Sunday, April 17, 2011

3 Days Left

There are many trends that I have fought hard to avoid in the past but eventually gave into, and in some cases, embraced. A few are listed below:

1. Uggs: The best thing to come from Down Under since Keith Urban. I made fun of them until I tried a pair on. I now have five styles. (In China, I slept in one pair for a whole week because my hotel was so cold).

2. Jeggings: For the record, I believe I was the first person in Michigan to own a pair. I bought them in Cambridge back in spring 2008...however, I didn't really wear them out until they became "cool".

3. DMB: I thought most people that listened to Dave Matthews were REALLY annoying (I went to high school with a lot of them). You know, the "Birmingham Hippies": drive BMW's, wear $200 jeans, but intentionally don't bathe or wash their hair in order to feel more connected with homeless people. Well, freshmen year of college changed all of that-I was exposed to The Lilywhite Sessions. Bonfires-drinking games-snowboarding...good times. I love DMB. There, I said it.

4. Skinny Jeans: Don't knock them until you try on a pair. I'm just sorry I waited so long. I didn't want to wear them when I was actually "skinny", and now...well...(sigh).

5. Fancy Coffee Drinks: This has been a recent thing for me. I could not STAND coffee until I had no choice while I was on the road. Literally a few hundred dollars later, I'm HOOKED on lattes. Hooked. Actually, I want one right now....I've been a user for only 2 months. Please tell me this gets easier. I mean, right?

Though I have given into a lot of trends in the past, there is one current technology that I absolutely refuse to use: electronic books. I was recently in Indy for NCAA Women's Final Four Basketball. There was a Borders Bookstore that was in it's last days of business (last 3 days, to be exact). For 3 days, I walked in front of the tall glass windows that exposed the empty shelves and displayed over-sized yellow posters that reminded readers, "3 Days Left!" I looked away, sad. I was witnessing the death of books-the experience of reading as we know it. Are we 'okay' with this?, I thought to myself.

By no means would I classify myself as an "avid" reader, but I still enjoy the "experience": thumbing through the pages, folding the front cover behind the back, reading the corny dedications, and the subtle smell of the ink and paper. Hell, I'll even take the paper cuts if it means not losing one of the most important objects in the history of civilization.

We will wake up one day and say, "Remember way back when, when books were on paper? When we didn't have to charge them over night in order to read them in the morning while eating breakfast? When we didn't have to "turn them off" during take off and landing on our flight from DTW to LGA? When we could put old books in a box and donate them to a local school or lend a book to a neighbor or friend? When bookshelves actually housed, well, books? When glares didn't matter, and neither did available storage space.

Nah-I think I will pass on all of that. You can find me at Caribou Coffee, sipping a sugar-free pumpkin spice latte with skim milk and light whip. I'll be chillin' in my Uggs, skinny jeans, and listening to DMB on my iPod...flipping through the pages of the latest issue of The Week.

1 comment:

  1. Books on paper aren't going anywhere. I resisted the e-book trend for a long time, too, but my dad recently gave me his Kindle and it's very convenient for traveling, reading on the Metro, etc. Plus the e-book version is always cheaper! But it's never going to replace my bookshelf - there's something wonderful about the tangible feeling of a book in hand, and the tactile experience of turning pages. I think a lot of people who use e-readers feel that way.

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