Irene Smith

I have finally had to come to the conclusion that I can’t do everything. I was trying to update this blog weekly, write a book, participate on Brigit’s Flame by writing a short story every week, study for Microsoft Certification, and also do my real job, the one that pays the bills. This left very little time for everyday things like, oh, sleep and spending time with my family.

I just couldn’t do it. Trying to do too many things at once caused a system crash (my system, not the computer) and I just haven’t felt like doing anything for several months. My health has been suffering and so has my psyche. The whole experience just made me feel sorry for myself and left me incapable of accomplishing much of anything. The few stories I did manage to write got me nothing more than a bunch of rejections.

Is it time for me to give up on writing? Maybe I’m just fooling myself. I thought that I write well. Most of the people who read my stories like them (except for the magazine editors, apparently) so if I haven’t figured out what I’m doing wrong by now, maybe I should just quit.

Why can’t I do that? No matter how many rejections I get, I find myself writing again. It builds up, like water pressure behind a clog in a pipe and after a while, I start getting story ideas that swoop and dive around my head like crazed birds until I sit down at the keyboard and get them out there. I can’t help myself.

My husband took me and our son to Olive Garden tonight for dinner. The place was beginning to fill up with Saturday night customers so we had to add our name to the list for a table. I went up to the hostess and said to her,”I’d like a table for three.” I paused and said, “Smith.”

“Thank you. What is your first name?”

How is that relevant? I looked at the hostess as she stood, pen poised over paper, waiting for my answer. Reluctantly I said, “Irene.”

This raised a question that I’ve pondered more than once. That is:

When did we become so informal?

Once upon a time young people didn’t address those who were obviously older by their first name. I might enjoy the thought that maybe I look younger than I am, but the truth is that, when I was a little girl, people didn’t address others that they didn’t know by their first name. When you added yourself to a list at a restaurant, you gave the hostess or maitre ‘d your last name and then when it was your turn they would say, “Smith, party of three.”

This change does not just apply to restaurants. When you go to the doctor’s office these days you never hear a nurse say, “Mrs. Smith, could you come with me, please?” It’s always, “Irene,” and then they turn and walk away without saying any more. Now you’ve got to scurry after them as quickly as possible, hoping that they don’t get too far ahead for you to find them again because almost every doctor’s office is a maze of examining rooms but that’s another blog entry.

When I go to the bank, not a common occurrance since my husband usually takes care of our finances, the teller calls me Irene, when I used my credit card at WalMart, the 15-year old at the register says, “Here you go Irene,” when she hands my card back to me. I have been married to my husband for 15 years now and I can count the number of times I have been addressed as “Mrs. Smith” on the fingers of one hand.

Even in the work place, formality has gone by the wayside. I am as guilty as any of calling the CEO of the company I work for by his first name but, now that I think of it, I’m wondering if that’s the best thing for us all? Would we respect each other more if I called him Mr. Sherif and he called me Mrs. Smith?

Some people seem to feel that this informality is a good thing. “Why be so formal?” they say. “It’s so much more friendly the other way.”

At first thought, that seems to be true. However, consider your childhood. To whom were you more respectful, the teacher you had to call “Mrs. Smith” or the kid on the other side of the aisle that you called “Bobby?” I’m betting that Mrs. Smith would have won out.

This is going to be a short post tonight. I’ve been fighting with a ‘flu for the past two weeks, it’s late, and I’m tired.

I had my 50th birthday this week. I find it hard to believe (somehow I don’t remember when I became this old) but there it is. I imagine that a lot of the complaining that I’ve been doing lately has something to do with adjusting to–what? middle age? early old age? I’ve reached a point in my life where most people are satisfied with who they have beomce or they are busy bemoaning their fate and trying to understand what went wrong. Me? I’m thinking about going back to school. I’m thinking about trying to start a whole new career, and I’m looking forward to the birth of my fifth grandchild.

Then again, while I was far advanced with intellectual things like reading and writing and ‘rithmetic, I’ve always been behind the curve when it comes to social and career milestones. For example, I didn’t buy my first car until I was nearly 30 years old and didn’t marry until I was 35. And yet in usual fashion for me, it all worked out well because when I did marry, I married a man with two grown-up children. I became a grandmother before I gave birth for the first time.

Lately it seems as though a lot of things have been going badly wrong. My father died, I had a credit card taken away from me (not that the loss of a credit card compares to my father’s death) and I can’t seem to get any reaction to my writing but “thanks, but no thanks.” I’ve been tired and sick and just feeling sorry for myself. Then this weekend came along and I had to admit that things aren’t so bad after all.

In fact, so far this weekend has been absolutely perfect. Two of my granddaughters came to spend Thursday and Friday night with us. We played computer games together, we talked, we made pizza and we watched movies. Then tonight my step-son and daughter-in-law came with my grandson and we all went out to dinner. I looked around that the table for eight at the restaurant tonight and thought, “How can anybody be luckier than this?”

It got me thinking about how very lucky I really am in so many ways. For example (and this is in no particular order):

• True, my father died. On the other hand, he was 85 years old and I was nearly 50. I have some close friends whose parents died before they graduated high school. My son has been lucky enough to know his grandfather and my father was around long enough to see that he did a good job raising me. I know he was proud of me.
• I was lucky enough to have my paternal grandmother in my life until I was in my 40s. She died at the age of 99 in 2003 when I was 44 years old.
• I have a husband who loves me so much that he was willing to move from New York State to Washington State (and greater love hath no man for woman, than to drive across country with a nearly 3-year old child) and then to pick up and move back again 4 years later when my father had a stroke.
• I dearly love both of my step-children and their spouses. When my husband and I were married, my step-daughter was Maid of Honor and my step-son Best Man.
• I adore all four (soon to be five) of my grandchildren.
• I have a good job at a time when many people have lost theirs through no fault of their own.
• We managed to get a mortgage for a brand new house right before everything fell apart. I love my home and so did my father when he visited us. Our home is a place where friends feel welcome and I love entertaining.
• I have good friends who care about me.
• My husband is still addicted to me even though we’ve been together for nearly 25 years.

Who could ask for anything more? It would just be greedy.

Is it Saturday already? No?

Actually, today is Sunday and I messed up. Hence the title of this week’s post. If you are shaking your head in confusion at this point I don’t blame you. Let me explain…

Normally I work at home on Friday. My boss is away on vacation this week. She is out of reach by phone or email. I had to be in the office on Friday in case something happened that couldn’t be managed long distance. That little change in my routine threw off everything. To make matters worse, I took two days off earlier in the week to visit with friends from Seattle. I have absolutely no sense of what day it really is.

At least half a dozen times yesterday I thought, “It’s Saturday, I have to write my post.” Then I promptly became involved in programming, writing, or any number of less productive things (like farming on the Facebook app Farmville) and forgot all about it. Don’t worry, it’s just a minor setback. We’ll be back on track next week.

This little error made me think, however, about how much of our lives we spend doing things without thinking about them. Sometimes this is good. For example, the fact that you drive to work the same way every day (if you are unlucky enough to have to drive) means that you don’t have to concentrate to hard on the how of getting to work. You know where to turn, where the traffic lights are and you automatically slow down for the spot where the policeman always hides behind the billboard to catch speeders.

On the other hand, when there is construction along the way, it is extremely difficult to change the route, even if by going a different way you could avoid the delay. We all face this trade-off between habit and thought. And, unfortunately, advertisers are counting on habit winning the battle. This isn’t new. As long as there has been advertising, advertisers have counted on the fact that, once they have won you over, they’ve got you for life. Once they have convinced you to buy, they want you to continue to buy automatically. They don’t want you to think about it.

This type of message is usually reasonably subtle but some aren’t. Lately WalMart has been running an ad on television lately where a woman says (as well as I can remember it), “Luckily WalMart checks the prices of all its competitors so I don’t have to.”

They’re counting on you to do the same. They want you to assume that the WalMart price is the best price, turn on the automatic pilot and shop at WalMart for everything. With our economy in the shape it is, we can’t afford to do that anymore. We have to check out the prices, even when it takes longer. Don’t assume that anybody is the best. Check it out.

By the way, I am not advocating that you not shop at WalMart, I am just saying that you need to compare before you buy.

Case in point I recently bought a new computer. Before I did, I went on the Internet and looked at Best Buy, WalMart, Tiger Direct, and Sam’s Club. I found what I thought would be a good deal at Best Buy. Then I hit the stores.

My husband said, “You should look at Staples too, while we’re out.” I walked in and found that they were having a sale. For less than the price Best Buy wanted, I was able to get a computer with everything the Best Buy computer had plus it had a larger hard drive and for just $20 more than the 2-year warranty, I was able to get a four-year waranty that covered parts, labor, and surge damage.

I nearly bought it on the spot. Then I looked at my husband and I realized that he was going to hold me to my promise to look at Sam’s Club, WalMart, and Best Buy as well. So we did.

Then we went back to Staples and purchased the computer I wanted, confident in the knowledge that we had gotten the best possible deal. We compared features, prices, and service and settled on the best computer for the least money. I ended up saving over $100 and got a more powerful computer than I would have if I had assumed that Best Buy (or WaloMart or Sam’s Club) had the best quality and price.

Will I buy my next computer from Staples? Maybe. If they still have the best computer for the best price, of course. But I am not going to do it out of habit.

Our parents taught us and we teach our children that if you are nice to others and fair in your dealings, others will be nice and fair to you. If you want to find a place where this is clearly not true, all you need to do is ride mass transit. Take a look at the PATH or the New Yorki City Subway. When those doors whoosh open, there is a general stampede for a seat such that anyone who is polite (doesn’t push and shove) is guaranteed to be standing.

There are signs that say, “Please give this seat to the elderly or infirm.” How old is elderly? If you are 17 and you see someone who looks as though they must be in their 60s, is that “old” enough? Apparently not. I have seen men and women in their twenties and thirties watch an octogenarian stand holding on to the pole for dear life. Have I given up my seat? I hardly ever have one but I have given my seat up more than once to people who seemed more needy than I.

There are other things too…

Most cars have a sign that says, no eating, drinking, smoking or open food containers. More than once I’ve seen people sit directly across from one of those signs while eating a McDonald’s value meal or drinking a Dunkin Donuts iced coffee. Of course, what doesn’t occur to these people who feel they “have the right” to eat and drink whenever and wherever they wish is that it doesn’t take much of a jolt to make them drop food and/or beverages.

I mean, if you spill your coffee down my back in the morning, are you prepared to pay to have my clothing cleaned or to replace a completely destroyed garment? In my case, a disaster like that would mean either buying new clothes or sitting around in wet, smelly clothes all day long.

And there are even smaller things. If you are carrying a huge suitcase, backpack, or briefcase is it that difficult to figure out that the people around you are likely to be hit by it if you don’t pay attention when you move around? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hit in the face by a tall person’s backpack.

Then there’s my pet peeve. I’m short–barely five feet tall–and that means danger in a crowded car. Does it really take a genius to figure out that the small person in front of you might not want to have their nose jammed into your armpit? Or that if the paper you are holding at reading distance might be unpleasantly close to someone who doesn’t have room to back up? Would it really be so terrible if you couldn’t read the paper for one day?

So much of what I’m complaining about can be prevented with a little bit of consideration for the world around you but so many people are so self-absorbed that they seem completely unaware of anyone else.

We need not spend all of our time saying, “After you…”

“No, after you…”

All we need to do is take five seconds to look around and think, just a little bit, about how much more smoothly and pleasantly the world would work with just a touch of consideration. Just that little change would put us on the path to a much nicer world.

This is the beginning of the year of postings. I actually remembered. Starting today, I plan on posting one entry a week from now until next July.

I have this urge to run away from my life. There has been too much sorrow lately; so much that I don’t notice the good things that are surely happening as well. I want to hide, to be alone, and there isn’t time. I’m watching the movie Elizabethtown. It’s nearly over and Orlando Bloom is running around the flea market, looking for Kirsten Dunst. I’m certainly not looking for Kirsten Dunst, but I think I am looking for something. I just wish I knew what it was.

If I had the money to do it, I’d hop in the car and just drive away. I love my husband and my children and grandchildren, but this is a trip I’d take alone. Just me and a bunch of CDs with my favorite music.

I’d go looking for those places that people seldom notice and rarely visit. I’d visit museums and tourist traps. I would stop to eat when I felt like it and stop to sleep when I got tired. I’d check out big cities and small towns. I think it would be refreshing and invigorating, and when I came back, I’d be ready to go on. Of course few people get to do in real life what people get to do in movies.

Despite the fact that I have a really good job, I can’t afford to “run way” even for a few hours because there’s never any money left over. So I go on from day to day, building up a sleep deficit that I’ll never be able to pay back. Getting more and more emotionally exhausted by the day. I eat too much, I sleep too little, and I don’t know how to change it.

There is something very soothing about writing. I’m sitting here in the darkened living room (it’s daytime outside, but dark in here) with the television running the background (Elizabethtown has given way to The Truman Show) and the physical act of hitting the keys and seeing the words appear on the screen is soothing.

I’m trying to think of a cool way to close this off, but I can’t. So I’m just going to end it. Here.

See you next week…

On Sunday, May 10, 2009 my father died. He was 85 years old.

How do you summarize a person’s life? My Dad was on this planet for 85 years. He was a drummer, a photographer, and a business owner. He has held all those jobs and more as well, but to me he was just Daddy and, like most little girls, I thought that my Daddy was the strongest, the handsomest, and the smartest man alive.

In many of my earliest memories of my father, he had a camera in his hands. Mom and I were his favorite subjects. When I was a little girl, I loved having my picture taken. As soon as the camera came out, I began to pose and he was happy to snap shot after shot.

Not only did her take the pictures, he developed them in his home dark room. I will never forget the excitement of watching the image appear on a print that we had exposed and then bathed in chemicals. I remember dancing from one foot to the other as the picture gradually darkened on the paper, holding my breath, hoping that Dad would let me take the picture and plunge it into fresh water before turning on the light to examine the results.

For much of my childhood, Dad worked a long distance from home, first at West Point and then in New York City.

He left the house early in the morning and didn’t get home until late at night, often after I was in bed. When he was home, however, he always made the time we spent together special. Whether I needed help with a diorama for the Science Fair or a presentation for a Video course I was taking on how to produce a training video, Dad was there.
Dad had advice for every aspect of my life. I still remember the day he told me “If a man takes you out for dinner at a restaurant and there’s not a mushroom cap on the filet mignon, dump the guy.” Ok, so I didn’t always follow Dad’s advice but I always listened.

My father had so many wonderful qualities. He was a kind, generous, and caring man. When I had the measles and didn’t feel like eating, he found at least six different ways to serve up oranges in an attempt to get me to eat something. He was strong. When I foolishly stepped on a sewing needle and only the tiniest bit of the tip was left sticking out, he was strong enough to grab it and pull it from my foot with his bare hands. Yet this same tower of strength broke down and cried over the death of our family dog.

I think perhaps the most important lesson I learned from my father is that you have to find something to do that makes you happy and then go for it. At an age when most people are thinking of retiring, he went out on his own and started Graphics and then took over ownership of The Little Paper.

Together he and my mother built a business that has withstood the test of time, a business that is strong enough to continue without him.

When I was about six or seven, Dad brought home a bright red bicycle. Over the course of a long afternoon, he taught me to ride it. At first, he ran alongside me, holding the bike upright so that I wouldn’t fall. Once I began to have some confidence, he moved to a position behind the bicycle, still running along behind, holding me upright until he sensed (I’m not sure exactly how) that I was ready and then, quietly, without saying a word, he allowed me to ride off on my own.

Just as he did on that day, we now have to let go and allow him to leave us here as he moves off into the distance on his own. We will always miss him but he will never be completely gone as long as we hold these wonderful memories of him in our hearts.

Believe it or not, this July irenesmith.com will celebrate its tenth anniversary. According to whois, I purchased this domain in July of 1999. The site has been more active at some times than it has at others, but there has been something created by me, Irene Smith, at this domain continuously since 1999.

I first created my won web site in 1997 when I created a web site at GeoCities. Since then I have had many free and paid web sites in various locations but this site has been a constant since its creation back in ‘99.

My goal for the rest of this year is to post something new and (hopefully!) interesting to this site every week. We’ll see how I do.

• Published a new post: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-11 http://ping.fm/YFARO #
• Getting ready to start the day. I’m actually headed for work although I’d rather go back to bed. #

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• Good night world. It’s been a productive day but I’m crashing. #
• Published a new post: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-09 http://ping.fm/0cZ2R #
• Updated an old post: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-09 http://ping.fm/0cZ2R #
• Updated an old post: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-07 http://ping.fm/6ONiU #
• Updated an old post: Yes, I’m Raising Money Again http://ping.fm/V8eAb #
• Updated an old post: NaNoWriMo Progress Report http://ping.fm/RVMAX #
• Updated an old post: Twitter Updates for 2008-11-03 http://ping.fm/dCVIc #
• Wow I’ve been talking about word count a LOT lately. You’d think it was NaNoWriMo or something. Oh… it is. #

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