7th April - Modern vs Old

I remember a friend has bought me at ticket to go see a play at some point in July but am at home and that information is in the Outlook at work. So I have to call her to check as am about to book something else and it's sod's law I'll pick the same day. She tells me. All fine. I usually print current and next 2 weeks of Outlook and stick in my bag but further ahead than that... no.
I have a Blackberry from work and I routinely forget it contains the same Outlook diary that I am used on seeing on the PC. I never check that at all. Rely on paper.

Then I tell an acquaintance that if he wants to come by the house to view some designer items a friend wants to sell second hand, pls come. He asks can I not send him pictures of said items. I say no, old Nokia held together by not so pretty elastic band now as keep forgetting to go buy new fascia and though it takes photos they're crap and plus I don't have leads to download etc. He says You don't have an iphone? Girl like you?
I say no, sorry and don't want one either.

I tell friend of theatre ticket of the call/no iphone and she said if you'd asked me what am doing in July, I'd have to dig out of bag the pages of A4 containing my diary/plans. She has a more modern phone than I have but uses only for calls/text. Doesn't listen to music on it. Nada. Pays her £12 a month and that's that. She is 4 years younger than me.

This gets me thinking about the boxes I still harbour containing the heart of various filofaxes throughout the 80's and some 90's and schedule/diarys form when I was 13 onwards. Yes, they exist in those boxes too. The 13 to 19 ones are more like scrapbooks with conversations written withe friends on next desks at school back and forth and with photos stuck on, cuttings and so on, lyrics of songs painstakingly copied etc. Pretty much what you would use your iphone for at a basic level ie w/o the 27,000 apps available. Why did I cart all those around for so long? Because I thought my life was important, was going to be more important and someone would need to (a biographer?) establish exact chronology of when I was where, with whom and so on. For years I kept tickets to shows attended and some receipts of memorable meals/purchases. I did see a docu on TS Eliot and his widow has these wonderful scrapbooks of stuff that is a souvenir of where they went/what they saw etc.

My life now must matter a lot less to me or am not so delusional anymore. The past ten years are on Outlooks of various firms therefore not retrievable. For a while I'd print the year in months not days/weeks but then I stopped. Recently I have delved into boxes of business cards (the rolodexes went years ago) and chucked 80%. Cards on which I'd written notes of why I had met this person etc. The rule became if I don't or barely remember who you were, your card is going. I thought I'd keep them as a memory jog but nothing gets jogged apart from 'oh this is from when I went to LA in the mid 90s or to Tokyo or wherever'. I had kept cards from cafes' or bookshops or shops I had meant to go back to. When the internet didn't exist this would have been the only way to trace these places....

I chucked a ton of photos too. Same principle 'Who are you?' I aked when gazing at a ton of now strangers in the background of shots with some central characters I still know or don't know but care to keep a record of. All bad photos went too. Am lighter but should make a date to do this once a year.

There's cassettes too. And wouldn't you know it happened ... I found one with the last ansaphone messages of major married lover. His and mine and my comments I'd record on the machine after listening to his messages. Roughly speaking ML 'Hi, it's me, it's 1am, am driving home, want to talk to you, miss you blah blah' . Me, upon playing message 'Ha!, like you really care, driving home to your wife you forgot to add'. Etc etc. This qualifies as major memento as dated '95 and my voice sounds like a stranger. The only place with a cassette player is Toph's car, and that's where I happily went down this particular memory lane. Until...

Until I tried to extract said cassette and it is STUCK. FUCK! Tried and tried and no chance. So I called him and told him. Luckily had wound it back to beginning and I used to record over music cassettes of course and this one starts with some very unappealing dance music so am confident Toph who hasn't played a cassette in his car for years and years, will not be tempted or if he does will stop it after 20 seconds. Phew. Then I'll probably have to pay £££ next time car is serviced to have the stereo taken apart to retrieve. Why? well, because I am sentimental that's why. I want that tape back so I can do a Bridget Jones, get a glass of wine and play it once in a while and rile at it. Though has to be noted that upon listening I kept thinking 'I truly cannot remember how I felt at the time'. It's obvious it was the most tragic thing in my life this ending a 4/5 year relationship, the major /defining one or second one but ... aside from the overall remembering, there is no way to access that pain ever again I think. Which is a good thing until you consider it must also mean that something inside has gone dead since then. Maybe I need an actor's workshop to be given the tools to go back but er.. why?