communication

All right, I think I’m going to give this idea from WordPress a try. Yesterday I subscribed to The Daily Post at WordPress.com. Perhaps while I’m hibernating this winter I can make some use of the prompts and suggestions.

Topic #5: Do you prefer to talk, text message, or a different communication method?

Email. The first thing that popped into my head was the movie, As Good As It Gets, about a “cranky, bigoted, obsessive-compulsive writer.” Whenever Melvin’s doorbell rang he went into a rage because his writing was being interrupted. And sadly, perhaps, I totally understood how he felt, although I was horrified that he expressed his feelings about being disturbed in no uncertain terms and in an extremely abusive way.

My tendency to get overly tongue-tied when talking is one of the things that motivates me to write when I want to express myself. My dislike of talking on the phone borders on being a phobia. And text messaging presents multiple problems… Being signaled that a text message has arrived feels like as intrusive an interruption as a telephone ringing. Being technologically inept prevents me from sending a coherent text message if I feel a response is required to one just received. Sometimes I manage to send off an “OK” successfully. 🙂

Email is wonderful. The only thing better is letter-writing which no one I know does any more. One can collect one’s thoughts and figure out the best way to say what needs to be communicated. When an email is sent, one doesn’t have to worry about bothering the recipient at a bad time, knowing that the person will check it when they’re open to receiving it. And when I’m finished with a few hours of uninterrupted genealogical research or writing, it’s a pleasure to go to my email and see what might be there.

Blogging is wonderful, too, for pretty much the same reasons. People can comment on each others blogs when convenient or when in the right frame of mind. And send thoughts out into the blogosphere to discover who else is out there to connect with.

So dear readers, how do you prefer to communicate and connect with others?

energy and the sea

I don’t often get into controversial issues online, but I feel compelled to say how I feel about America’s first offshore wind farm. I welcome it with open arms!

I just don’t understand why the late Sen. Kennedy and others were and are so opposed to it. Because it would supposedly spoil the scenery of our beloved Cape Cod? (No one loves Cape Cod more than I do!) Every day our views are marred all over this country by telephone wires and power lines, yet we’re willing to put up with them so we can have all the conveniences electricity brings into our lives. Certainly a wind turbine looks better than a telephone pole!

And what about these off-shore oil rigs which are so dangerous and cost so much to use even when all goes well? I feel anger and horror when I see pictures of the catastrophic mess in the Gulf of Mexico. What have we done? What were we thinking? I cannot imagine a wind farm doing anywhere near as much damage to our little spaceship Earth, even if it failed to be used correctly. And I cannot imagine that in the long run the energy harnessed from the wind would cost any more than the energy we get from oil.

wind farm off the coast of Denmark

Looking out to sea I would rather see a wind farm than an oil rig. Aren’t theses turbines beautiful?

Cape Wind