Answering Machines to Blogs: Day Two

You know you're getting old when you can remember your first encounter with an answering machine, how irritating to get a recorded voice and not a person; to know that someone might be "screening" your call, there and not answering. I remember sharing my first answering machine with college dorm roommates--how we struggled to find just the right Tracey Chapman or Steve Winwood song to play, just the right balance of lyric and information, then beep! Arriving home to listen and write down messengers' digits, return their calls, speak to their machines and so on. And then the cell phone. My grandmother had both an answering machine and cell phone before I did, answered a call in the movie theatre, to my horror: why would someone need or want to be contacted at any time of day? Why did an older man have one of those horrible things and leave it on during a Saturday yoga class? Why would anyone want to be that reachable and connected? I am now on peaceful, welcoming terms with the answering machine's latest answers--cell phones and voicemail; gps and gmail "apps." And now, late as ever, I tentatively dip into day 2 of the blog. This time Grandma didn't beat me to it. I leave my elders behind with trepidation--who wants to read the relatively raw draft confessions of a middle-aged blogger? Is this my own personal American version of me-me-me-dom, boring, unrefined reflections that ought to be kept in a personal diary? But I admire the poets around me who craft poem-seeds from blog musings, who share their daily meditations with their friends and readers, and I see the potential to be less alone, to use this space as a tool to recollect and feel connected; to report and aspire to have an audience--even if it's really just me. Who knows, maybe I'll start cooking Julia Child's recipes--darn, that one's taken. For now, let it be said that I am here, waiting for you to answer and beep! I might even be listening.