Modern Life

It is 1 am on a Wednesday night, an empty glass of red wine (not mine) a bag of atomic fireballs and some Bausch and Lomb Sensitive Eyes saline solution vie for position in front of the eMac, and I just realized that I have spent the past 30 minutes looking at photographs people posted to a group pool on flickr documenting the contents of their bags. Digital cameras, iPods, 15" laptops, moleskin notebooks and earnest paperbacks abound. And pens and tissues - thats is where I am going to put my 401k money - pen and tissue manufacturers. I would like to post a faux one - with a splayed open trash-bag: a few different types of spices, foil figurines, devil journals, French history books, powdered fox urine, a small xylophone, kaleidescope, zip-lock bag filled with Wendy's condiments, a signed Danielle Steel first edition, hair crimper, some Weeble Wobbles, etc. Behind me, my 2 year old Tuxedo cat Wynne perches on top of the drab gray futon - as the silent tv's changing beams of red/green/blue bathe her white "socks" in different permutations of color. Bill Gates attended an education conference this week and pronounced that modern high schools were drastically out of date. He said they were "1.0 in a 5.0 world". I don't know what version number I am in this 5.0 world, but it made me think of the educational publisher I work for and how we fit into the grand scheme of things. Then I though, maybe I should look through some more bags contents and solve the nation's educational problems another day. Then I thought, "Unwrap another atomic fireball" Last night, famished - I went to cut a cucumber. In my haste to garnish the side salad to my boca cheeseburger - I didn't even undo the plastic bag from the grocery store produce section. Miraculously, I was able to cut through the cucumber and not slice the bag open. I was left with a sealed produce bag with 2 halves of a cucumber in it. Memories of whittling a ragged ball in the middle of a wood cage in summer camp came flooding back. Then I thought, if I were a physicist - perhaps this cucumber splitting incident would trigger some scientific epiphany and I would run off to my lab and discover something monumental. But, I just loosed the knot of the Foodmaster produce bag, peeled the vegetable and set off to watch some TV.

everyone tells me how ugly this bag is. pssh! Originally uploaded by hhheather.