On the Virtues of the (Paper) Address Book

Mead "At-a-Glance" Telephone Address Book

My computer died last week - gave-up-the-ghost died. (I'm writing this from my work laptop  - on my own time, just in case anyone's asking!)  But this is not a post about what happens if you lose your phone/computer/tablet and it contains all your addresses. And I do have a thing for paper and office supplies and wrapping paper and cards - always have. But this is not a post about how awesome paper is for paper's sake.

What this is about is the artifact we create over time when we keep a paper telephone-address book. This is about the way shifts subtle and dramatic in one's life are revealed in this simplest of devices.

I have kept a paper address book for years. I loved watching my mom keep hers, updating it with each birth, graduation, marriage, separation, divorce, move to a new house, new state, new job... and occasionally, a single solemn line through an entry marked the passing of a friend or colleague or family member. I'm sure the Franklin Planner people would advise to write everything in pencil, so it can be easily erased and updated. But that's not for me. I want to see the history etched into the pages. It's a living time capsule of your relationships. It's your past and present and it's always at your fingertips.

Much has been made of the tactile experience of reading a book that even the best e-ink on the best e-reader cannot replicate. The smell of slow decay that releases warm tobacco and vanilla notes from the paper as you turn the page will never emminate from an electronic device. And likewise, writing - and over-writing - one's contact list will never provide an equivalent experience to flipping through a paper address book. I can use different color inks to represent my family and D's. I can tuck a book of stamps into the pocket, so I'm not always searching for them in the junk drawer. I can slip business cards for the new salon I visit in the pocket, until I am sure I want to make it a permanent resident of the address book. (And when I tear the addresses off envelopes at Christmas I have a place to put them until I'm ready to update everything instead of sticking them on the fridge :-D)

I'm not advocating an 'either-or' approach, by the way - I keep both an electronic address book and a paper one. But it's the paper one that sit with when I'm writing party invitations or graduation announcements. It's the paper one that I reach for when I'm on the phone with someone and they need an address, and my computer isn't booted up. And if there's a major power outage, or I lose my phone, I will not lose access to my friends and family too...

Because ultimately, it all comes back to people. Physical addresses don't represent Facebook friends - they're real friends. Flipping through a paper address book is like flipping through a yearbook for your life - the good and the bad, by a name and address - but meaning much, much more.



Isn't this way better than a little black book? ;-)

 

At-a-Glance DayRunner 4-size Address Book from Staples

One more thing....
You always think you will remember forever the place your family lived when you were two. You think you will always remember the address where your grandparents lived when you were twelve and spent the summer with them. You think you'll always remember the address of the beach house you stayed at when you were fifteen. And chances are, you won't - but you won't realize it until it's too late. I make a habit of putting even 'obsolete' or un-used addresses in my book, as a kindof archive- addresses that I don't actually need for mailing anything, but they remind me of a time and place, and they provide fodder for a fun rainy day activity, to use Google Streetview to "revisit" places you used to frequent with your friends and family.


Tips - obvious, but true!

• If you can afford it, choose a model that allows you to add pages so you can add pockets, business card holders, and other 'add-ons' to customize the book's functions
• If you buy a refillable model, choose a brand carried by Staples, Office Depot, or another office products store or website, to increase the liklihood your style/size will not be discontinued
• Don't limit an address book to addresses: keep a list of your frequently-used websites, online accounts and passwords in the book - some, like the DayRunner, have pages just for documenting them
• A model with pockets lets you keep address labels, envelopes, cards, etc. until you have time to sit down and update your list - and keeps the fridge and junk drawer uncluttered!
• Buy an extra pack of page inserts when you buy the book and put them in it to guard against discontinuation of a specific size/style you like, even if you know it will be a long time before you need them, otherwise you'll lost the extra pack, I promise!

 

 

The Agony of de Feet



4" Alien cage heel by Zanotti

In a recent Glamour magazine poll, when women were asked “Do you prefer your heels a practical height or sky-high?”, 57% said “1 to 2 inches is plenty”. Which made me wonder why the vast majority of heels in US stores are over 3”?  In fact, Glamour reader favorite Jimmy Choo and other brands now consider 3” pumps a “mid-height” heel, and I’ve seen 2” heels described as “kitten heels”! 

I long assumed that my D-width foot was the reason 4" heels were a non-starter for me, since at 4" you are walking mainly on your toes and the edge of the ball of your foot - which on me is the widest part of my foot, and generally wide shoes - at least American ones - are rather "orthopedic" looking to begin with. But if the majority of women agree with me, WHY are stores and websites filled to the brim with them?

  Not too long ago, 3” heels were reserved for special occasions that didn’t require much walking, and the only place you could find 4” heels was Frederick’s of Hollywood or other specialty stores. Women wore flats or 1-2" heels for everyday wear, because you needed to be able to walk in them without your feet hurting - and European, Asian, and Latin American women disproportionately still do.  In the 30's and 40's, shoes frequently had ankle straps and a wider heel base, making them more secure on the foot. Today this style would read as "frumpy" to most fashionistas - unless you're wearing a vintage pair on purpose, as a statement shoe.

Today, instead of being worn as a special-occassion shoe, American women wear high heels all day, every day - something that our mothers and grandmothers, not to mention women in other cultures - would find ridiculous. And the definition of “high heels” has literally inched up to 4” or even higher in a few cases, and the pages of fashion magazines are plastered with photos of these uber-heels, with very few options for the 57% of us looking for fabulous 2”-2.5” heels that are suitable for literally pounding the pavement.  In fact, a quick check of one of the more popular shoe brands’ website revealed that 46 styles were classified as “High/Beyond High”, while just ten – TEN - were classified as “Mid Heel” – and that included all the 2-3” heels they offer.  

For generations we’ve understood there is a difference between the artistic vision of designers and the ‘ready to wear’ reality into which their vision is translated… except evidently with shoes. A sketch of an anatomically impossible shoe becomes … an anatomically impossible shoe! Women cannot walk on their toes – yet this is precisely what these shoes force us to do… it is beyond painful, it’s physically harmful in a way that no shirt or purse will ever be.

We are coming frighteningly close to coaxing the average woman to wear toe-shoes at this point – something that ballerinas train to do, and do only for a few seconds at a time - and willingly destroy their feet in the process… But you literally have to pass a test to dance in toe shoes if you’re a ballerina, while shoe designers put their customers in the same position without a thought. Take a look at a 4.25" (net) high heel ... Stop looking at the shoe, sexy as it is, and look at where the weight is on her foot...



Toes were not meant to carry our bodyweight, even if you're a size 00! When you show a shoe photographed at the right angle, without a foot in it, 4" looks like a 'doable' height, right? I mean this one, which is also 4.25" - doesn't look that high, due to the way it's photographed. Or how about this beautiful 4.3" Gucci pump for SS/13? It's only really when you see a shoe with a strap or bootie that you can tell something is wrong - the fact they have to be angled severely forward, e.g., these 4.25" stunnners  - should be alarming. But without seeing a woman actually walk in it, it's just not. Which brings me to another point...



Have you not noticed how many designer shoe advertisements these days feature the model sitting down?  It may not be intentional, but the message is they aren’t made for actually walking in… Are we really to that point that companies don’t worry about whether shoes can actually function as a shoe? 



  
I love the look of a sexy high heel as much as anyone, but the distance has never been greater between what designers and editors put on the runway and in stores, and what their customers can consume.  

CODA: In Brazil, and Germany, and the UK, I can find LOADS of cool shoes with a heel less than 3” high. And when I’m in one of these places on business, I cart home a suitcase full of them. My most recent haul included an incredible pair from Brazil-based Shutz, which were oxblood platform wedge sandals in patent and suede, with a heel cup pieced from different textures of leather in a lotus flower shape – and the net height was under 3”, so they are very comfy to walk in, without sacrificing an ounce of style. Sure there are very-high heels for sale too – but to walk into any shoe store and have a real choice of options in ‘lower’ heels is amazing. It’s shoe nirvana…

Forty is the New Black

When I was a teenager, I remember calculating how old I would be in the year 2000.
TWENTY SEVEN.
That sounded so ... adult. So ... mature.
And so very far away.

When I think about how to process age, as a woman, I think about the evolution of my style and of fashion. The way you present yourself to the world matters even more at 40 than at 20, because you are at a different point in your career inside or outside the home, and you've figured out - or hopefully you have - "who you are". You have an identity, rather than trying different ones on.

And so to some extent, our style on the outside reflects the state of our psyche on the inside. How often have you seen a woman at a store, and looking out of the corner of your eye, thought to yourself "Doesn't she know how ridiculous she looks? She's way too old to wear that."  On the flip side, I look at someone like Helen Mirren, who at 63 rocks a low-cut one-piece bathing suit and looks incredible and elegant in a full length evening gown with sleeves, without ever looking "old" or "dowdy". Sure, 63 is a far cry from 40 - but that's the point.

Our style evolves and changes, and it is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. Wanna bet whether Paris Hilton - who's now over 30 - will be wearing essentially the same clothes at 40 that she wears today - which are the same things she wore at 27?

At 27, I was living in California, away from home from the first time, and it felt amazing. I felt - to fall back on a cliche - like I'd found myself. Found my true North. I was happy, and excelling at work, and living mere blocks from the beach in a small town where I could walk to the grocery store, hardware store, library, cleaners... everything. Twenty-seven was sky-high platform heels and flirty dresses and big hair and funky jewelry.

And at 27, the idea of 40 was still a notion to me. The women I knew who were 40 were mothers with minivans. They were married and 'settled'. But, refreshingly, they were not the 40-year old women of my childhood. Today, women who were 40 in the 70's often looked like they were a decade or more older... By 2000, women on the cusp of 40 felt free to wear skirts above the knee, to skip pantyhose if they felt like it, had discovered yoga pants and Juicy sweats, and didn't feel compelled to cut their hair short. Progress! (Ok, except maybe for the Juicy thing...)

At 36, back on the East Coast, I found my other true North - my partner, D. I'd long since resolved that I was single for life... I was content to have dates and flings periodically, and assumed that it was the way my life was meant to be - an aunt, a friend, a sister, a daughter - leaving me time to travel and volunteer and achieve greater success in my career. I had a comfortable home, money and time to travel, and wonderful friends. And then I found love. Totally unexpected, totally amazing.

At 36 I didn't feel that much older than I had at 27. Deeper crows feet, sure. More creaking noises in my knees when I went up and down steps... I realized I was now the age of my friends in California - and I realized that what I shared with them was a sense that 36 wasn't merely "four years from forty". At 36, I knew myself - did not feel like I had to live up to anyone's expectations anymore. My self confidence (if not my self-image) was at an all-time high.

And now at 40, still deeply in love; still deeply happy with my life. Forty for me has been a continuation of my 30's - and the journey continues!

On one hand, of course I think sometimes that I have now been working for 20 years, and that feels strange - because time does fly, but because also I feel like I am in my prime... I am still traveling and working full time and loving my life. Perhaps it's also because I'm child-free (i.e., no children, by choice), and nothing seems to mark the passage of time like watching children grow.

Do you know what DOES freak me out? Thinking that if I work 20 more years, that's just 20 more vacations to take - 20 trips. That's not a lot! THAT worries me! There are so many places I want to go - or go back to!  I haven't been to Argentina, or Russia, or Sweden, or Belgium, or Ghana... I need to go back to Australia or Brazil when it's not for work. That's "7-years' worth of vacations" right there! OMG, how am I going to make this work?

But then I think to myself, "As long as I have been working, that is at least how long I have left to continue working". In other words, I'm just hitting half-time in my career. And I may not be able to pull 16 hour days anymore - but I don't regret not having to, either. And when I consider how far away my first job feels, it comforts me to think that the distance between that first job and today, is the same distance from today to retirement. Then, I don't feel so bad.

Today, it's about finding a balance... about acknowledging my age without shining a spotlight on it.

In this context, it's recognizing that colorful rope bracelets are a relic of my past, and high-heeled sneakers (all over the runway this spring) are never going to make an appearance in my shoe closet! I realize that it's not wise for a 40-year old woman (unless you live in L.A., maybe) to wear that hot pink ruched club dress and lucite heels. I know that it's increasingly difficult to pull off blunt-cut long hair, which draws attention to the deepening crows feet and smile lines. I know that I can still shop at Forever21 - but the bulk of my wardrobe should not come from there! And I know that just because Harper's Bazaar and Elle say blunt bangs and neon nails and cut-out lace is THE trend, that I have to pick and choose what trends to adopt more carefully than my college-age sistren.

In other words, me at 40 is me at 36 with greater contentment; greater satisfaction; greater self-confidence; and the most amazing man to share it all with. Maybe 50 is when I have the "oh crap!" moment. Maybe 50 is when I relent and let my friends and loved ones throw me a blow-out party. I don't know.

What I do know is that right now, for me, 40 is the new black - and it still looks good on me, so I'm going with it!