Saturday, January 14, 2023

Northshore Notes: IRL


      Not quite grumbling, I padded up to my office Friday night, thinking, " Well, I hope Caren has something FUN to share with us." She does. Again we are in synch — this week I noticed that the more time I deliberately spend away from social media, the happier I am.

By Caren Jeskey

     Last year Netflix and I broke up. An Irish goodbye seemed the best. With a click of a button the streaming service that robbed me of thousands of hours, thousands of dollars, and a whole lotta sleep — think back to "Breaking Bad" if you can stomach it — was gone.
     There are free streaming sources that air well-crafted and informative pieces without the hell of constant pop-ups, such as BBC Reels. They offer short pieces — how whispering took over the internet, leeches: the therapy used by Stalin, and the power of psychedelics. They also have LongReels (about 15 minutes). You might not want to miss a a 50 year old audio recording of a disappearing language.
     Incidentally, psychedelics is a topic I’m learning about this coming Tuesday night via Zoom, hosted by the Schaumburg Library (which also hosts book groups, Photoshop lessons, and other free virtual and IRL events).
     hoopla® is another streaming option, stocked with digitized treasure troves of libraries. I have found that watching a funny or arty movie, or watching a few short reels, is more satisfying and less numbing that the six-season binge pattern. 
     Detangling from being a slave to tech is a process. I’m personally not aiming for abstinence, just a better balance. Zuckerberg is smart as hell and makes it hard to reduce the clutter of "friends" one has on his blue platform. He makes it as hard as he can to say goodbye. I thought about deleting my Facebook account, but I use it for several satisfying professional and hobby groups. I also have photos and memories tucked away in the Facebook cloud. So, I opted to unfriend my hundreds of connections, one tedious step at a time. The Eye of Sauron does not graciously allow you to set your own boundaries with his free-ish web-based toy. (Free only if I don't value my own time while sitting on my arse and making him richer). It took a good long time, but now I am a proud facilitator of a total of six Facebook friends — Neil of course, four mentors, and a dear friend who passed away. We keep him alive in this way.
     Last Fall I also said farewell to using Amazon, and to Prime. The best part has been shopping IRL, or at small Etsy and privately owned shops where I can chat with the owners and support the folks I want to support. The kind owner of a rock hunting supply company sent friends free scoops to give them a little bit of love after losing a loved one, and their home, on Sanibel Island during Ian. I know it's not much, but I also know they will smile. Tech-culling has cleared the way for more awesome adventures. Less reasons to be tethered to the laptop. I received an iPad for my birthday last year and my tech-savvy sister removed all distractions. No messaging, no Gmail, no App Store... nothing but Insight Timer and the Safari browser that I mindfully use for light-hearted pleasure.
     This past Monday turned into a nine hour beach day. It was the first of 38 days we’d seen the gosh darned sun. I needed it. I rounded out hours of playing unselfconsciously — the child in me dancing in the sand and singing to the waves — with working from my car parked in the sun, windows down and moonroof open. At the water’s edge at the Lighthouse Beach I noticed a piece of blinding white pottery glimmering in the sunny waves 7 meters or so offshore.
     I love to collect pottery shards. This was no shard. It was whole, intact plate, face down. (I keep meaning to throw my waders in the car for moments like this). I snapped a couple of photos of this unusual find, and headed to Walker Brothers for breakfast. (I’ve been craving their apple pancake for about 25 years now. It was every bit as good as I remembered). I had posted the plate photo on a Facebook group of Great Lakes treasure hunters, and the crowd spoke. I was to immediately return to the Lighthouse, take my boots off and go get the damn plate. I obeyed. It was not nearly as hard as I’d made it in my mind. A pretty gray dog accompanied me while her person filmed the excursion.
     After I’d dried my feet and put my warm boots back on, the spry dog leapt back and forth in front of me, waiting for me to throw the frisbee she was seeing. As dogs do, she quickly forgot and went back to frolicking.
     I hopped back onto Facebook that evening. Hundreds of fellow shard addicts had followed the story of the whole plate closely. They weren’t even disappointed when I shared that I realized it was just a $15 ceramic plate made in China.
     Good times were had by all.



20 comments:

  1. The group or groups to which you belong could escape FB and do much if not all the of the same things by using Bogger, the format on which we are communicating now. It too is free.
    This is the only form of social media I use. As you’ve discovered, leaving all the other stuff is freeing.
    Regarding the undamaged plate you rescued, I wonder how and why it ended up where it did.

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    1. Blogger, not Bogger. Sorry. Also had an extra "the" in there.

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    2. Me too Les! Someone joked "someone didn't like their sandwich." I agree, but the group has hundreds (and some have thousands) of amazing members so we are tethered for now. I don't have the energy to try to start a new group at this time. Plus, I am going to the local rock club next Saturday so will meet folks IRL and maybe won't use the groups anymore, or might use to just post things I've found and tumbled or hand polished. Wishing you a good day, and thanks for being here.

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    3. Perhaps someone went skeet-shooting using their ex's dinnerware...

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    4. Sounds about right. Lots of that in Evanston. :)

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  2. Count me among those nauseated by selfies on vacation, selfies at the grocery store, selfies eating lunch, selfies in traffic... "I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you - Nobody-too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise-you know! How dreary-to be-Somebody! How public-like a frog- To tell one's name-the livelong June- To an admiring Bog!" (Emily Dickinson)

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    1. I recognize that Dickinson quote. Good one. Yes, I have spent way too many hours taking photos of myself, nature, and others. It was fun at times, other times felt compulsive. Then it started feeling like that my best friend was inanimate, so I've mostly shut it down. I feel sorry for those unable to live in reality; I know since I've been there too.

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  3. 80 years on this planet and I had never heard of "an Irish goodby," maybe because I generally sneak off from parties when I can and the others are reluctant and too polite to mention it, particularly as it might be misconstrued as derogatory. These days, it should be considered noble I dare to say, given that the host and others feel compelled to grab the leavetaker around the shoulder, hug tight and making sure all our germs have a chance to mingle, to plant a big wet kiss on one's cheek or --shudder, shudder -- on one's theretofore pristine lips.

    john

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    1. Firstly, your writing is hilarious. Secondly, I agree. I have to turn my cheek much too often as others' lips try to graze mine during greetings. Nope.

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  4. Out of literally billions of users, am I one of the few, the happy few, who does NOT use Facebook for the "friending" of the teeming multitudes? I hate that word. It totally perverts the meaning of the word "friend." As I said a few weeks ago, when Mr. S. posted his "conversation" with a female scammer, I reject 99.99% of any friend requests I get.

    And yet, I continue to encounter numerous combative assholes (always folks who don't like my posts, and mostly young righty zealots) who proceed to savagely disparage me for only having four "friends"...two neighbors, a cousin, and her cat. As if someone's value and intrinsic worth can ever be gauged by the length of their list of accumulated meaningless contacts on a vast for-profit website. A stranger's long friends list means about as much to me as the number of stars they know (the ones in space, not the Hollywood kind).

    We, too, have seen very little sun since Thanksgiving. Cleveland is infamous for many things, one of which is the long stretches of cloud cover from November to March. It's not uncommon to go without seeing the sun for a week...and sometimes two weeks. Took me about twenty years to accept it for what it is, and to quit bitching about it, and to learn to deal with it. But this winter has seemed darker than usual. Maybe part of it is just me...and the physical and mental distress that comes with advancing geezerhood.

    But I'm also a weather junkie, and it's not your imagination. There's been even less winter sunshine than usual. Except for Christmas...very little intense cold or substantial snow. And we're nearing the bottom of the abyss. In a few more weeks, average temperatures begin to nudge upward, day by lengthening day. Take heart, it's almost half-over.

    Had to look up "Lighthouse Beach"...by which you meant the Grosse Point Lighthouse in Evanston. It stands 113 feet tall and began beaming its light (sometimes visible up to 20 miles away) in the 1870s. Before automation, it was staffed by humans for sixty years. I often rode my bike there, during my early teens.

    On a June Saturday in 1961, I delightfully discovered that there are tours (they were free then, not the ten-spot you pay today). I gleefully climbed its 141 steps and was rewarded with an awe-inspiring (I never use the other word) view of the shoreline, the city, and the lake. It was my first lighthouse. But not my last...Lake Erie also has a number of them.

    Evanston's lighthouse, however, has a more magnificent view than any of the others I've visited, because of its proximity to Chicago. Pony up the sawbuck and take the tour. It's worth it. But wait 'til the sun shines, Caren. Pencil in a day in June.

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    1. Grizz, I also do not friend the "multitudes." My qualification for FB "friendship" is that you are already an IRL friend, or you are a relative. I have more than your four (23 in fact), but I am one of 8 siblings with 18 nieces and nephews. So I tend to think I'm keeping my number fairly low.

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    2. Great memories Grizz. And thanks- I meant to put a link to the full name of the lighthouse beach but forgot; will add now. Growing up we took classes there and called it the Lighthouse Beach. I don't recall getting a chance to go inside. I'll have to see if they are still giving tours.

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  5. Thanks. Whoever named it the 'web' knew what they were describing.

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    1. Ooo. Good one. Maybe we can be engaged in nature itself (and study the mycelia - some say the plural is mycelium - interwoven beneath our feet; an essential root of all living things) rather than reading about it. If we were more engaged in nature we would not be letting it die.

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  6. Thanks. I had been meaning to cancel Netflix. Now I have. I've also been happily without Amazon Prime for more than a year now. It feels great.

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    1. That's great. Let us know how it goes.

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  7. Grizz- just noticed a virtual tour: http://www.grossepointlighthouse.net/tour.html. :)

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  8. Enjoy your foray into psychedelics . I try to keep some in the drawer, but they keep disappearing. I guess they truly are magic!

    A polish goodbye : chat with your host at their door , down the walk , at your car and get invited back in for dinner. LOL

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  9. Awww, I can picture you at 2 of my favorite spots on the North Shore, Light House Beach and Walker Brothers. What I wouldn’t give for some 49er Flapjacks right now.🤣

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