Life of Wry

Huller om buller is a swedish phrase that means all discombobulated, or mixed up, or messy.  Or helter-skelter, topsy-turvy, pell-mell, upside-down… you get the idea.  It’s a phrase I use a lot when I’m out of sorts (and talking to myself in Swedish, which I do a lot, actually) (silently, of course).

Today.. feeling waaay out of sorts, this time in a technology way.  I find myself at the base of the learning curve with a few recently acquired gadgets , gizmos, and applications, and some existing tech staples.  This is a very unstable and uncomfortable place for me as I am so, sadly, technophobic.  It’s a funny brand of technophobia.. I’m out-of-the-gate fuh-reaked out by technology, but also eagerly drawn to the latest techno-gizmo.  Scared of it, want it, scared, want.  Always a battle.  I want, of course, the functionality, capacity, efficiency, effectiveness–whatever–but the effort it takes to get there is painful, and overcoming the initial barrier and calmly navigating the unfamiliar turf is ridiculously challenging.  Embarrassingly so.  But, of course, it’s never, NEVER as hard as I knee-jerkily imagine and once that barrier is overcome, and some facility has been established, I wonder why I didn’t just plow forward in the first place.  Naturally, I want to think of myself as an early adopter, for smart and with-it reasons, or if for no other reason than to buck gender stereotypes.  It’s why I wish I’d used my early math prowess (long since gone flaccid) to become an engineer, as if to drive home: hey, there’s a brain in here and it can kick ass!  But I didn’t.  It confounds me.. this techophobia.. I find it so limiting, stupidly timid, and humiliating.  And yet, I can’t deny the hyperventilation at the mere suggestion that I 1) research something 2) order something 3) install something 4) RTFM and/or figure out how to make something work.. it’s all enough to make me cry.  Which, nothing makes me cry and become breathlessly anxiety-ridden (you should see this) like technology.  And nobody seems to get that.  At least not my husband.  Which, I hate.  I HATE that technology has that power, the power to bring out the absolute worst in my otherwise competent gender, that technophobia is somehow imprinted in my DNA. What a rip.  I’m left to act out my prowess in other ways (athletically? wildernessly?), while technology is the mouse that has me shrieking and scrambling to the top of a stool.

Anyway.

It’s not all bad.  Here’s what’s happening on my tech front:

1. First.  A Garmin.  OMG.  I repeat: O.M.F.G.  This one’s a game changer, a life changer… the perfect blend of technology and real honest to goodness, on the ground value.  This brand new high tech gadget was surprisingly easy to get up to speed on, right out of the box (which, thankfully, I never saw, as it just magically appeared, already installed, on my dashboard) and is the neatest, most insanely useful thing I’ve ever owned.  I know, GPS has been around for decades, but this is my first and I can hardly believe what it can do.  And of course most cars have them embedded in the dashboards and have for years… I just never had one of those cars.  And well… now we have a Garmin and it’s amazing.  Just incredibly amazing.  It’s surprising how modern it makes a person feel (this person), and how it can enhance a person’s technology self-worth.  That’s me right now.. all puffed up.

2. Roku.  Not the same degree of game changing (though, in theory, it’s a significant industry game changer), and not the same level of mastery and puffery, but wow.  It is quite cool to be able to stream movies and TV shows and all manner of programming that comes right out of my computer.  Nice to say good riddance to cable and commercial TV.  But it hasn’t represented the same level of value as the Garmin because TV watching is not part of our daily lives and that is largely because we haven’t, or I haven’t, figured out how to use the various media that we currently have–satellite, broadcast, DVD–so adding Roku has just muddied the waters and made it yet more complex to Turn. On. The. Flippin. TV.  Between the dish, the broadcast antenna (you should see this thing that balances upon a stack of 18 books–to give it the proper elevation–atop our last-century TV), the DVD player and now the Roku, plus the switcher unit we now have to supposedly effortlessly go between the various sources… there are just too many boxes, cables, remote controls, settings, and well, it’s ridiculous.   In fact, it’s been a deal breaker.  I cannot bear the tediousness EACH and EVERY time I want to watch a TV show, so I just don’t watch TV.  But, if you have 30 minutes and a boat load of patience, you can actually get the desired show, largely by trial and error, to appear on the screen and that’s sometimes worthwhile, depending upon whether it’s something totally worth watching, like the Academy Awards or the World Series.  But now, for better or for worse, the Roku is in the picture, and suddenly we can watch movies from our Netflix queue, I have no idea how we do this, but I’m guessing it’s worth figuring out, and I can imagine it’s a world about to burst open with possibilities.  And when I have some time, I’m going to figure it all out and label all the cables and our switcher device and make a spread sheet that explains how to get from one thing to another, and then it will be a joy to watch movies and TV shows again.  I hear there are some good ones out there.

3. Google Plus.  Knew it would happen.  Just as the whole world–well, 700 million of them–finally got on Facebook, and every corporation and nonprofit organization updated its brand and proudly announced that they can be found on Facebook, and I no longer have to convince the naysayers that social media is here to stay and Facebook is the place to be…. Google comes along with a better mouse trap.  And I’m duly excited about this and at the same time filled with dread and resentment.  It rocks my world and I don’t want my world rocked, even if it might improve the way I communicate with my friends and family and get my news and everything.  So far, Google Plus looks sparkly and clean, but EVERYTHING’s different.  Now I don’t friend someone, I circle them, and instead of liking things, I have to +1 them.  The terminology’s new, the functionality is enhanced (we’re told), but it’s annoyingly different, and hard to adjust to, and it’s overwhelming to imagine setting up shop in a whole nuther social media neighborhood.  Hard to predict if Google+ will get traction and become the dominant social media platform, but I guess I’ll play along, keep feet in both doors, but I didn’t really need this in my life–one more thing to keep current on.  I know: such the problems.  I’ll shut up.

4. Blackberry.  Not all that new, have had it for about 9 months, but I’m still plodding along at about 10% capacity, barely scratching the surface of what a smart phone can do, breaking into a sweat if I actually have to use it to make a phone call, because that part’s not readily obvious to me and plus, it feels like I’m talking into a shoe (Maxwell Smart anyone?), it’s so non-phone like and stiff and has no mouthpiece.  I know.  Get used to it.  I am, but still.  It’s like the TV… I used to just use it. Now, not so much.

5. Macbook Pro.  Damn, this one really hurts.  I made the switch to Mac, what, a year and a half ago?  I can barely talk about this, it’s so upsetting; I have no idea how to use this thing.  Again, I’m crawling along at about 1% capacity.  I can do some basic things, but heaven help me if something goes awry, or I need to find a file, or figure out why something isn’t going fast enough, or is making the wrong kind of noise.  Need lessons in basic operations, file organization, maintenance, back ups, is what I need, just to be functional.  Never mind all the fantastic things I always heard about Macs and how intuitive they are and what fabulous tools and applications they have and how integrate-able they are with all your other Apple products, of which I have none.  I like it, I do, but am so clumsy and limited.  I feel like a fake Mac person.  About to plunk down big bucks on a Mac consultant who charges a lot for house calls.  How insane is that?  I know there are classes (somewhere), tech support resources, Apple Bars, online forums, but I don’t know what I don’t know and can’t fathom where to start (see some of the paragraphs, above).  I have a book.  Yes, I do.  I’ll read it.. sometime.  Just overwhelmed’s all.  Just add it to the big, huge tech pile of doom.

So…..     need to stop whining; it’s only tech.    But that’s what huller om buller means.  A term I thought of when I chose today’s picture–a tangle of whispy vegetation, rays of sun, algae and water–a messy mess of an image (if pretty), that reminded me of my messy, complicated tech situation, which lead to an incoherent rambly rant.  See? Huller om buller.