The Art Of Sloth; Or, How I've Learned To Adore Retirement

I wrote in early February about my angst in making the transition from productive business owner to retiree -- wondering whether I would make peace with a life without structure, without daily have-to's, without goals -- and without money. HAH! I've more than made peace with it -- I've learned to relish every minute of it!

There is just something so delicious about waking up knowing that the day holds no obligations other than doing exactly what I want to do -- for the very first time in my life -- and knowing that this isn't just a temporary state of being. The next couple of hours (spent with my iPad and iCoffee or iTea, while the iDog takes an after-breakfast nap on his iPillow next to me) ensure my minimum daily requirement of vitamin Internet and vitamin caffeine. The bad news is that nearly all of the stuff found on the internet is vitamin crap. The internet "news aggregator" app I use -- ZITE -- is a subsidiary of CNN and garners its offerings from many websites, including a kazillion blogs. While this guarantees mild daily entertainment (and many articles I can't resist sending to annoy a few lucky friends), the actual value of these writings is pretty low on the worth-reading scale, other than to exercise one's eyeballs.

ZITE sends me internet news and articles on geology (according to the preferences I set up), and even in this supposed scientific arena the amount of crap is staggering. Firstly, every article is written in the same Nova/Discovery Channel format of "it's not interesting unless there's a doomsday ending." Secondly, there is an unforgivable amount of "breaking news" stories that are actually recycled old postings from years (even millenia) ago. Thirdly, nearly every article is written using every qualifying adverb and adjective known to Mr. Webster. For example, "such and such event MAY/MIGHT/COULD/POSSIBLY/AT SOME FUTURE POINT/ occur, causing the world or entire universe to explode." This dishonest writing applies to every science discipline I read about, which is most of them. What this really says to me is that no scientist, nowhere, no how, knows anything about anything, or else is too chicken to state any fact for certain. Everything in science is in flux, all the time... which is why the "facts" we read or hear in actual news stories change polarity from week to week. Talk about taking news stories with a grain of NaCl.

But please don't think my iPad takes up my entire day. I've worked through almost four college-level lecture courses from The Teaching Company (A History Of European Painting, Dutch Masters: The Age Of Rembrandt, From Monet To Van Gogh: A History Of Impressionism, and The World's Greatest Paintings), with many more to go. These excellent courses have replanted a little seed in my little brain about returning to Europe, possibly next year, now that I at last know what to look for in great art. I've even finished my own masterpiece (below), although no museum has yet called about buying it.

Oh, and the rest of my day? I garden (see below) and work a few hours weekly at the local Food Bank, but having just had a distressingly significant birthday, I can no longer remember the other 15 hours. According to my Amazon and iTunes accounts, I buy a lot of books and music, and I think I walk Louis the dog and sleep, but I'm not sure. Whatever I'm doing, though, I'm certain I'm really happy doing it. Thank you, decades spent working, for having brought me this time of my life!

Hello Again, (again and again)

This poor orphaned blog has had more starts and restarts than the last two minutes of an NFC game -- but here we go again.  I read this morning that February is NaBloPoMo (or, National Blog Posting Month on a particular blog-hosting site), and that byte of information gave me just the motivation I needed to re-re-re-re-restart Cynwrites.  The fact that EVERY month is NaBloPoMo didn't discourage me, either -- it simply cautioned me once again to read below the headline.

The operative topic for this posting is contained in the first four words of the second sentence above:  "I read this morning..." as that activity has turned into the best part of my little retirement day -- well, second to going back to sleep at night.

The Retirement Fairy brought me an iPad2 (tablet computer) as a combo Christmas/retirement celebration gift, and, so far, Zite has been the best part of that gift.  Zite is a free app (program) for the iPad and iPhone which compiles a personalized "magazine" of internet articles based on one's preferences of categories, including special personal interests.  Zite serves my magazine up fresh each time I access it and, remarkably, it "learns" by what I actually read and focuses more articles on those subjects.

While it's also easy to follow specific blogs and websites through an RSS feed/reader, Zite brings me articles from hither, thither and yonder over all the internet, unlimited by individual RSS subscriptions.  With my little dog and a cup or two of French press coffee by my side, I read and learn all kinds of interesting things those first two hours of the morning -- not, of course, that my demented memory will retain any of it -- but the reading part is fun.

"Fun" seems to me to be the primary purpose of the iPad -- an expensive little toy to kill use all these available leisure hours.  As long as it's up and running, I get instant email alerts for my many email names.  I can send and receive text messages (since I NEVER turn on my cell phone), although so far my son is the only person who has texted me.  The whole internet is, of course, at my fingertips, although the Safari browser the iPad uses is far more limited than Mozilla's Firefox that I use on my other computers.  And, most important to anyone under 30 (which I'm not - HA) are the kazillion games that can be played solo or with your internet friends.  I have 340 games of Scrabble under my belt (with an 81% win rate) -- but another obnoxious word game (Word Seek) labels and libels me as damn near illiterate. 

Fotopedia brought me glorious photo albums of Above France, Paris, US National Parks and World Heritage Sites -- all free apps, except Paris, which cost $1.99.  (Of course Paris wasn't free!)  I can read all of my Kindle books on the iPad -- and all other ebooks through various readers.  If you also had an iPad, we could use it to talk face-to-face, although certainly NOT at 7 a.m. my time.  Video rentals and video streaming are available, all the music you could ever listen to is available, as are audio books.  There's no way you're going to be bored with this device, although you may end up with a sore neck. 

This blog post sounds like a commercial for the iPad, doesn't it?  This is my very first hands-on experience with any Apple product and I have to admit I'm impressed.  I don't have an iPhone with the app technology,  so you have to forgive my typical Aries enthusiasm for anything new to me.

I've found only three limitations thus far -- the only keyboard interface it comes with is on-screen, which is really, really inconvenient (you have to go to three screens to produce one little asterisk), although you can add a real wireless keyboard to the system.  The second annoyance is a serious handicap, in my opinion -- you can only access one application at a time.  Although some programs do link through to others quite nicely,  there is no real "windowing" that we are all so used to, with multiple programs open concurrently.  Since I'm not using this thing for work, it's not a big, big deal for me now -- but I think it would be a definite handicap were I trying to actually work on it.  And forget writing on it, unless I do add that keyboard at some point.  Printing, even over an existing wireless network, is difficult-to-impossible without more Apple stuff (special printers, special software), so I can't even print those enticing coupons Staples and Safeway keep sending, unless I use another computer.

No one promised that the iPad would eliminate the need for a "real" computer, although that probably isn't too far off.  Until then, I'm happy with Zite, Scrabble, France photos and handy email.  If you're looking for a new techie toy, you'd probably like the iPad...gauging by Apple's recent financial performance, a lot of people do.

So -- that's today's offering for NaBloPoMo.  As with every other resolution I've ever made, this will probably not last a whole Mo, but you never Kno.  Stick around and find out?

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The Jammy Brigade

Whenever I meet another fortunate soul who works at home, it takes about 3.2 seconds to chuckle together about the very best part of the situation -- working in our jammies. My daily work is delivered to me by DHL, and I don't think any DHL driver has ever seen me dressed (on the rare occasions he even sees me). My neighbors, I'm sure, assume that I am disabled to the point of being incapable of dressing myself, since I often toddle down the street to the mailbox at noon... still in my jammies. Actually, in the summer months, they should be grateful that I'm even wearing jammies, since my daytime attire is, shall we say, much flimsier.

I tried to provide quantitative data on the current number of home workers In the US, but, A) I don't do statistics since they intrinsically involve numbers, and B) the Department of Labor tables I did find were so minuscule I couldn't see them on the screen, let alone interpret them. I did find that in 2004 it was estimated that 20 million people worked at home, either as employees or in their own businesses, and I heard this morning on the Today show that the number is now estimated to be 40% of the work force.

That's a LOT of jammies!

If the clothing manufacturers were paying attention, we'd see a proliferation of comfy clothing designed for the work-at-home crowd -- something a tad more presentable than silk knit pajamas imprinted with little blue dogs. I suppose velour sweat pants with a matching jacket would do... but that's entirely too much like getting dressed for me.

When I was still playing the corporate executive game, I spent a LOT of money on business attire -- and I even remember budgeting 30 minutes each morning to "accessorize." Jesus! I still have all those scarves, necklaces, brooches and doodads... stuffed in a box, high in my closet. My only concession to accessories these days is to clean my glasses on alternate Tuesdays.

One of my sons recently joined the jammy brigade and rapidly discovered the blessings of working at home, although he is an employee, not an entrepreneur, and the dynamic is a bit different. He's tethered to his Blackberry, where I'm free to not answer the damn phone if I so choose. He is able to answer email while running household errands, but that wouldn't work for me since they make you turn off your cell phone in movie theaters. Yes, I sneak out to the movies as often as there's something worth viewing, (Charlie Wilson's War, for instance.)

I know that, for me, productivity is overwhelmingly greater working at home, but it also requires a bit more self-discipline than working in an office. There aren't the same distractions at home (15 people stopping by to say hi, bring you a donut or sit on your desk to bitch and gossip), but the distractions are there. For instance, my refrigerator is only 18 paces away, which is NOT a good thing. The nearest bathroom, however, is only nine feet from my desk, which saves, I'm sure, at least an hour a day in traveling time.

In the summer I get distracted by the LOUD chattering of magpies and jays in the oak tree next door, and in the winter the drama of wind and rain draws me away from my small office window to the wider vista from my living room. During last week's storm (you heard about it on national news) I counted each of the five billion oak leaves that sailed into my yard, then wondered where I could get sandbags if the rain didn't stop. (It did..)

The Internet, of course, is the biggest distraction -- but that's not limited to those working at home. In 2005, it was estimated that fooling around on the Internet cost American businesses $178 billion in lost productivity -- and certainly by now that number is even higher. That surely beats the numbers from previous decades of money lost around the water cooler.

I'll admit the Internet is my biggest downfall -- from email to blogging to stopping by a chat room, to just plain surfing. Since my income depends on meeting contractual deadlines, however, it's not the problem it may be for others... particularly employees. A business-owner friend recently installed stealth software and found one employee spending nearly six hours daily on Yahoo, and another employee playing Internet games a couple of hours each day -- or maybe I should say former employees.

Home workers do have genuine isolation to deal with, but some of us treasure that above all. Those who miss interaction manage to stay electronically connected with the outside world, and often stay more connected with their families, who are sometimes underfoot.

The lack of a daily commute is a huge all-around benefit to working at home. Maybe we who work in our jammies deserve a "green" tax credit for our smaller carbon footprints... or maybe not paying that $3.25/gallon price is reward enough. I'm down to one tank of gas a month, but then I enjoy atypical, official "hermit" status. My fuel consumption will be reduced further once spring hits, since I plan to take my granny cart and hike the two miles to the grocery store. I only hope I remember to change from my jammies to jeans.

Well, nice chatting with you. I have to start a load of laundry, empty the dishwasher, take a shower and put on fresh jammies and, oh yes, get to work.

Playing With The Language

I love the English language. I've loved it since I was two years old, learning the alphabet from a bottle of Mt. Rose Milk in Reno -- since I was three, reading "Peppy, The Lonely Little Puppy" which now lays at the bottom of a trunk filled with childhood detritus -- and since I was five, being sneaked into first grade by my mom, who had changed the date on my birth certificate. The math and social skills given to other kids completely passed me by, but I did get a double scoop of language ability, thank you very much.

The Internet is both a boon and bane for the English language. Even though many bemoan the diminished production of print media, I suspect we're reading more than ever. Unless you only check You Tube and play video games, you're reading on the Internet -- which also means someone is writing.

Some of the shortcuts and degradation of the language make me crazy -- usually written by the high school and middle school crowd who use "textspeak" online as they do with the cell phones that have been grafted to their palms. And you really can't hang out in a chat room for more than five minutes without some Lothario sending you the seductive instant message "wut r u waring." O be still my heart.

For an English aficionado who has alphabet soup in her veins, reading Internet content can often be painful, where grammar goes on Strunk & White safari, spelling (even with electronic spellcheckers, for God's sake) pushes the creative envelope, and punctuation follows no known conventions. Still, breezing through the blogosphere the other day I came across two marvelous collections: A list of phobias and a dictionary of collective nouns. This time, really, be still my heart.

I'll let you enjoy the collectives on your own -- they are original, charming and hilarious. I'm going to tackle the meatier phobias.

It seems that for every possible human condition there is an associated fear. Who knew someone could actually be afraid of the figure 8?

The person who compiled this list did not indicate whether these are actual diagnoses made in a clinical setting, or if they are simply word constructs. Given our current penchant to find a psychosis now where individuality used to be celebrated, I personally suspect the overeager clinician.... but, whatever.

I myself have had a touch of dentophobia - fear of dentists, and even mottephobia - fear of moths. I think that, particularly in election years, we all have a brush with politicophobia - fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.

If I were really attuned to politically correct speech, I wouldn't dare call your attention to the following phobias in case, by some wild chance, a victim of one might possibly read this and be offended or psychologically damaged beyond repair.

Too bad. I happen to believe that PC language is one of the worst bastardizations of English that has occurred in the 20th and 21st centuries, so I will list some and I will not apologize for doing so. Besides... some of these are really funny.

• Alliumphobia- Fear of garlic.
• Allodoxaphobia- Fear of opinions.
• Anuptaphobia- Fear of staying single.
• Arachibutyrophobia- Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth.
• Arithmophobia- Fear of numbers.
• Aulophobia- Fear of flutes.
• Auroraphobia- Fear of Northern lights.
• Autodysomophobia- Fear of one that has a vile odor.
• Automatonophobia- Fear of ventriloquist's dummies, animatronic creatures, wax statues - anything that falsely represents a sentient being.
• Bolshephobia- Fear of Bolsheviks.
• Bogyphobia- Fear of bogeys or the bogeyman.
• Caligynephobia- Fear of beautiful women.
• Carnophobia- Fear of meat.
• Chaetophobia- Fear of hair.
• Coulrophobia- Fear of clowns.
• Dentophobia- Fear of dentists.
• Euphobia- Fear of hearing good news.
• Genuphobia- Fear of knees.
• Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia- Fear of the number 666.
• Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- Fear of long words. (Irony?)
  
• Lachanophobia- Fear of vegetables.
• Lutraphobia- Fear of otters.
• Octophobia - Fear of the figure 8.
• Panophobia or Pantophobia- Fear of everything.
• Papaphobia- Fear of the Pope.
• Pentheraphobia- Fear of mother-in-law. (Novercaphobia)
• Phobophobia- Fear of phobias.
• Politicophobia- Fear or abnormal dislike of politicians.
• Porphyrophobia- Fear of the color purple.
• Pteronophobia- Fear of being tickled by feathers.
• Pupaphobia - Fear of puppets.
• Symbolophobia- Fear of symbolism.
• Verbophobia- Fear of words.
• Walloonphobia- Fear of the Walloons.

Some of my favorites were missing from the complete list:

• Britnyophobia - Fear of American pop culture
• Charminophobia - Fear of running out of toilet tissue
• Oshaphobia - Fear of the "ding, ding, ding" on backups.
  
• Fivedollarophobia - Fear of the price of a gallon of gas and a cup of Starbucks being equal
• Atkinsophobia - Fear of carbohydrates
• Pritikinophobia - Fear of butter
• Speedophobia - Fear of not fitting into last year's swimsuit
• TheViewophobia - Fear of having to ever watch Rosie again
• Sixtysecondophobia - Fear of DVR breakdown and having to watch commercials
• .... and my personal favorite: Caninedishabiliophobia - Fear of undressing in front of my dog.