Get Smart

"Is this the power button?": Max and 99 at work

By the time I was a little sprout in the 1970's, my future work in television was confirmed thanks to watching our spanking new TV as much as I could. Angels said good morning to Charlie, the Fonz said hey and Arnold wondered what Willis was talkin' about. But nothing came close to the masterful and suspense-filled sitcom showcasing the irreplaceable Don Adams as Max and the mesmerizing Barbara Feldon as Agent 99 in Get Smart. And 99 was who I wanted to be - smart, sassy, always knowing how to handle any situation and all that 1970's satin just made a complete fan out of me. I mean, we didn't even know her real name, she was that mysterious. When it was time to remove my bicycle training wheels, my belief that 99 would definitely manage on two wheels helped me get it together on my bike to wobble down the street gripping my handlebars. She probably wouldn't have kept a front flower basket holding her Barbie dolls, but whatever; I channeled my mini-99 for at least one block before skidding off into the bushes and scraping both knees with aplomb. Victory was mine!

Fast forward many years later and it's time once again to access my Inner Agent 99. Complicated international development politics and contradictions? Nope. Bureaucratic donor reporting and partnership issues? Ha! I wish. Figuring out how to work my new android phone to track my data usage and to find the nearest Trader Joe's? That's what I'm talking about, people. The smartphone. 

Those phones sure are smart. And there are many of them, lurking in wait for the unsuspecting customer. I swear I could feel them watching me from their display cases as I walked by. Apple or Samsung? Widgets vs Apps. AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile or pre-paid? What is a widget, anyway? I ask because I just saw yesterday that I have many of them on my phone homepage (when I can get to it.) Instagram now has a photo of my socks and I'm not sure how it got there; pinterest sends me pictures of cooking results on a board I can't find anymore. Twitter remains a distant possibility but for someone as high context as me, I think it would just be the last draw to summarize anything in a handful of words...or tweets, come to think of it.

CC: "I have ways of making you speak to me!"

It is not easy to select a smartphone. Here in California, the question of what kind of smartphone to get is 99% of the time met with the most incredulous of stares. It is the home of Apple and Steve Jobs, after all. Thus the idea that anyone would consider anything else is about as unbelievable as getting charged for rice in Chinatown! Expressions of such wonder over what possible reality could unfold through such a question. After surveying about 100 people over the last few months and getting some pretty strong reactions, ("oh, I thought you meant which iphone to buy...you mean you might buy something other than an iphone?!  I have no idea what to suggest...I just would never think of anything besides a mac/iphone...")  I gave up and made my own independent decision. The fact that the LA County School district just ordered new ipads for all the students speaks yet again to the GENIUS that was Steve Jobs. I do love going into an Apple store and just touching everything there - and who doesn't love every single second of the heart warming iPhone photo every day and music every day commercials? The piano music just grabs me from the first note...that little girl in the pink bunny suit taking her own picture fills my eyes every time...the guy running while snapping a shot is just the model of multi tasking....and the uber fit girl jumping rope to her own beat is one cool chick and did I mention I want her abs?....and then, and then, and then....

My questioning does not intend to give flack to the mac. It's simply born out of an innate curiosity about what motivates people to do what they do, and the basic fact that THIS GIRL NEEDS SOME TECH HELP FOLKS! And it's not just what people use, it's how they use it and what people have stopped doing that's so interesting. Here's a sample of the tech advice I've received since returning back to the States:

"if you buy that smartphone, you'll have lower apps access --only about 30,000. This one over here, has access to about 45,000." - so that's what's been missing in my life: 15,000 apps.

"No one picks up the phone and calls anyone. A text message is the only thing that gets answered." (more than a few people have added, "oh and Claude, no one says 'sms' in the states. They send a text, not an sms.")

"If you call people without first sending a text saying you will call, people are less likely to answer the phone. Or they'll think you're in trouble and calling for help because it's so out of the blue."

"Why would I call someone? If I did, then I'd have to listen to everything they say." --my personal favorite tip. That person better not have been talking about me.

Getting all those insights reminded me of the secret Starbucks menu  - once you are in the know, the world is simply a different place.

"buy a biscotti and give it to the barista..."

I like sending texts. I like getting them. And I also like hearing someone's voice on the phone. But time marches on, phone or no phone. I get it, the value of texts is great because its quick, convenient, and gets around bad reception --both the phone and personal kind. It helps to secure a more customized way to manage communication and can be less distracting than a phone call. And if there is one word that sums up coming back home to sort out what one wants in a phone, it is customization for sure. I find it funny that on a regular basis, I receive text messages that easily took longer to type out than to just call directly.  But come to think of it, that perspective more likely means I'm a slow phone typer. Apparently, it's true --as a 40+ year old, I am automatically on the wrong end of the Bell curve when it comes to driving in the fast lane of the tech highway. Maybe I'm not even to the on-ramp yet?

To be clear, I love my new smart phone. I just don't love being so outsmarted. Does it even make sense to have a smartphone in the age of ipads and the like, I wonder. Any tips out there? Hello? Can anyone hear me?

Maybe I should text you instead.

The final choice. Where is 99 when I  need her?

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice, wear your own watch.

Back in my expat planet days, my pre-home leave rituals included pulling out a nice clean piece of white printer paper where with my big fat sharpie marker I would write two words across the top in big letters: TO BUY. New sneakers, workout clothes, some yoga gadget, ziplock bags, cosmetics, jeans and that gem of a no brainer - bras (hello, show me a 5 ft 10in woman who says she can buy bras in Asia and you're seeing of course a LIAR!). Sometimes, depending on my mood and actual exercise levels, the list would reach to the back page. Once ensconced in the land of plenty, I would keep that list nearby while also learning to be online savvy with amazon.com or zappos.com prior to my long haul flights. Family and friends, when informed of the incoming packages to their addresses would murmur understandingly and make appropriately supportive sounds of appreciation.

I could at times be known to book dates for Target or REI before family lunches or trips to the beach. But hey, I was on home leave and as such was afforded a larger leash of understanding regarding my clearly understandable and natural thirst to buy stuff. And it wasn't like my overseas locations didn't have stuff or anything, it just wasn't the kind of stuff that I needed, apparently.

One thing I very rarely bought was a magazine. Loftily considering myself  immune to the pulls of marketing and advertising, I would have explained that the things on my list were not just any old stuff things but instead were critical pieces that I needed since I could not get them "back home" in Kenya, Nepal or wherever that place was. The argument went something like this: I don't shop at all there, so it's ok to shop here in fewer larger swoops. The term I believe, is called "binge shopping" and yes dearie, that self help literature has it right that DENIAL is not a river in Egypt.

Now, with some longer exposure to the beauty mag ads and to fitting right into the typical demographic for such page splashes, I'm thinking the following: I'm an easy mark. Example? the other morning, after rising from a night of restless sleep and monkey mind, I splashed cold water on my face and peered into the morning mirror. What was that? I wondered, peering more closely at my sleepy complexion. Was that laugh line there yesterday? And that there, is my forehead blotchy like that all the time? No worries, I think I read somewhere yesterday about some new cream that will smooth out uneven complexions and reduce signs of wrinkles within 48 hours. 

O_M_G. I'd gone and done it. I fell right into the trap of marketing and patronizing promises of rolled back time and fresh-facedness before even having had my cup of decaf coffee. Nice going, marketers! Consider yourselves brilliant and mission accomplished. One step of neurosis for Claudia M Chang, one giant step for Consumption and Insecurity Ltd.  I snapped out of it but couldn't help but notice that I'd not had that kind of morning narrative literally in  *years.*

Don't get me wrong. I'm not getting up on a soapbox and decrying the pitfalls of consumption and consumer power of purchasing. Personal choices about managing our physical, emotional and spiritual lives are totally  that --personal and everyone has an inherent right to exercise those choices without judgement. Stepping into a Sephora can make me forget my first and last name and I'll admit it loud and proud (and had my above morning moment stayed on longer than that first mirror glance, I'd probably still be in that shop now, lost among the shelves of goodies.). What bugged me about that moment was the slice of concern I felt over my physical appearance and life journey going seemingly in some pre-determined and inarticulated wrong direction. Of being late for something but not clear what. And because I chose something other than compassion and care to my reflection, that marketing moment of concern moved right on in  --one moment too many, I'd say.

Guys are not off the hook either. From the number of mags I've seen promising guys all the muscle tone in the world as well as everlasting virility for general mantasticness  - well it seems there is an equal opportunity platform for these various pitfalls.

Proceed with caution...and compassion.

The idea that there is something wrong with your appearance as it naturally is and that you can fix it with this PRODUCT is not new. For as long as people strive to learn, grow, and improve, there are welcome and true ways to help bring out the best in ones self. But wow. It's quite a shock to be immersed again into the near constant assault that is the women's magazine industry that bombards one with constant messages about some nebulous nirvana that awaits simply through a snap of the wallet. Let's not get started on photoshop. So it seems that these publications all rest on the assumption that who we are au natural is just not good enough. Or am I missing some deeper message of appreciation, that I'm worth it, just like the L'Oreal hair color ads explain?

Each time I'm passing a magazine, which in pretty much any store is about every 5 seconds, I now notice a ticker tape question stream running through my head: What if we all accepted ourselves completely and totally as we were, especially physically but in all aspects of our lives and path? What if we did that even while recognizing things we wanted to change about ourselves? What if we were truly in touch with every aspect of our lives and beliefs, especially about authentic love for ourselves and others? And finally, what if we could sit comfortably with any discomfort about things we wanted to change with kindness and humor? 

I bet those mirror meetings would look a lot different.
 

Good morning Sassy!

The Jump

“There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two small jumps.”

Throughout my life I have heard variants on the above quote that today, when staring at my blank document, seemed flat out, bulls’eye, dead on. As I then remembered I had no idea who actually stated the above wisdom, I did what any smartie these days does: googled it, of course. So while Wikipedia attributes the quote to some random British politician, it also indicates that various Chinese, Russian, Greek, African and American folklore lay claim to the wise insight that some decisions, some actions and some accomplishments simply require a significant amount of kinetic energy with a life of its own. Going for it in a sort-of-kind-of-way just does not cut it at times. Back it up, get moving, and *go for it*. She who hesitates is not just lunch, but a free fall heap landing no where near intended.

With a nod to a lovely sense of cosmic gestation, it was just about 9 months ago I returned to the US after nearly a decade overseas in various regions. The professional aspects of that time, as well as many more personal dimensions, shadow box with the more present experiences of the more recent and present repatriation. Over the last months, I’ve experienced a range of emotions that ebb and flow like some kind of life tide table –certain times are high, low, in between, and always helixing back towards a natural cycle of the human experience.  And as a long time writer, sometime editor and always opinioned gal, I’ve started shifting through various ideas, writings, illustrations, sketchings and photos that now seem to come together a bit more closely in their own tectonic way to take shape in the form of this posting site.

The purpose of these upcoming writings, if there is one now or ever, is to muse and reflect on what it means for me to be back here, to have been *there*, and to offer highly individualized and therefore subjective and personalized takes on that fascinating, complex and ridiculously entertaining idea of *global citizenship* in the context of returning back to the US. Now now, don’t get carried away and think that reading this site means you have to comb your hair, get your morning coffee and sit up straight. Nope. It’s just some stuff I’m writing, and from time to time, maybe others will chime in with a guest appearance or just weigh in through comments below. But the point is, like it or not, each of us goes home at some point. Maybe to stay, maybe not for long, and maybe just through our own memories or minds’ eye. Home can change in context and comfort. But we do go home, in whatever form that takes for us.  Let's take a look, shall we?