June 3, 2008 – One of the great dramas of my lifetime has been watching Americans grapple with a tidal wave of life-and-information changing technologies – cell phones, iPods, phone and communications systems, e-mail, text and face-to-face networking systems,  personal organizers, the Internet, cable, satellites, customer service, tech support, manuals, guarantees,  service contracts and online help.
  We are often frustrated, confused and overwhelmed, and the companies and institutions profiting from our being overwhelmed – banks, phone and computer companies, cable operators and tech manufacturers – have become quite skilled in pretending to be accessible, while hiding from us as we drown in too much information, too much machinery,  coming at us from everywhere, all of the time, at unimaginable speed.
  I am no Luddite. I’ve used the Internet since the dawn, and I like a lot of new technology – the Web, e-mail, the Net, iPods, blogs, digital photography – but I also accept the fact that unless you are 18, you can use it all you want, but your ability to understand it, manipulate and handle it diminish every day you get older.
  The only people who really understand the machinery that governs our lives are the young, as a rule. As the MIT Media Studies Center has found, only the very young have the neural systems and hand-eye coordination to really grasp and use many new technologies. The rest of us are simply credit card holders.
  I accept this, and have been fortunate in recent years to have some young people as good friends. Much of my life at the moment is currently in the hands of a gifted couple, Melissa Batalin and her husband Kurtis. Melissa works at the Troy Bookmakers and is handling production of the Bedlam Farm Books. She also has been teaching me how to use Photo Shop and Aperture, which I could barely open, let alone operate. She also has helped me with my computer and my blog. And my operating systems and software.
  She is used to my calling her up in a panic: I can’t find a photo, or figure out the monochrome filter, or make the lasso in Photoshop work. She smirks, chuckles sometimes, and is given to significant eye-rolling. Then she calmly tells me how to do it, then sends an e-mail for good measure, and prints it out to bring me when she comes. And then calls me the next day to tell me all over again.
   She treats me courteously, but speaks to me very slowly, as if I am challenged.
   She has a pretty good idea for photography. I can only imagine the howling that goes on between she and Kurtis when I get off the phone.
    The irony about young people, I’ve figured out, is that they know how the world works, but good jobs are now so scare they can’t afford to live in it. An opportunity for me.
   I call Melissa several times a day, and realized only recently that she is running a significant part of my life. I am fortunate she is benign, at least so far, and doesn’t want to write memoirs. She could already write a whale of a one about me.
   I think almost everyone I knew needs Melissa. She should run a Life Support Service. She is extremely bright, funny, and she seems to see into the systems and software and commands that elude me. She has great confidence, and she uses Google like Stravinsky wielded a baton. There seems to be nothing she doesn’t know, or can’t find out.  She is never stumped, or frustrated.
  When she abandons me, I will finally head for that trailer in Tampa. Life will no longer be negotiable.
  This afternoon, she called me up to check on me – she seems to have a sixth sense for when I am muddled or frustrated. What’s up?, she asked. She is coming out to the farm Wednesday to help network my computers, organize photos, teach me black and white color management (and look at Annie’s computer.)
  “I am not taking good photos in the last few days,” I said. “I’m discouraged. I just seem flat, I’ve lost my eye. If not for Lenore and Brutus, I wouldn’t have taken a good picture in days. I’m in a photo funk.”
  The phone was silent for a moment.
  “Well, Jon,” she said. “Maybe you should take a day or two off. Put the camera down.”
   “What?”, I said, incredulous. Put the camera down?
   “You’ve been taking photos every single day, for months and months, and sometimes you know, you just need to clear your head, put the camera down, and go back to it with a fresh eye. You’ve got a lot going on. Sometimes your eye gets tired.”
   I was listening. Hospice teaches active listening, and I was actively listening to Melissa.
   “You can blog without a photo, you know,” she said, encouraged by the silence. You don’t have to put one up every time. You used to blog without photos, and you lived.”
   More listening.
  “You’re just a child,” I said. “How can you know all this?”
    “I’m just good at it,” she said. “Just listen to me, and take a day off.” For a second, I thought she had Googled this problem and solution. But there wasn’t time, not even for Melissa.
   “Okay,” I said, “I think you’re right. I’ll take a day off.”
   “Probably more like a few hours,” she jeered.
    Tomorrow night, I am taking Melissa and Kurtis out to dinner.