My desire to untangle runs deep right now.

In savasana last night, I imagined myself going “technology free” suddenly. Saying goodbye to the phones and the televisions, the blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts that hang on me like screeching monkeys.

I imagined what an evening would look like– the savanna of night time from washing dishes time until bedtime. I would be alone with my hands and just paper and pen. Maybe my typewriter or knitting. I compose long letters to friends, and send them into the night, like smoke signals.

I imagine mornings without the constant stop-and-check-stop-and-check. You know what I mean.

I have invested myself in the practice of stuff love. It is a part of who I am– a part of the American way. It makes our economy sing. At least our nervous, chattering newcasters and those who feed them believe this.

Local economies disagree. They visit the gardens, trade items at tag sales, and sit in circles with friends. They make just what is needed, from what is available– without excluding the possibility of primitive beauty.

Remember that this country was founded, settled, and broken on the idea of intrusion. On the desire to need more. On gimme gimme. On being quite sure that what is just beyond that western river or hill is better than whatever paradise I hold in my hand.

Those concepts have become woven into the circuitry of our lives. And because we are America, they have become woven in the global pattern of  nearly all life.

Which has become unfortunate for the horse nomads of Tibet, and any small farmer. And ultimately, ourselves.

Untangle me: break me of this instinctively American tradition. Stop me from looking forward always to the newer, the better, the brighter.

As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are. Otherwise you will miss most of your life.

–Buddha

I’ve fallen in lust with Hipstamatic on my iPhone … All made possible because the iPhone 4 has a decent camera.

Hipstamatic is the app that allows previously young people like me (who refuse to believe that status has changed) to believe that we can still be the great photographer we dreamed of being when we were 16, and toying with instatmatic cameras.

This dream, like many I had suffered the loss of, is fading and lovely in its dusty frame. Only the best qualities are apparent, and for some reason, the skewed composition and disorganized groupings makes the dream seem more human. More like real art.

Which is to say it is like most art: everyday, dime-a-dozen perfection, carved from our leaden souls.

• #notmything was my thing, 'til #TT made it #notmything #
• @familymoms Q: How many tweets an hour is too many? A: You've reached it. #
• @julieklausner shirt yes, pants no. in reply to julieklausner #
• The flies are here, but the Lord is not. #
• @julieklausner I'm impressed you're wearing shirt and shoes. in reply to julieklausner #
• @simonpegg The sympathy vote goes to Fox, but Bateman chews him UP! in reply to simonpegg #
• Tara Gentile on DailyWorth – daily money tips for women – Neighborhood Spendonomics http://bit.ly/b3Gkt3 … think about $$ #
• Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #Connecticut #blogging #writing #experiential #art #green #
• @leslieworks Thanks for the sincere reply to my post on scoutiegirl (-: in reply to leslieworks #
• @paulmerrill I don't understand… I can't comment on Tumblr. Technology has made me dumb. Again. in reply to paulmerrill #
• @CandiedFabrics if you want to read about the kids, must be invited to private blog… email me your email address and I can add you. in reply to CandiedFabrics #
• @chamberlainwill you failed yourself by going to Office Depot. in reply to chamberlainwill #
• @CandiedFabrics you read fast! in reply to CandiedFabrics #
• @youngmommy Remember when we thought "blog" was a weird word? Vlog is a weird word. Soon we'll have pslogs., where we post telepathically. in reply to youngmommy #
• My post on #scoutiegirl today… "The Fabricated Family" Thanks Tara! http://bit.ly/aifaqF #fostercare #creativity #adoption #
• @CandiedFabrics I feel that way about Twitter, haha. I also hate "LOL" in reply to CandiedFabrics #
• Read me on Scoutie Girl Today! too cool… The Fabricated Family – http://www.scoutiegirl.com/2010/07/the-fabricated-family.html #

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Yesterday I was writing a FANTASTICALLY brilliant post.

My friend Jen posted the status “evolve” on Facebook and it really got me thinking.

I was tapping away on WordPress’s QuickPress window, when I got interrupted by a chat from my nephew.

We chatted about nothing. Cake and pizza.

Then another chat popped up from Helen. We arranged a play date.

Then I heard someone pounding away on the front door.

Seriously?

I left my chats and answered the door. A Native American kid from South Dakota used him charm to convince me to buy Atlantic Monthly.

Meanwhile, back at WordPress, there lay my mostly-completed blog post, a life revelation waiting to change the world.

I wrapped up my chats and waved my finger over the touch pad to finish the post.

I tapped, oops! and …

Poof. An empty window filled my vision.

Later I asked Colin “WHO WOULD WANT THAT STUPID ‘RESET’ BUTTON ANYWAY?!”

He replied with his patented, Zen-like shrug.

We didn’t pursue it. After all, we were busy melting on the front stoop. 91 degrees at 9 p.m.

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I just went ahead, finally, and dished out the $$ on the Olivetti 33, because every writer should own a manual typewriter and this one is so lovely. I did what Mom told me and thought about it for awhile– like two years.

Restored to oily perfection by Dan, aka “Mr Typewriter,” from Florrisant, MO, this beauty came overly-bubble-wrapped yesterday, ironically, in a Dell box. Colin asked me if I bought myself a new laptop.

Yeah, honey. Sort of.

This is just in time, actually, since Starbucks has announced a couple days ago it will offer free Wifi at all of the American locations, starting July 1, 2010.

For me, Starbucks was one of those “last bastion” sort of places, where  Microsoft Word and I could go to escape from Google/Facebook for a few hours while I got some writing done. I have WiFi-charging-behemoth Starbucks in London to thank for my getting two novels written.

Sigh. Oh Well. Those were the OLD days.

Since I can’t do that anymore, I think I’ll just have to fall back on the “original laptop,” this portable manual Italian beauty, and some fine bond typing paper. By the time I finish the NEXT novel, I figure so many journalists will be out of work I should be able to hire one, CHEAP, to transcribe my next bestseller to PC.

I wonder, though, how the too-cool hipsters and stroller hotties at the coffeehouse will dig my clickety-clackety machine. Only time will tell.

Thanks Olivetti for another gorgeous product, made in Italy.

Please leave the ship.

My kids reallyreally like bananas and I am reallyreally glad about that.

As some of you know, we are greeny-greensters, so we grow our own veggie garden, make compost, and buy organic and local.

Well, sometimes.

If we started to apply the “locally-grown” condition to our food (250-mile radius), what would be have to give up that we really like?

Let’s see…

• Bananas
• Coffee
• Tea
• Pineapples
• Citrus (scurvy alert!)
• “Fresh” fruits and veggies during most of the year.

I am currently reading a book called “Little Heathens” by author Millie Armstrong Kalish, a Garrison, Iowa native who details exhaustively farm life during the Great Depression.

When I saw “exhaustively” I mean it. Literally 99 percent everything this family consumed fulfilled the 250-radius guideline (excepting occasional citrus fruits). This was in part because of frugality– they had to make/bake/grow/cook it themselves in order to afford it. But it was also because that was the way rural life proceeded.

Grow corn. Eat the corn. Save some kernels for next year’s crop. Dry the cobs.  Use the cobs for either a) fuel, b) feed for animals, or c) toilet paper.

Reading this book is wonderful, but makes you realize without complete certainty why the generation after the war — especially the homemakers– not only embraced all the modern conveniences (from cars and refrigerators to pre-packaged meals, and canned corn), they probably wanted to make love to them. Making-growing-herding-hunting-sewing is two to three full time jobs– days overflowing with never- ending work and no chance for a 2-week vacation in Branson.

This is not to diss the locally-grown movement. In fact, it is an argument FOR it. Learning from our “heritage experts” helps us to reconnect to the reality of food. As Millie Kalish points out in her chapter on “Farm Food”:

“I do feel the knowledge of how to fry potatoes, make a pie crust, and dress a chicken encourages self-sufficiency and creates a sense of confidence in one’s ability  to cope with life. Indeed I want my own family to be aware of the foods, the ingenuity, the knowledge, the skills, and above all, the everlasting work that was required to survive when resources and supplies were limited.”

So much of what we consume today (and here I’ll just limit to what we put in our mouths) we do mindlessly, without a thought of the work it takes to grow, make or — in the case of bananas — to move it.

So I would argue that “local” is weird for most of us. It stops us from eating mindlessly, the way we have for years. It forces us think about who we are, to look at what we are made of, and to ask this question: what do I intend to invest in this ONLY thing I have control over– my body?

Millie Kalish, 88 years old and writing books, still splits and stacks her own firewood. In this era of techno-growth and obsolescence,  where kids are likely to live SHORTER lives than us, what does that tell you about the local food movement, the need to reject convenience and to feel a part of home life again?

Bananas, hold on.  Apples want to reclaim their place in the sun.

Or, Why you MUST Attend my Electronics Recycling Event this Weekend

Or Or, Why You MUST, at least, Start Recycling Electronics SOMEWHERE

In the world of electronics, planned obsolescence rules. What makes the iPod (sorry, no iPhone! Ooops what’s that? The IPAD, I mean!) so appealing? Eternal updates, that make it better faster, more capable to do everything at once.

It’s E, then 3G, now 4G! Yeah! baby! How many Gs can your device take??

Awhile back I moaned about the fact that I could NOT update the software on my beloved Creative mp3 player. Thereby losing all of my perfect playlists and relegating the device I so loved to the “bowl”.

What’s the bowl? Well it’s a bowl. On our counter… where things with batteries and now-lost cords collect. It’s got all sorts of little things: cellphones from London, Walkmans, old cameras, remotes to VCRs, remotes to RC cars (don’t get me started). It’s the bowl of planned obsolescence, where we toss money to the God of Electronic Progress.

This weekend, my church is chipping away at the backend of that problem by hosting an electronics recycling event. You can bring your big old TVs, monitors, your own Bowl-box-bin full of bygone goodies, to be disassembled by experts who will sell the parts for recycling and reuse.

Thus disposing of –properly — the disastrously harmful chemicals that each of these precious devices is made of. God knows we don’t need any toxins leaching out into the Earth now, do we?

Well, some of your aren’t nearby, so if not, check out this website,which will find for you a local e-cycler to help you declutter your house of these needless necessities.

Who knows? Maybe when you are counting cables and stacking monitors, it might again start to chip away at you– the senselessness of the cycle of consumption we ride everyday.

Blogs are NOT what they used to be– which is mostly good.

Fine– I’ll get the bad part out of the way quick– I’m typing this post on my iLhjvd (iPhone) which makes fir Manu typkys (many typos) and a cramp in my left hand.

The good change is paired with plethora: ie. The abundance of beautiful and brilliant themes out there that awesome designers created so writers like
me don’t have to gnash teeth over designs we can only see our minds.

I love this new look … It gives the four of you readers the opportunity to find other good stuff to read more easily.

It’s also “death retro”– meaning it looks like a newspaper. Also known as media’s incarnation Of death. People love shit like that.

So tell me: do you like it? What would you do differently?

Now is your chance to not comment, per usual.