeal of Facebook is so irresistible. MLM falls asleep mid-day and I find myself with an unknown quantity of time in front of me -- it could be ten minutes or an hour and a half. It's hard to plan when you don't know how long you have, or it's the end of the day and you're totally drained, so I often cruise for the low-hanging intellectual fruit: checking e-mails and invariably following some link into the world of Facebook.

The next thing I know, it's thirty minutes to two hours later and I'm sitting in the same spot on the couch, lost in a sea of updates, funny videos, vacation photos, Bejeweled Blitz scores, etc. Which would be fine, if that were what I'd set out to do with those thirty minutes or two hours. As it is, the feeling that most often washes over me is a sort of resigned regret. I've done it again: passively given over my time to the world of social networking and forfeited another opportunity to work on those other things that more often than not would rank far higher on my list of priorities.

So, along with the drawbacks of being locked out of Facebook, there's some benefit, too. I have noticed this week that instead of killing time on FB, I have been able to "waste" my time in more interesting and stimulating ways -- like brushing up on The Charge of the Light Brigade. (Don't ask me why). And once or twice, I've actually been inspired to close the computer and do something else entirely. Imagine that.

More Specifics on the Hacking Thing

Now that I've recovered from some of the panic from earlier today, I thought I'd try to distill down as much as I know about what happened to my account(s) so that anyone reading this can be on the lookout for similar problems in their own e-mail accounts.

This was NOT, as I originally thought, a virus. The problem was never on my computer (at least as far as I know so far - and thanks to my awesome brother-in-law for helping me diagnose that). What happened to me today was online identity theft, and my hope is that it was more a huge hassle than any actual destruction.

That said, the hassle DID take up my whole day, and I'm still concerned that someone may have lost money because of this garbage, or that some personal information of mine might've been compromised. Anyway, enough people have been thoroughly shocked at the depth and cunning of what seemed like a simple virus at first, that I thought a more thorough warning might be helpful.

So, here's what happened:

• Early this morning, someone hacked into my gmail account. I've never given out my password, and I didn't fall for a phishing scam. There was some kind of security breach with my gmail password.
  [I should point out here that I made the careless mistake of keeping the same password for a very long time, and that I do use the same password for lots of non-financial accounts, like gmail.
  Someone more knowledgeable than I in this arena has pointed out that since this "London Scam" has been around (I've seen accounts of it as early as last May) some technorati fingers have been pointing at Facebook for the security breach, which Facebook apparently denies. According to my internet-wise friend, the theory is that the scam artists stole a whole bunch of passwords from somewhere, and have been holding onto them and slowly meting out this lovely lesson ever since. So, if you are reading this and haven't changed your e-mail password in a month or so, go do it now. Go ahead. We'll wait. Done? Good.]
  
• Once the hackers were in my gmail account, they changed my password to lock me out. Then they sent out an e-mail to many of my contacts, claiming to be me, and claiming that I'd been robbed at gunpoint in London and needed money. I've noticed as the day wears on that they mostly contacted people who are not on my "most frequent contacts" list, the ones who I e-mail daily and would obviously know I'm not in London.
• While in gmail, they also used my gmail-based Instant Messenger to contact friends of mine who were online, still pretending to be me and claiming to be in a library in London with only a passport. I find this especially creepy.
• The hackers then created a fake e-mail address using my name at "OperaMail.com" and put it in my gmail account as the 'alternate' e-mail. They set my account to forward any incoming e-mails (like those of concerned friends wanting to help, for example) to this fake account and to delete them from my gmail. So, when I used google's account recovery system to get into my gmail account, it almost looked like nothing had happened - they deleted all the sent e-mails and any incoming e-mails were being automatically forwarded.
• They also changed my security settings and put in a Nigerian cell phone number as my "password recovery option" - so when they locked me out of my gmail and I tried to use the automated system to reset the password, they received a text message notification so that they could jump in and beat me to the punch. I don't know about you, but these aren't things I immediately knew to look for when I got back into my e-mail the first time (instead, I started trying to send out warning e-mails to my contacts).
• In addition to trolling through my gmail contacts, they also found all the other e-mail addresses I have connected to that account and tried to hack into those as well. I got a notification from yahoo asking me to confirm that I'd added a new e-mail address (which I hadn't), and fortunately I was quick enough to get in and fix that before they did too much damage on that account. They did, however, manage to change my contact information!
  
• In the meantime, they used their access to my gmail account to get to my facebook page. I use a completely different password for facebook, but since they had access to my e-mail, all they had to do was go to facebook, click to reset the password, and then change it to their own.
• They also created another e-mail account in my name, this one just like my yahoo account, but with one extra letter before the @. They added this fake account to my facebook page; and then deleted the e-mail that facebook automatically generates letting you know that changes have been made to your account. If I hadn't trolled through my gmail trash later, I never would've known that they did this. As it was, I was locked out of Facebook all day until I found that e-mail (and of course they were not only e-mailing my FB friends but also instant messaging with those who were online --- asking for money).

That's what happened. I've put it all in, step by step, so that my dear readers can get a sense for how clever (and thorough) these folks were in trying to extort money from my friends and colleagues. Not only did they hack in, they created two brand new e-mail addresses designed to mimic my own and spent lots of time tracking down my friends. They also had to be attentive to when I was attempting to recover and reset passwords. This was not just a random phishing scam, these folks really made an effort to steal my identity and represent themselves as me.

So, here's what I did:

• I used Google's account recovery form to get back into my account (twice) via my yahoo account, and the second time, I waited for the first possible chance to get in and then quickly: changed my password to one much harder to duplicate, deleted all alternate e-mails from my profile, and deleted the Nigerian cell phone number from my password recovery options.
• I changed the passwords on all my often-used social/e-mail sites, and on the sites for my financial institutions
• I updated my friends and family via social networking, blogging, phone calls and (when possible) e-mail
• Did a "deep scan" on my computer (again, thanks to my brother-in-law) to make sure I am virus-free
  

And here's what I am still working on:

• Going through my e-mail accounts looking for passwords and/or login information that might have been vulnerable while the hackers had access to my email account. Deleting those e-mails once I've updated the information elsewhere.
• Exporting my seldom-used contacts to a spreadsheet so that I can delete them from my e-mail account but still have them if I need them again.
  
• I'm considering decentralizing some of my e-mail functions - while it's convenient having everything in one place, it also makes me pretty vulnerable
• Credit freezes: since I don't know how far this "identity theft" actually goes, and I've seen how determined these bad guys are, we're calling the credit bureaus to have them freeze our credit. Clark Howard says it's a good idea anyway, and this little incident is just a good reminder....
• Counting my blessings. I have to say I felt pretty violated today, but watching the news reports about the devastation in Haiti reminds me to keep even major annoyances like this one in perspective.
  

Some changes I'm hoping to make in the future:

• Changing passwords more often
• Deleting more e-mails (instead of just archiving), especially those with any kind of login information
  
• Creating an offline, protected list of login names and passwords that I can maintain and update frequently
• Stop using the same or similar passwords when I register for new websites or shop online. I've always done this because it makes it easier to remember, but I'll just have to go with a different system instead.
  

And.... what else? I'd love to hear suggestions from those more expert than I.

Be careful out there!

More Internet Musings

Two blogs ago, I made casual mention of the idea that the Internet has become a communal extension of my brain. I also toyed with the idea that maybe parts of my brain are beginning to atrophy -- or perhaps to be reallocated to another purpose because of disuse. All thanks to the convenience of the knowledge bank that Google puts at my fingertips.

In response, my friend Ross - who is a bona fide member of the technorati and way smarter than I - sent me a link to this fascinating 2003 article, in which author William Gibson expresses some of these same ideas (in a far more interesting way than I did, of course). You can read it yourself, but something I found really cool about it was that someone called Vannevar Bush envisioned something very like the Internet (in structure and purpose), way back in 1945.

For me, this reaffirms a couple of things that have been percolating on the outer edges of my intuition...

One, that the Internet and other modern technologies are in many ways an extension of the way we naturally think and act. Hyperlinks on web pages function much the same way that the human mind functions when processing thoughts and emotions: creating idea-related pathways that spider out in a multitude of directions, rather than a linear path that we simply scroll from top to bottom. Part of my job as a therapist is to try to follow that path, and figure out which "pages" are important, and which are just pass-throughs and distractions on the way to the important stuff.

Secondly, reading about Mr. Bush and his early, limited conceptions of an Internet-like machine, I can't help but wonder who will envision the next major human advance. Maybe it will be one of Bill Gates' or Steve Jobbs' followers, going to work each day on a vast technology campus. Or a part of the military machine, in an eternal race for dominance. Or maybe it will be a science-fiction writer, avid game player, or amateur poet. Someone whose creative energy surpasses the boundaries and limitations of the conceivable, and begins to explore instead the possible.

It seems that Vannevar Bush was a little of all of these things, in his way. It's hard to know if his primitive conceptualization of the Internet was born of professional practicality, free-ranging fantasy, or a little of both. In either case, I like this idea, because it at least hints at the possibility that any of us might create the seed of the the next revolutionary idea -- regardless of the capacity in which we are currently serving mankind.

It may mean that those random daydreams and seemingly silly thoughts we all have sometimes might actually be a window - not just to ourselves but to the future. I don't know about you, but the possibility of future greatness gives me a sort of permission to give in to those thoughts once in a while. Maybe I'll take a few extra moments to stare out the window next time before hurrying back to work.

The Internet is Taking Over My Brain

Ever wonder what you would do without the internet?

I know people ask this rhetorically, and conversationally, all the time... but lately I've been observing my own ever-increasing reliance on the world wide web as a source of information and connection... and the psychology nerd in me is wondering, "What impact is this having on my brain?"

Not so much the mindlessness of what I'm doing online (although, there are certainly moments when I'm lost in guilty pleasures that are probably no better than vegging out to the television)... but the way my mind seems to get less and less of a particular kind of exercise the more I rely on my online resources.

These days, I'm forever going to my computer when I need any kind of question answered: How do I get from my house to the party in East Cobb? What's traffic like on 285? What's the name of that actor I keep seeing? Who would win a competition between Josh Duhamel and Post-It Notes? Which song do I keep murmuring the partial lyrics to in the shower? (That one turned out to be "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan). What are the mating habits of the duck-billed platypus?

There was a time when, to figure out the answers to these questions and others, I would have to track down a book (using a card catalog, no less - remember those?). Or, I'd have to ask my friends until I found someone who knew the answer. Or worse still, I'd have to be satisfied with not knowing, or just waiting for days and hoping it came to me.

But these days, gratification is instant and thorough. Before I have even finished formulating the question in my head, I'm at my computer, and in seconds I'm directed to the top ten people who are most likely to be able to answer my question, or more accurately - who answered my question months ago in some online rant or fan tribute or fit of utter boredom. I can do this at 2 a.m. or 10 p.m. or anytime in between. It's amazingly efficient, and one of the many blessings of our modern world.

But I wonder what's happening as our brains evolve (which, of course, they are). What's happening to those cranial "muscles" that I was previously using to track down or mull over factual questions and answers? As the little neurons and synapses do their speedy little firings, there's some stopping point in my brain ("The Internet Cortex?") where unanswered questions stop streaking around my brain, and are instead directed to the computer.

It's almost like the internet has become an extension of my brain (which isn't too far off, actually, since search engines and hyperlinks were all originally designed to mimic the functioning of the human brain). In some very fundamental ways, all those research skills I learned from third grade to high school are now being outsourced. And that means that my internal ability to retain information, or the critical paths for getting to information, must be decreasing.

Of course it is. Our brains pare away skills and information we don't need as we stop using them... why take up valuable brain space and attention with things you don't need to have top of mind? Why hold on to something when the digital collective is holding it for you? I've noticed that my ability to recall and retain information has shrunk over the last few years - partly because I'm creeping ever-closer to middle age, and partly because there's no need for me to retain much of the information I'm confronted with each day. I can always Google it later if I need it, right?

I don't know if there's any validity to my theory that parts of our brain are becoming atrophied because of our new easy access to information (or perhaps, being reallocated for another, far more interesting use down the line). And if there is, I don't know whether it's good, bad or just interesting -- at least to me. What I do know is that, for me, the process of going from "I'm not sure about that," to "I'll check the internet," has been reduced to a matter of nanoseconds.

I literally have no idea how I would function right now without this tremendous, spidery, instantaneous resource at my fingertips. And, for the moment, I'm hard-pressed to say whether I think I'm better off intellectually or not. Regardless, it's a phenomenon that will not be slowing any time in the near future. It will be fascinating to see how our mental faculties, educational systems, and intellectual cultures respond over time.

For now, I'll have to be satisfied with trying to stay somewhere near the middle of the technological curve -- which gets harder every year -- and content with the idea that while I may be losing my skill for answers, I can still ask some pretty good questions.