My latest challenge is the touchscreen. Touchscreens are obviously the wave of the future (i.e., next week, at the rate these things become obsolete) and if I don’t get with the program, I will be limited to the one or two devices that still have a keypad. I was one of those people who had a hell of a time relinquishing my cassette tapes back when someone decided without asking me that CDs were better, and now I can’t bring myself to chuck my CDs even though everything is in MP3 and stuffed into my little iPod.

Because of the touchscreen, in just the last week, my ass called my friend with the young child in LA and woke her up at 4 in the morning (my phone was in the back pocket of slightly too tight jeans and what was I thinking sitting down?); I texted a list of stuff I needed from the drugstore–including prescriptions and other sundries that I’d prefer not be the talk of the PTA room–to one of my kids’ friends’ moms; my cheek hung up on my hard-to-reach doctor; and called my agent a “ho” when I meant to be saying “hi.” Luckily, she’s a Formerly.

This is a distinctly Formerly condition, because we are just old enough not to have been raised with computers in the classroom or even mostly in the dormroom, yet just young enough to at least try to be fluent as adults if we want to make a living (not to mention order on-sale tankinis from J. Crew in large on the bottom and medium on the top. I’m grateful for the option but I do remember being in proportion, and not long ago!)

My mom, who is 70, can belly up to a  Verizon Wireless tech counter and with a straight face ask some to please help her retrieve her messages from her ultra-simple phone with the large keypad because, “I think people have been calling me.” But because I aspire a bit higher and need to be able to tend to this blog on the go, am regularly flummoxed my Droid, a “smartphone” that someone a few years younger and a few IQ points higher can operate as easily as a calculator. And yet I don’t believe I get to opt out. I need a phone like this more than it needs me. The power dynamic in this relationship sucks!

I welcome any and all advice, as long as it doesn’t involve having my fingers surgically made narrower.

Photo by mynameisharsha CC

Denise in SF

I have two precious things in my life, one that makes me feel “hot” - the perfect little black dress - and one that makes me feel “formerly hot” - a 15-year-old daughter. Her friend had a “club-themed” Sweet 16 party and the next thing I know my Little Black Dress walked out the door on my “little girl.”  My clothes are going to parties I’m not invited to!

My girls are only seven and so they’re not borrowing my clothes yet, but I anticipate feeling that same feeling of, “Now wait just a minute!” as Noelle does. Right now, Sasha and Viv listen to “my” music (i.e., ’80s and ’90s songs that I feel they must appreciate or that I have failed in my musical education of them) and like it or hate the songs, they listen with open hearts. When they start listening to them ironically, that will irk me a bit.

They say the sandwich generation are those of us who are caring both for children and aging parents. I think this qualifies, too. Thanks, Noelle!

Photo by Dancer Dalagio CC

Photo by Dancer Dalagio CC

Photo by KRSPOS CC

Photo by Steven DePolo CC

Photo by downing.amanda CC