and the connors leap into the ‘80s

That line was spoken by Darlene in the episode of Roseanne—circa 1993—where the family gets a VCR. It goes through my head every time I acquire a new gadget, usually four to seven years after most people in developed countries do.

My dad, on the other hand, is an early adopter, albeit a somewhat contradictory one. We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to acquire a VCR and video camera, but 15 years later, when other people were walking around with hand-held camcorders the size of a coffee mug, my dad was still carrying around our giant camera and the entire VCR, which, in the old old days, you had to strap to your hip pack-mule-style if you wanted to shoot a little footage of your daughter performing a gymnastic routine to the opening medley from Cats at the school talent show. In a polo shirt hand-puffy-painted with a giant cat face.

Needless to say, my dad has been a proud iPod owner for several years now, while I continued to squeeze everything I could out of the late ‘90s-era CD player that came with my car. Then it finally gave out for the second time. Then it was my birthday, and my dad is a generous man who lives higher on the developed end of the developed country spectrum than I do.

So, presto, I now have an iPod Nano, and the time I used to spend writing, reading and frolicking in blossoming meadows is now spent uploading my CD collection to my computer, in preparation to download it to my iPod.

But it has prompted a bit of useful soul-searching, as I ask myself questions such as, “Did I really need a fourth Alanis CD?” and “Isn’t Holiday Hits an overly optimistic album title?” and “What’s Jewel up to these days?”