Convergence and Romantic Misdiagnosis

Romantic Misdiagnosis, originally uploaded by The River Thief. Collage copyright Ruth Seeley; photo copyright James Nash.

It is indeed wonderful to sit at one's computer and listen to the radio station you've created on Pandora playing an eclectic mix of songs that run the gamut from Sarah Harmer and Rufus Wainwright through Bryan Ferry and Louis Armstrong with many stops in between as you work away on a Word document you're being paid to create. A little ping announces that you do indeed have email and when you want (or need) to take a break from work you can log onto the social networking site of choice (mine, of course, is flickr), and interact with people around the world who share your interests.

Here's the downside. Having finally bought a digital SLR camera, I anticipated a learning curve with it. I even set aside time for learning what all the buttons did and how to take decent photos with a different camera. What I was unable to anticipate, though, was that my laptop would get sick (there's no other way to describe it, it has even been coughing up dust through its speakers, and the grinding noises it's making are worthy of the worst Victorian catarrah - I'm about to pour some laudanum into it to make it stop). Because it's a digital camera, though, I am experiencing the downside of convergence. When my computer's not working, the camera too is useless. There's no electronic backup that works for this situation. I learned several years ago that the backup I need for my contacts is a hard copy - whether printed from Outlook or in an old-fashioned address book - so I at least have the phone number of my ISP when I can no longer connect to the internet. I'm at a loss for a digital camera uploading and editing backup system though.

And so, at the height of my frustration with the reality of convergence, I found myself on Easter Sunday morning tearing up pieces of paper to create this collage. That seemed like about as much technology as I could live with happily that weekend: paper, scissors, and glue. I'm glad I also have a book or two to read - and that the idea of watching television on my computer screen has always been anathema to me. In the same way that I have come to believe multitasking is overrated, I'm not much interested in having a cell phone perform several critical functions for me. It's enough that it enables me to talk to people and is portable so I don't have to stay home to wait for calls. That in and of itself is liberating. I don't really want my cell phone to give me a pedicure.