Wishful Slacker

What Steve Jobs Did For Us

With the news last week of the death of Steve Jobs, so many are coming forward with their stories of how Apple forever changed their lives and their world.  It is rare that one person's life affects so many to the degree that Steve Jobs' did, and the news of his passing is one that will linger with us for a long time to come.

Here is our story.

I grew up in an Apple Macintosh family.  My dad set up our first Macintosh on the living room floor, where I sat cross-legged for hours in front of that little screen, playing in MacPaint.  I was about 3 or 4 years old.  I filled in shapes with zig-zags and solids and learned that it was possible to scribble using a computer.  From that time on, we were always devoted to the Apple brand, which at times wasn't always easy.  In school, not only was I a lone Protestant amid a sea of Catholics, but I was a Mac user, frequently heckled about being left in the dust.  And for a while, it did start to feel like we were being left in the dust amid the fancy IBMs and the computer games that were not Mac-friendly.   In 7th grade I joined the computer club- well, it wasn't really a club, but rather a time after school on Mondays and Wednesdays when students had access to the computer lab.  It was a year of the doldrums for me, and in searching for some recreation I joined a few other students (mainly geeky boys) amid the rows of white Macs in the chilly and sterile computer room.  The other boys who met after school were very computer-savvy.  They preferred their IBMs, but they had respect for Macs, and in turn, respected me (and they, being heckled enough themselves for numerous reasons, didn't give me a hard time when I used MacWrite instead of Microsoft Word).  Sitting there and writing with them after school made me feel that perhaps dorky was the new cool. 

So this was my background- my relationship with Apple.  My high school graduation gift was my purple iMac, the second coming of Apple, and to this day I think that has been my favorite computer.  It was beautiful, it played so nicely, and it was all mine.

This is what I brought to the conversations that started up between a man at the Caribou Coffee where I worked and me.  Turns out he was also a Mac man and had always been.  He understood my loyalty with Apple.  One day he told me that he was looking to sell his little MacBook laptop, and wondered if I was interested.  To which I replied, "Um, YES."  We chose a night when I wasn't working, and met at the Caribou.  He sat next to me and opened up the laptop, explaining her tricks.  I began feeling very overwhelmed, but I did not know if it was because of the amazing computer that was soon to be mine, or if it was because I was suddenly shoulder to shoulder with this guy whom I think I was starting to like.  Later, when I sat at home with the laptop, admiring it, part of me kept thinking that it had been his.  A couple days later, I had a quick question about the laptop, so I sent him a text.

And instead of texting me back he CALLED me on the phone, for the very first time. 

That was the start of it, almost 9 years ago.  Now we have a Mac Mini, two MacBooks, two iPod Touches, an iPod Nano, an iPod Shuffle, two iPads, Apple TV, and an 11 month old daughter.   

That is what Steve Jobs did for us. 



Click here for my husband's version :-)

Back to School

August 26th.

Like a dream that quickly slips away in the morning as your mind struggles to hang on to it, the dates that have come and gone this week have given me pause.  Wait- wasn't this an important day?  August 25th? August 27th?  August 29th?

Oh yes, that is right.  These were the days when school began.  The dates that became seared into your memory the moment that school let out in June.  You have until August 29th. Then as summer progressed, the date loomed closer.  It is now after July 4th.  It is now August 1st.  Remember what happens August 29th?

I have had that lingering feeling that something important is due to happen this week, though truly it is merely a wisp of memory coming back to me from my elementary school days.  The sharp points of Crayola crayons, lined up in perfect order in their crisp box, Brick Red nestled between Burnt Sienna and Mahogany.  The aisles of shiny plastic and rubber in a frigidly air conditioned Payless shoe store that often left me with prickly goosebumps and a walloping headache as soon as the door jingled shut behind us as we stepped back out into the blazing sunlight.  And that back to school smell.  What was that smell?  A school that had for 2 months been wiped and polished until it squeaked beneath those new shoes. The scents of hundreds of stagnating textbooks, slowly melding together into uniformity after being separated from each other during the previous school year, to only once again be dispersed into the unknown worlds of John's backpack or Jessica's kitchen table, soaking up cigarette smoke or freshly baked cookies or repetitive evenings of Shake N Bake pork chops.  I held my breath as the books were handed out, praying for one that was crisp and new, and not lobbing sideways with a cracked spine and dog-eared pages.   I looked at the upcoming year with optimism, but how could I maintain that with a book that had long ago lost its faith?

After a day of school I gathered with the entourage of other children that walked together back to the neighborhood where my babysitter lived.  We shuffled together, younger kids (that was me) in the back, following in the shadows of the older ones who confidently walked along the sidewalk that arched around the bus zone in the school parking lot before curving around to the main road.  On a hot September afternoon, a couple apples committed pitifully sad suicide from their craggy tree and landed with a splat on our path.  The confident boys in front froze as we came upon it, leading us little ones to stumble into their backs like lemmings.  There were bees on the apples, dancing around and languidly slurping up the sweet sauce that had been baking in the sun.  Tom looked left, he looked right, and we stepped aside as he took a few steps backward.  Yelling "CHARGE!" he ran towards the apples and swiftly kicked them away.  In what direction they flew I will never know.  All I remember is the load of us screeching and screaming, and my jostling backpack thumped a formidable rhythm through my body as my legs moved faster than they ever had before.

We only started to catch our breath as we neared Mrs. Helinski standing in her stoic position at 24 Mile Road and Shelby, her large red STOP sign always clasped in her aging hand like a sword.  Through rain and snow and humidity Mrs. Helinski was always at that intersection, both on our way into school and in the afternoons.  Even years later, when I was in college, I caught sight of Mrs. Helinski whenever I drove past.  "Wallkkk," her thin voice barely made it over the muted rumblings of suburban traffic as she stood in the center of the street and beckoned.  She rarely said much else, watching the traffic like an eagle.  She was our warrior.

Going back to school was always such a jolt.  Not only had my sister and I been home all summer, but my parents, both teachers, had also been off of work.  With sluggish surrender we set our morning alarms and rolled out of bed with a plop of defeat.  But this was also mixed with an excitement that crept in through my toes as I ate my Kix cereal while watching Gumbi and the Snorks from the couch.  School.  The first day of school.  Tacky Elmer's glue on my fingers and the crunch of elementary school scissors through construction paper.  The Pledge of Allegiance and chicken nugget Thursdays.  And learning. 

After years of Back to Schools, I still cannot turn my back on it.  I hope that every teacher and student out there has a great start to their school year, and that you all end up with shiny new textbooks with crisp pages.  



 

Girl Looking Up

When my imagination searches through the card catalog of my brain looking for possible interpretations of my life and current position within it, I always picture myself as a little Girl Looking Up.  It is not an image that is purely figurative.  For such a long time I was the little Girl Looking Up.  Mouth slightly agape, I watched the fourth graders- those big kids from the "Upper El"- as they sauntered in High Tops across squeaky-floors to join the overwhelmingly boisterous chicken nugget lunch line every Thursday.  The chicken-patty-on-a-bun lunch line on Mondays was more composed and not as exciting, but if  it contained any of the Upper El kids, you can bet that it still got to me, small piddly first grader that I was.  They were so fascinating, all of them.  The velcro on their Trapper Keepers ripped away fresh as new with each and every use, and the shadows cast by their classrooms into the dark hallway were always vibrant and exciting.  Thankfully the fifth and sixth graders were tucked way down in another wing of the school, or else I probably would not have known what to do with myself.   

At the time, first grade felt YEARS away from fourth grade.  It was eons away, really.  But as time has a tendency to move along, I oozed my way up and up the layers of elementary and secondary education.  The thing that got me though was that I never felt any inner celebration upon reaching that level that I once envied.  For when I reached fourth grade, those former fourth graders had become SEVENTH graders.  They were so big, so big that they no longer even attended my school!  Sometimes they stopped by to visit (which they could do, since they were released from school a whole HOUR before we were), and with heads cocked at an angle they told us of a world where bells rang and students shuffled to a different room each hour.  There were hall monitors and tardy slips, and textbooks wrapped in paper.  And it would be years before I got there.

I continued to look up years later, even as I leaned cross-legged over the student undergraduate handbook pressed open on my bed.  Ahead of me were all my courses, stretching away and across semesters and seasons.  This class needed to be completed before that one.  But that one was only offered in the spring and fall and not winter, and it was only 3 credits and not 4.  Regardless of how it would be done, it had to be done, and hence I continued to look up. 

Why am I telling you about all of this right now?  Well, two weeks ago I turned 30 years old.  And for the past two weeks I have been ruminating over this a LOT, much much more than I thought I would.  Just ask my husband, who probably feels that if he has to hear me start yet another sentence out of the blue with, "You know, I've been thinking..." or "But here's the thing..." he may drive home to Michigan for the weekend just for a breather.  Or at least go to the bar across the street- that would be a lot cheaper than stopping in Gary to fill the tank with gas.

I know that many men and women feel deeply changed after having a baby.  Yes, many things have changed and there is no doubt about that.  But for me it was turning thirty that really threw me for a loop.  After mulling this over for a full fortnight, I think I understand why it messed with my mind the way it did.  I have been too busy dodging spit up and kissing little baby piggy toes to come across this realization earlier, but as I drank my birthday pint at Pequods Pizza and thought about where I am in my life at the age of thirty, it occurred to me that maybe I am no longer that Girl Looking Up.  

For what felt like forever and a day I chugged along- went to college, went to grad school, moved to Chicago, started working.  The twenties, that insanely active decade of our lives, have come to an end for me.  I am not crying about this, don't get me wrong.  I have no desire to stress out over future examinations or to wonder what to do with myself after getting my bachelor degree.  I am happy to be settled and expect to forever appreciate quiet evenings and slow sips of coffee on Sunday mornings.  But still, turning thirty, and realizing that I have reached this plateau, has given me pause.

There will be many more events to come and I still hope to achieve, though what I will achieve next is the big mystery of my new thirty-something life!

Though a baby now, my daughter will one day look at those big kids parading past her in the hallway and wonder with longing when she will be like them.  And as the Woman Looking Down, I will love and support that little Girl Looking Up each and every step of the way. 

10 years from NOW

Happy New Year's Eve! 

A few Christmases ago my parents handed me a small cylindrical container, wrapped up with a bow.  My mom pursed her lips together to appear serious yet there was no missing the way the corners tipped up on the verge of laughter.  "We found this while going through an old dresser," they told me.  Peeling off the wrapping paper revealed an old camera film canister.  On the outside, written in a child's scrawl that I recognized as my own, were the words, "Open in the year 2000." 

Instantly I remembered what it was.  I popped off the top of the time capsule and pulled out the accordian folded piece of paper on which, as a fifth grader, I had poured out my assessment of the future.  It is pretty darn hilarious.  And since this is the season of New Year's resolutions and future predictions, I thought I would share the silly thoughts of the eleven year old me!

10 years from NOW
Lindsay Walker, age 11
Mrs. Steffey's class

In 10 years, I hope to have a car.  I will still be living with my parents.  I would be 21.  Piper will be 17 and will have a steady boyfriend.  I would have gone to college and would be practicing the heart and lungs, so I can be a heart surgeon.  I will have a steady boyfriend who I will be very fond of.  I hope to look slender and be very pretty.  I will own a caboodle, and have tons of makeup.  I hope to have my ears pierced.  I hope to be a wonderful citizen and have peace with the people around me.

Love,
Lindsay Walker


Happy New Year!

Standardized Patient Revisited

We have a couple of students rotating in our department at work at the moment.  Today they had to perform two genetic counseling sessions with a standardized patient in their genetic counseling program.  Which, for those of you away from the realm of patient care training, means that you must perform a genetic counseling session with an actor pretending to be a patient while being videotaped- knowing full well the whole time that several bigwigs are watching you, and will be able to watch you again, for all of eternity.  Or until the tape breaks.  Or you burn it.

It brought me back to when we had to do our standardized patient assignment our second year of grad school.  Our program director welcomed us back to the start of our second year, filling us in on our rotation schedules, our classes, our thesis deadlines- nothing too big.  It was our second year- we knew the ropes.  Then there was a pause.  An unnatural clearing of the throat.  "Oh, um....one more thing...in three weeks time, we're going to have you try something we've never done before...a full counseling session...with an actor...with three of your program directors/supervisors in the room...with a video camera."  All six of us spent the next 21 days with a constant stomach ache.  Perhaps this malaise started when, in the process of explaining the assignment to us in more detail, our director referred to herself and our other supervisors as "judges."  When this was pointed out to her, she chuckled and said, "Oh, did I say JUDGES?  Hahahahohohoha- Oh, I didn't mean THAT."

I am so not into the "freak the shit out of your students" game that so many in my field seem to enjoy.  Yeah, yeah we need to develop the skills to work under pressure.  All in good time my friends, all in good time!  They frazzled us further by making us wait until 24 hours before the standardized patient exercise was clocked to begin before emailing us the details of the case.  Our students today had to do one family history of breast cancer case, and one prenatal case involving an abnormal quad screen.  Yeah, something routine like that would have been nice.  For us, we were given the whopper topic of congenital myotonic dystrophy.  "Yeah...so, this is a serious condition...and your baby may die...and you probably carry a trinucleotide repeat...that probably expanded when you passed it down to your child...and you're not affected like the baby but next time you climb a ladder or shake someone's hand you may not be able to let go.  So...I wonder how you're feeling right now?"  I was the last to go out of our group, and I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my whole life.  I am not kidding folks.  I jumped up and down in our little student room in order to get out my jitters beforehand.  I pretended the red light of the camera was not boring a laser beam into my brain.  Each time one of my "judges" shuffled her paper a jolt of adrenaline shot down my spine.  And when when I inquired about her coping and my actress replied by saying that she had no support system, I wanted to slap her...for making it that much harder for me to know what the H-E-L-L to say in response to THAT.

Hearing our students talk about everything they have to do in their program makes me feel so badly for them.  Oh, the memories.  I was there.  And, thank God Almighty, I will never be there again.