Plugged In

Typewriters rock, but you can't press keys and find info.

I'm all for being disconnected on vacation. Figgy's sleepaway camp is TV, computer and cell phone-free, and for that I am truly grateful. [They do smuggle in some iPods though, to listen to music.] And when we go to the Cape, there's no phone or internet connection in the house. For many years, we used only the payphone by Ben & Jerry's or at Stop & Shop. But now, cell phones and cell phone towers, even on the sandy edge of the earth, where land meets sea....

But as a writer, I'm thankful for the internet. It makes my job SO SO SO much easier. As recently as the 1990s, I often called the research desk at the New York Public Library or the New York Horticultural Society to check facts about names, buildings and flowers or trees. And then there was the time I called Saint Patrick's Cathedral, because we were featuring a gingerbread replica of it in the magazine and I had to check some detail. Now, you can google anything, anything at all. I love it.

It's Independence Day. And after a parade and two cookouts, I have to squeeze in a little work, reaching out to contacts in the press departments of big companies like PayPal and Saks Fifth Avenue for a holiday article due tomorrow. Thank you, thank you, internet. Long live the typewriter and all it stood for, but it did not double as secretary and researcher.

Independence Day, indeed. Happy Fourth. Good night.

TCOY 

1. Rode my bike w. H. to friends' parade-watching party and back. Put brownies, berries and veggie burgers in backpack.
2. Walked Sug around block once.
3. Had one [very good, very mellow] daiquiri at party, not more.