The toothpaste doesn't go back in the tube

g_me had posted this article about someone hoping a year without Internet would vastly improve his life and connection with humanity. Spoiler: It didn't. But I commented that while it's true that social media (for all my complaints about it) does keep me in touch with people -- and indeed without Facebook and LJ I would be in touch with far too few of the people I like -- this fails to address the fact that in a society where *nobody* was online, I feel like there would be more local hangouts and meetups.

Likewise cellphones. Here I don't have one, but I admit that they are useful for making last minute plans, or altering plans on the go. If travelling, it's much easier to say "I'll call you when I get in", than to leave someone waiting alone at a restaurant hoping that you don't run into traffic or miss your bus or whatever. And yet I feel like, in a world where *nobody* was changing plans last minute, plans would be more definite. I wonder if plans are less ironclad, more flimsy now. If you might get a phonecall saying, "Actually, just got a better offer, catch you tomorrow instead," in a way that you never would before.

I was going to say lately I've been thinking a lot about food, but honestly I don't know if I'm ever NOT thinking a lot about food. Lately we've been eating lots of delicious food with good friends, which is certainly what I want to be doing with my life. And dear locals, Espana (which is, in my until-recently-professional opinion, one of the best restaurants in the Berkshires) is running a Wednesday night tapas special at very good prices. the_star_fish and I both really enjoyed it, and will assuredly return before this special disappears. Perhaps you would like to join us?

And I've been writing about food too, from last week's column about inventing meals, to my most recent column about a strange food item I came across called Chin-Chalok.

Ambition is like a tiny flying thing in my room. Occasionally I hear it buzzing, and don't know whether to catch it or kill it. But more often, I do not hear it at all. It turns out, it's hard to be motivated to do work for no reward.