Special Delivery

This was a column I wrote for the Frederick News Post almost exactly one year ago. It’s somewhat of a rare take on the digital age, in that I actually don’t associate things like e-readers and text messaging with fear and nostalgia for the “good ole days” when things were simple and pure. I wrote this column because I really, really wanted a Kindle and one year later I finally have one in my little hands. See, I can delay gratification…

Imaginary Things – Jan. 6, 2009

I used to have an impressive collection of CDs. They sat stacked in some sort of Ikea device in order by genre, and then by name. My stereo was right next to my CD collection, so that when the mood struck me for something particular I’d just pop the disk in and set it to repeat.

My CD collection is now dispersed throughout the unfinished portion of my basement. Some of the disks are cracked because they’ve been stepped on, or they just didn’t make it through the many moves I’ve had throughout and after college. They form unmistakable triangle-shaped silver daggers and it no longer makes me sad to see them that way.

There are benefits to this. I don’t have to dust my collection anymore. And I don’t have to manually alphabetize them either. All of my CDs now live double lives on the hard drive in my computer and my ubiquitous iPod, which can be found attached to my body with white wires coming out of my ears. Things have changed in the past few years. Few of us have a need for the CD towers and display shelves we bought before the advent of MP3 players.

For Christmas this year, several friends and coworkers either received or bought themselves digital book readers, which are digital devices that you both store and read books on, much like an MP3 player for music. Two or three years ago, when I was just beginning to let go of my attachment to my physical CDs, I would have thought this was going too far.

Those of us that need to read books like a diabetic needs insulin know the feeling of opening up a new book, smelling the inside, feeling the pages crease beneath your fingers. We line up our books on bookshelves, and even though we’ll probably never read them again, they make us happy and comforted, because for two weeks, we lived in the world that book created. And we probably judged that book by its cover when we picked it up in the store.

But this is the way the world is going. We’re not going to need real books anymore. We can still have them, of course. We can still hold on to what books used to be, but it won’t be the same.

And the same goes for movies. My husband and I have discovered the brilliance of Netflix, a company that sends you DVDs that you request online. You keep a list going of movies you want to see, and magically, those same movies show up in your mailbox a couple of days later. When you’re done watching, you put the DVD back in its envelope and it goes off back to where it came from.

Even the idea of Netflix is becoming outdated. Movies will soon all work through programs like On Demand; we’ll just click a button and the movie will start playing. No more trips to Blockbuster, no more DVD libraries in the family room.

I figure it’s silly to resist this change. It’s definitely coming, and it’s coming fast. You could spend a lot of time arguing about the benefits of physical items, or how humans need more time to adapt to such a change. But meanwhile, I’m boxing everything up and moving on—it ultimately means less dusting.

This was a telecommuting day for me, like all other Thursdays and Fridays, which meant that I could sit in this spot on the couch with my laptop and stare desperately out the window all day, awaiting the mystical white postal truck.

The regular mail came and… nothing. And, believe me, I knew my Kindle was on its way. I had only been checking the USPS website all week, desperate for an update. Finally, I heard another truck pull up and I ran out, clutching the tiny and surprisingly light box. I’m a big sucker for cute packaging and I just loved this.

Then, this was the face I made.

And as my first official Kindle book, I’ve decided to go the impatient route and purchase the book I was already reading in hard-copy form–The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao–because I’m enjoying it so much. If anyone wants the hard copy, send me your address! It’s up for grabs, but I’m totally going to quiz you on it.