Category Archives: personal

WIS: Points of Interest II – Northampton

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A few more pictures from our visit to New England a few weeks ago…this time focusing on Northampton.  Our road trips in 1987-88 often included a stop or two down here.  I obviously gravitated towards the record stores and sometimes the book stores, but there were also quite a few excellent restaurants here as well.  It’s still one of my favorite places to go when we’re in the area.  I would not mind living here either, if it were not for the fact that we’d have to deal with snowy winters!

Downtown Northampton

Downtown Northampton, north side of Main Street across from City Hall

Here’s a panoramic shot of part of downtown Northampton, as seen from across the street in front of City Hall.  That alleyway is Cracker Barrel Alley.  We used to park in the lot back there during our trips to Main Street Music, which is where Village Salon on Main is now, to the left of Starbucks.  Here’s another view of the Alleyway.

Cracker Barrel Alley...many an evening clutching my latest record purchases while walking here.

Cracker Barrel Alley…many an evening clutching my latest record purchases while walking here.

A few reasons I show this. On our trips to MSM, there was many a night’s end when we’d be walking down this alleyway and back to the car, clutching our latest spoils and already planning when we’d borrow them for further dubbing.  In fact, after our shopping we’d often hang here for a good half hour, talking about all sorts of things before we had to head back home.  It has not changed one bit, maybe aside from the repaving.

Second?  See that building in the background?  That community-themed mural has been there for decades (and touched-up here and there), at least since the 80s.  But the important part was that boring little brick wall around the corner from it.  About two stories up, someone sometime in the early 80s spraypainted the word ‘ANARCY‘ in large black letters.  No idea how they got up there, and I don’t think anyone fessed up to it, either.  But promoting anarchy to the point that you deliberately spell it wrong?  We loved that idea!  It fit in with our 80s small-town nonconformist ideals quite nicely.  I think it stayed up there at least until the early 90s when it was finally powerwashed off, but I’m sure most Smithies and other Five College kids from that era will remember and cherish that tag.

And when I was down here with family, while I spent most of my time (and money) at MSM, my dad would often go a few doors down to…

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Broadside Books, a fiercely indie bookstore that would make City Lights proud.

…which not only is still open, but still looks the same after all these years!  This indie has always been a mix of commercial, obscure, and political since 1974.  It’s a quintessentially New England type of indie, a community-first type of store that offers the bestsellers alongside books on grassroots politics and local history.

Faces, where many 80s rock pins for my denim jacket were purchased.

Faces, where many 80s rock pins for my denim jacket were purchased.

Ah, Faces!  It opened here in 1986 during the high point of that decade’s fashion, and catered to all kinds of ridiculousness.  This was your one-stop shop for dayglo clothing, fun printed tee-shirts, whoopee cushions, fake poop, posters (album, band, and black-light), disposable dorm and apartment furniture and accessories (in their huge basement), and anything else to make your college life California flashy in an otherwise drab New England.  And also where I bought a crapton of those pins you might remember seeing on denim jackets in that decade.  I usually went for the rock band logos, album covers, and the occasional silly jokey ones (‘I’m not weird, everyone else is!’).  It very nearly closed recently, but since it’s so beloved by students and locals alike, someone bought it from the original owner and it’s still alive and well.

Thornes Marketplace Building and environs, including a boot shop that I believe is older than me!

Thornes Marketplace Building and environs, including a boot shop next door that I believe is older than me!

Just across the way from Faces is another hangout, Thornes Marketplace.  Their website states it took over the site of the old McCallum’s Department store in the mid 70s and by 1977 or so it got its present name and has been an indoor shopping experience ever since.  There are stores of varying shapes and sizes, from clothing boutiques to kitchen accessories and even an Acme Surplus in the basement!  Speaking of which, way down in the sub-basement (back parking lot level) was a huge used record store called Dynamite Records.  It didn’t so much cater to hard-to-find obscurities as it did those albums you never got around to picking up when they were new, or that one record you’re missing from some band’s discography.  This was a bit later on, I believe, maybe in the early 90s and into the early 00s, as I spent many an afternoon beefing up my back catalog with their selection.   OH!  Yes, and just around the corner on that side street to the right (Old Street) is Herrell’s Ice Cream, quite possibly one of the best local ice cream parlors in the area.

Pleasant Street, which really hasn't changed all that much...aside from the storefronts

Pleasant Street, which really hasn’t changed all that much…aside from the storefronts

This little strip at the head of Pleasant Street has changed a bit over the years.  Northampton Wools is where Pleasant Street Video used to be for decades (said to be one of the best local rental places in town, and had quite the collection of popular and obscure titles).  McLadden’s Irish Pub has taken place of the former Pleasant Street Theatre, where all kinds of indie and low-budget movies would be shown.  I never went there until the mid-90s, but I did get to see quite a few great films there.  Their basement screening room was so tiny and oddly shaped, the first two rows had 3 seats on either side.  Further up is another record store I’d frequent in the 90s called Turn It Up! Records, down in a musty basement.  I usually went here for used cds, as their dollar bins were quite choice.  They’re still there, I believe!

One last thing I want to post here…it’s another ‘no longer there’ Google Maps embed, but it’s kind of important, at least to me!  It’s one of the stores in the strip mall on King Street, north of the town center, right near I-91.

This is the storefront where Northampton Newsroom used to be, back in the 70s and 80s (and I believe into the early 90s). It was your small WaldenBooks-style store with a selection of genres, a wide selection of newspapers and magazines, as well as candy, gifts and more.  I mention this place because in late 1984 during one of our family shopping trips down to the Valley, I bought a book here called Dragon Fall by Lee J Hindle.  It was the first winner of a YA writer contest for its publisher, and when I heard a teen had written it, a light bulb went off: hey, I could do this too!  I’d written some stories here and there that didn’t go anywhere, but after seeing this, there was no helping it…I had to be a writer too.  I started writing the Infamous War Novel in earnest and never looked back.

Hope you enjoyed the tour! 🙂

WiS: Points of Interest 1

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Our vacation was fruitful on many different levels, and I was able to fill in a lot of the gaps for my Walk in Silence photo database.  Here’s the first of a few posts focusing on various points of interest related to the 1986-1989 timeline of the book.  Hope you enjoy!

I used to catch the school bus from that intersection. Imagine a surly teen waiting for the moment he could pop on his headphones and blot out the inane conversations going on around him.

I used to catch the school bus from that intersection. Imagine a surly teen waiting for the moment he could pop on his headphones and blot out the inane conversations going on around him.  Usual soundtrack: The Smiths or Depeche Mode.

This was taken from the front room of my parents’ house, looking up the street.  If this picture looks a little streaky to you, it should — that was a minor five-minute flurry of snow that fell not an hour after we arrived!  But yes, this was similar to the view from my bedroom window looking north, where my desk was.  It never felt like the edge of the world, but more like a hideaway from it.  I spent a lot of time there, listening to WMUA or WAMH (or one of my many tapes or records) while doing homework, writing, or reading.

From Google Maps, as I didn’t get a decent picture:

My high school, which hasn’t really changed that much at all over the years.  A lot of memories of walking through these halls.  I still remember my locker number (103, Lower C hallway, just outside Mr. Jolly’s room).  My house was two and a half miles from here, so I took the bus (#312) and tried to avoid everyone that annoyed me.  The ride took just shy of twenty or so minutes, due to traffic and a few further stops, so I could listen to at least three or four songs on my Walkman before we got there.

Oh, and if you’re curious, this was my standard attire during my junior and senior years, as displayed on Spare Oom couch:

Not the originals -- the first duster and Smiths tee bit the dust from overwear. Duster 2 was from a friend, and I found the Smiths tee on eBay.

Not the originals — the first duster and Smiths tee both bit the dust from overwear by 1990. Duster 2 was given to me from a high school friend around that time, and I found the Smiths tee on eBay last year.

A tatty green duster (my grandfather’s) and a tee shirt showing the cover of the “William, It Was Really Nothing” single (bought at MSM and cherished as one of my favorites) was all I needed to wear to show my unique weirdness — no need for mohawks or nose piercings in my small town, not when I was already known as the resident college rock geek.

On our recent trip we also made a point to stop in Amherst and Northampton on one of the days, for varying reasons.  One was to meet up with a few friends from the area, but it was also to revisit some of our old haunts.  I’d been heading down that area since the early 80s when my family would shop at the malls down in Hadley; A. is a Smithie from the early 90s and knows the area as well.

Amherst Common

Amherst Common, where we would often congregate

The Five College area is one of my favorite places in the state.  In high school my friends and I would frequent this area all the time, hanging out not just at the mall but on the commons and in the various stores and cafés, talking and laughing and listening to great music.

Panda East - my first taste of Chinese food

Panda East – my first taste of Chinese food

Panda East was a Chinese restaurant we used to frequent back in 1987-88 (and yes, I am a bit surprised that it’s still there after all these years), often for dinner before or after we did our shopping or going to a movie.  After we ate we’d hang out in this little courtyard in the foreground and talk about all sorts of things.  I remember listening in on a conversation about college plans and silently wishing I could be a part of it.  Alas, I had one more year to go.

The former Bonducci's across from the common

The former Bonducci’s across from the common

Almost directly across from Spring Street on the common was a café called Bonducci’s. It was where that Veracruzana Mexican restaurant is now, in that right corner spot.  It was your typical collegiate café that served coffee, sodas (I always used to buy the Snapple vanilla creme, back when they used to make sodas) and pastries.  This was often our last stop of the night, but it was also where we’d often have the more serious conversations. Some of us would trade gossip, others would talk about philosophy (as one did when we tried to pretend we were being all deep and academic).  I would often be the one to initiate the conversations about music, of course.

One picture that didn’t quite come out is of the small strip of stores on North Pleasant Street.  Here’s the Google Maps version:

That corner spot where Zanna is now, used to be where Al Bum’s was back in the 80s (and I think into the very early 90s).  My dad brought me here probably around 1985 or 1986, as it was one of the few record stores I knew of that carried Beatles bootlegs.  A year later when I discovered college radio, it became an important and expected stop for finding the punk, college rock and industrial sounds that I couldn’t find at the malls or department stores.  When my friends and I headed down here, we’d almost always stop for an hour or two and dig through the bins.  Al Bum’s played a significant part in my music collecting during that time; what I didn’t buy at Main Street Music in Noho, I bought there, with a very minor percentage bought at the music stores at the Hampshire Mall.

[As an aside, there was a satellite store for Faces (more on that in part 2) that was partially hidden behind that Mobil gas station next door.  Within that was a mini-store that sold cassettes and cds called For the Record.  I bought a handful of tapes from there between 1987 and 1989.  It’s since become a dilapidated and empty warehouse.]

Holding our breaths

Holding our breaths

Lastly, a picture from our trip back in 2012.  There’s a stretch of Route 202 in New Salem that cuts through a tiny corner of Shutesbury for a few hundred feet before popping back in.  I was always amused by this little bit of ten-second town-hopping, and sometime around 1985 or so I got into the habit of holding my breath between the two town signs.  I got all my friends to do the same, so when we headed back home from an afternoon or evening from the Valley area, we’d always do this.  Thirty years on and I still do it every time I come back and visit.

Coming Up: Views of Northampton and maybe a bit of Boston as well!

It’s Just a Dugout That My Dad Built

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In my recent dollar bin shopping spree at Amoeba, I finally got around to picking up Donald Fagen’s post-Steely Dan solo debut, The Nightfly.  It’s very typical Fagen — jazzy, sardonic, nerdy, and wonderfully creative all at the same time.  I remember the first single, “IGY (What a Beautiful World)” being played a bit on the radio, but the second single, “New Frontier”, was the one had the video on MTV and became the memorable hit.

I loved the use of animation in this video, multiple styles used to show multiple facets of the song itself:  the (then modern) computer graphics to show the futuristic layout of new housing developments; the early Vogue ads and the Picasso paintings come to life; Soviet propaganda hinting at the impending Cold War.  And my two favorite bits of animation:  the cowboy-hatted, pistol-packing general marching around and shooting at rogue Commie nukes (a distinct nod to the old UPA films), and the bendy, lo-fi-but-cool jazz band.

[That last one had a particular effect on me; a few years later when I went through my jazz phase in the mid-80s, I would often visualize this particular image while listening to it late at night on my headphones.]

[Also, a quick bit of interesting trivia: the directors of this video, Annabel Jenkel and Rocky Morton, also directly my other favorite animated video, Elvis Costello’s “Accidents Will Happen.”  Furthermore, they’re the co-creators of the Max Headroom franchise, and also co-directed the Super Mario Bros movie.]

I was listening to this track the other day and thinking about the sounds of the radio, pre-1989, before the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Growing up in the 70s and 80s, we all listened to the popular sounds and were aware of the possible political threats out there.  Some of us kept it separate, some of us mixed the two Amnesty International-style.

We weren’t oblivious or ignorant of world issues out there; we just chose not to be completely frightened or doom-laden about it (Prince’s “1999” comes to mind, for instance).  We’d gotten so used to the elephant in the room that we just treated it as part of the furniture, and felt reasonably sure that in its advanced age and sedentariness, it probably wasn’t going to act up any time soon.  Our reaction to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR wasn’t so much a patriotic whoop of victory as a sigh of happy relief that it had finally gone away.

 

Dancing screaming itching squealing fevered feeling

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The-Cure-Kiss-Me-Kiss-Me-Kiss-Me

It was 28 years ago today that The Cure’s Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was released, and of course I’ve got it playing on my PC while I’m writing this up.

The Cure’s release history up to that date in the US was quite scattershot in the mid-80s…multiple labels over the course of four years (Boys Don’t Cry on PVC, Happily Ever After and Pornography on A&M, the 1982-83 singles and The Top on Sire).  It wasn’t until 1985’s much poppier and upbeat The Head on the Door showed a new and invigorated band, and their new label Elektra made sure they didn’t falter.  The 1986 singles compilation Standing on a Beach only served to push their status ever higher, and by the time Kiss Me (or “Kiss Me Cubed” as my friends and I used to call it) came out, America had finally taken notice.

This sprawling yet exciting double album came out at the same time I was asserting my individualism as a teenager.  A new circle of friends, a burgeoning record collection full of newly-found college rock, and a fresh coat of not giving a fuck anymore of what other kids thought of me.  I’d gone to see them with my sister and a friend that August in Worcester, and came back with a concert tee with Robert Smith’s pasty, lipsticked mug on the front and the lyrics to “Hot Hot Hot!!!” on the back.  I practically wore that shirt out in the ensuing months. I certainly got a lot of guff from both kids and teachers, but I didn’t care. This was the new me.  Forget fitting in, time to figure out who I was.

Kiss Me was indeed a sprawling album, but like Standing on a Beach it got a hell of a lot of play on my tape players.  I was a huge Cure fan by that time, and thanks to Elektra buying out the old contracts, their early releases were finally much easier to find.  I listened to them all on heavy rotation whenever and wherever I could.  I even predicted that “Just Like Heaven” would end up being one of their next (and best, and most famous) singles, and I was not proven wrong.

My friends and I would occasionally take road trips down to Amherst and Northampton to hang out at the record stores, and during the fall of 1987 and into 1988 this album would often be playing.  [This was back in the days before most of our parents’ cars had tape decks, so one of us, usually me, would lug along a boombox and have it playing in the back seat.  During one memorable trip when this was playing, the drinking of many sodas that evening came to its expected fruition and I urged they pulled over.  As I’m running into the woods, they pulled away, leaving me completely alone. Returning a few minutes later, they saw me on the side of the road, running after them, and slammed on the breaks, causing my radio to crash to the car’s floor in a thump! loud enough that I heard it from fifty yards away.]  To this day I still think of the winding Daniel Shays Highway and the back roads of Shutesbury when I listen to this album.

Compared to their earlier, darker albums of the early 80s and the intense frailty of Disintegration just a few years later, this album seems is so much more energetic, even a bit psychedelic.  It kind of reminds me of Prince’s Sign ‘o’ the Times, which had come out almost exactly two months earlier; it’s a beefy double album full of multiple and quite different genres, but it’s also a crowning achievement where nearly all the tracks are memorable, wonderfully produced, and leaves little to no room for boredom.  But also like Prince’s album, Kiss Me was a departure from their earlier albums, where they chose to break down the barriers, both creative and personal, to record something they would be proud of.  I kind of think The Head on the Door was a practice run, Standing on the Beach was the fanbase test, and this was the first official run; it would culminate of course with Disintegration.  It’s of no surprise that this was also the era of one of their best band line-ups, with Simon Gallup on bass, Porl Thompson on guitar, Lol Tolhurst on keyboards and Boris Williams on drums.  This particular quintet remains one of the strongest versions of the band for many older fans, as their sound was amazingly tight and inventive.

 

The Songs That Made Me

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You know I can’t let a good music meme pass me by, right?

As quoted from Nancy at Midlife Mixtape:

This week’s Rolling Stone has a cover story called “The Songs That Made Me” in which artists share six or eight songs that had outsize influence in their lives. They’re not always what you’d expect – Marilyn Manson with “Cry Me A River” by Justin Timberlake? I loved the little window into the artist’s soul, and as a writing prompt you can’t ask for much better. So here are the Songs That Made Me.

I’m quite certain I’ve done this at one point or another on my LiveJournal over the years, so some of you are not going to be the least bit surprised at some of these.

1. The Church, “Under the Milky Way”.

OH HEY BIG SURPRISE THERE.  Heh.  I’ve contemplated as to why this is my all-time favorite song, and I realize it’s because it was one of those songs that hit me right at the perfect moment, at the perfect time.  Spring 1988, when my closest high school friends, nearly all of whom were a year ahead of me, were graduating that next month.  I was torn between excitement that I too would be leaving my small town (albeit a year down the road), frustration that my closest circle of friends was vanishing way too quickly, and determination that I’d try to spend as much time as I could with them before they left.  This song fit the mood perfectly: a sadness for things ending, a wishful thinking for things yet started, and the stasis of waiting in between.

2. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, “All I Ask of Myself Is That I Hold Together”.

Note: This song must be listened to as loud as possible.  Summer 1995, in which I’ve got a day off from my job at the multiplex up on Somerville. Earlier that year I decide that, despite my lingering emotional and financial depression, I’m going to kick my own ass and get this writing thing started already.  I’m switching between WFNX and WBCN on the radio dial during those summer afternoons, windows open, while I hammer away on my girlfriend’s low-end PC (running on Windows 3.1!).  A lot of transcription of old work, but also many words on completely new projects as well.  A consistent writing habit is formed.

3. Led Zeppelin, “How Many More Times”.

Late 1987, In which I hear this song and realize I need to buy myself a bass.  I soon find a very cheap Arbor Stiletto for $50 at the local music store, which stays with me until I finally retire it in early 2012.  I teach myself how to play it by listening to Led Zeppellin’s first album, and expanding to Cocteau Twins, Wire, New Order and Joy Division, and going on from there.

4. Takako Shirai & Crazy Boys, “Cosmic Child”.

The ending theme for the anime OAV Gall Force 2: Destruction.  Late 1993, watching anime because I’m too broke to do anything else.  The anime that changed my writing from feeble attempts at straight fiction to science fiction and fantasy, and the series that partly inspired the Mendaihu Universe in the first place.  I later use the lead singer’s name for a pivotal character as a gesture of thanks. [The video here is a great rip, but I really dislike the English dub. I started it a little before the song to set the scene. Unfortunately the subtitles aren’t coming up…the lyrics to the song are basically a ‘thank you for giving us (spiritual) life’.]

5. Semisonic, “She’s Got My Number”.

Sometime in 2004, in which I get hints from various people that a certain someone might be interested in me.  That certain someone later informs me that one of her favorite bands is Semisonic, and puts this particular song on a mixtape (ok, a mix cd) for me.  Ten happily married years later and I’m pretty sure she was trying to tell me something there.  She knows me better than I know myself sometimes.

6. Gerry Rafferty, “Baker Street”.

Considering I was a little kid in the 70s, that decade is a bit of a jumbled mess for me in terms of music and memory.  However, I distinctly remember hearing this song on the scratchy AM radio during our family roadtrips.  If we had a bag of Bugles in the car, my sisters and I would grab a few and imitate the sax solos.  Decades later in 2014, and I’m winding my way down Baker Street in London, this song firmly stuck in my head.

7. Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show theme song, “This Is It”.

Yeah, I was totally a diehard Looney Tunes fan as a kid.  I’ve finally warmed to Disney to some degree, but I’m still a dedicated WB fan.  To this day, whenever A. and I head to the opera or the symphony, my recognition of the pieces will still often be “Oh, that piece.  The one where Elmer and Bugs…”

8. The Beatles, “Hey Jude”.

It was hard to pin down exactly which Beatles song to put here, but I chose this one.  My mom introduced me to this song when I was first getting into the band.  This is the video I shot while in the middle of the crowd — and let me tell you, turning around and watching a football stadium-sized crowd sing along to the last half was pretty damn epic.

9. Phil Collins, “In the Air Tonight”.

Okay, I’ll totally cop to stealing Michael Mann’s ‘music video treatment’ method for Miami Vice when I first started writing seriously in my teens.  My first complete novel (aka the Infamous War Novel) was outlined using a specific playlist, each chapter inspired by music, including this track.  The IWN is rather painful to read now, but on the other hand I’d like to think it was a successful exercise in long-form storytelling for me.

10.  Pretty much any given new release date.

It’s probably no coincidence that I didn’t see this meme until today…New Release Tuesday.  I used to passively follow release dates until late 1996 when I started working at HMV…and I’ve been faithfully keeping track (and purchasing on or near drop date) ever since.  For the record, today’s purchases included the new albums from Hot Chip, Tanlines, The Helio Sequence, Faith No More, and Brandon Flowers!

Life Soundtracks

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Last week on the KSCU radio show The 80s Underground (podcast here), the DJ decided to play songs from the Top 25 albums of 1988 per a readers’ poll at the great college rock-themed blog Slicing Up Eyeballs.  And you know me, I couldn’t resist.  I just had to listen in.

Interestingly enough, hearing my favorite college rock year outside of the normal context (read: my ridiculously large mp3 collection) kind of put things in a different perspective.  I purposely didn’t look up the poll they’d done a year or so ago (which I of course took part in), so I was pleasantly entertained by not exactly knowing which song would come next.  It was a little jump back in time to my years listening to WAMH.

Back then, I used to have a lot of life soundtracks.  Certain albums or compilation tapes I’d listen to during certain times of the day, or certain radio stations and shows.  I often do the same thing while I’m writing; lately I’ve been listening to Beck’s Sea Change and Morning Phase during my Spare Oom couch sessions.

Thing is, I don’t have nearly as many of these as I once did, and I suppose in a way that’s a good thing.  I always have the radio or some music going during the work day, but I’ve long past grown out of attempting to forge a mood from the music being played.  I now listen to KSCU (a college station) as much as I listen to Radio BDC (an internet station) or KFOG and Live 105 (terrestrial stations).

Do I miss those days, giving myself a soundtrack as if I were the living embodiment of a Miami Vice or a Grey’s Anatomy episode?  Well, not really.  I just grew out of attempting to find the perfect sound to complement whatever I was doing.  It had gotten to the point where I was forcing the mood, and that’s no fun.  I’m still an active listener, mind you–certain songs will hit me just the right way and I’ll pounce all over them, like I did with that TV On the Radio track a few months back.

Life soundtracks are more of a passive thing now.  I let them pop up organically, by serendipity.  Just like life itself–sometimes it’s more fun to see what life (or in this case, a radio station) throws at you rather than trying to pigeonhole it into something it’s not.

Connection

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No, this post is not about Elastica stealing the opening riff of Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba” from Pink Flag.  I’ve already made my peace with that.

This is about social connection.  I was just thinking about this earlier this morning…I’ve had this nagging feeling for ages that there was an actual reason behind my wasting so much time refreshing my Twitter feed.  The obvious answer is that I like staying in touch with all my friends, especially now that they’re all on the east coast and I’m on the opposite side of the country.  But there’s got to be more than that.  I’m usually on top of my stupid occasional timewasting addictions — playing with my mp3 collection, watching YouTube videos, looking up what’s playing on the station I’m currently listening to — and I know that my threshold is about fifteen to twenty minutes before I automatically start guilting myself into getting some actual work done.

But what is it with Twitter that I keep wanting to update the feed so frequently?

I think I figured it out, and I wrote it down in my personal journal: Twitter today is lunch period back in high school.

It’s definitely got to do with staying in touch with my friends back east, there’s no denying that.  A lot of these friends are connected to my circle of friends from my junior year in high school, either directly or indirectly.  And back then, back when I was a spotty nerd weirdo wearing Cure and PiL tee shirts and having given up on trying to fit in with the popular cliques, the lunch period was the primary time I could hang out with said friends when we were in school.  I really looked forward to hanging with them, even if it was just for twenty minutes a day.

Sure, we’d cross paths in the hallway, or meet up during a study hall.  The occasional after-school get together and the weekend trips down to Amherst were a bonus.  Back then we didn’t have the instant gratification of social media on the internet — hell, my family didn’t have DSL until 2000 or so — so we made do with the moments we were given.

We never quite lost touch in those pre-social media days, even when we were no longer nearby and some of us were too broke to stay with AOL, let alone make a phone call.  We emailed, even snail-mailed each other occasionally, and I would even make a few roadtrips out their way on my vacations.

Live Journal changed that, when I reconnected with a large number of them on a social media level.  Then, a few years later, Twitter and Facebook made the contact more immediate, and it’s been like that ever since.

This social evolution took so many slow and deliberate steps that it’s just like anything else I do over a long period of time.  I don’t always notice the subtle changes and the current level I’m at.  So it’s not as if I’m stalking all my friends or have no IRL of my own…we’ve just been connected at a consistent level for so long, I don’t always notice why I keep refreshing the feed.  Passive addiction.

This lends itself to the ‘stupid timewasting addictions’ I spoke of earlier…I get into a habit of doing certain things that I don’t immediately notice if I’m overdoing them.  This is why I’ll also speak of ‘unplugging’, where I’ll just back away cold turkey for a while.  It’s not always due to the occasionally frustrating online conversations that pop up, or what have you; it’s just that it’s the only way I know that I’ll break those addictions and reset my life.  Plus, it’ll give me more free time for contemplation and working on the projects I need to work on.

I do find it interesting how, in this age of instant and continuous connection, the lesson we should really take out of it is moderation.