the (too much) information age

i was reading a magazine tonight and came across a word i had never seen before: oversharing. it appeared in 3 different articles (maybe they were demonstrating the concept?) and i predict we’ll start seeing it more and more. rightfully so – it seems everywhere you turn there is someone ready to spout their story, spout their opinion, spout their scalding criticism. for every fascinating story on the internet, there are scores of people crouched and ready to comment and criticize after it appears. with information moving at the speed of light, each person seems to scream louder and more outrageously than the last for attention. alongside that, reality tv has spawned a whole new breed of wanna-be celebrities and experts, all willing to say and do too much to make themselves known.

before i start sounding like a cranky, old-fashioned coot, i have to say i love the internet. still, there are times when i wish things weren’t quite so available, quite so accessible, quite so immediate. as a kid, when there was some big musical event (for arguments sake, lets say woodstock. i was pretty young, but i remember it was covered by the papers in a way no rock event had been before) all you knew was what you read. there was more about it later in a magazine; the album and film finally showed up over a year later. i remember being frustrated and wanting more detail as it happened. i never could have imagined then that one day, immediately after a concert, you could sign on and read/listen/watch the whole thing on your computer. its fantastic to be able to do, but part of me misses the mystery, the not-quite-knowing, the imagination required to fill in the blanks. really, there are no blanks now. ironically, i have discovered visual records online of the very events i once longed to attend when i was a teenager – and while its amazing to see them, i can’t help but think how empty my imagination would have been if i’d had the ability to click onto it just hours after it ended. maybe i’m too much of a daydreamer, but there was something magical hearing about woodstock and filling hours trying to picture what it was like, what the bands played, the feel of the whole thing.

and last, to that new word. with everything so available, people are willing to share more and more of themselves in order to stand out in the huge global amphitheater, to make their voices heard. what can you do to make people pay attention? how can you come across like an individual? don’t worry. i realize the irony of me spouting off about everyone spouting off. as much as i hesitate to embrace it all, here i am…oversharing.

 

the sans-a-belt threat

in 1975, the neighbors who owned the ranch across the highway from us threw a huge party to celebrate their wedding. both had lost their spouses in middle-age, and it was a wonderful thing that they found love again and decided to get married. the party was a happy occasion and virtually everyone in the county was invited, so naturally, you throw a barn dance. isn’t that what you would do? they poured a huge cement pad and built a very, very large metal building as a venue. much excitement and anticipation surrounded the event, and foremost in my mothers mind was “what the hell am i going to wear?”. after much deliberation, she decided to go for what i guess you would call ‘hip western’. we made one, or maybe several, trips to denver to shop. after she realized may d&f just wasn’t going to cut it, i convinced her we needed to go to “jeans west” if she really wanted to find something casual, groovy and fashionable. it was a young kids store and she was in her mid-40’s, but after a bit of coaxing, we went in. as i hoped, she found the perfect outfit: pre-washed bell bottom jeans and a matching shirt-cut jacket, with a standing seam grid pattern on both. she wore it with a red t-shirt underneath and white keds, and looked hipper than anyone there, if you can judge by the amount of compliments she got. i, on the other hand, chose the occasion to debut my long-sleeve t-shirt that was printed to look like a tuxedo, and people stared at me like i was from mars. which, if you think about it, i sort of was in that environment. that was the only time i wore that shirt.

i started thinking about this because the last time i was in new york, i made my usual rounds of all the very high-end fashion stores, doing what i call “shopping for a life i don’t yet have”. i love seeing what is trendy, what is classic, and then distilling it all down for me and my (non-existent) budget. it didn’t take long to realize what i was being drawn to over and over: white jeans. i was crazy about white pants in college – painter pants, jeans, dress pants – i couldn’t wait for warm weather so i could break them out of the closet. so as i stood in bergdorfs thinking about how much i wanted a pair (white! goes with black, navy, khaki. it even goes with…white!) i also found myself thinking “if you wore it when it was popular the first time around, don’t wear it again”. even the memory of my mother (younger then than i am now) rocking the house in her ‘young’ outfit couldn’t convince me i should buy them. that night at dinner i asked my friend cara if i should get a pair of white jeans. “of course”, she said, “those would look great on you!”. when i added “but i’m afraid they are a little too…young”, the incredulous and annoyed look on her face said it all, and then she accused me of sounding just like her mother. worse yet, i realized i sounded just like MY mother.

i really don’t understand why people have this belief they must ‘dress their age’. and who exactly is it that writes the guidelines? why did my mother, less than 10 years after her hip western outfit triumph, start wearing only polyester slacks and decorated blousey sweatshirts? what happened to the adventurous woman who was dying to make a statement at the local barn dance? i keep wondering if there is some hormonal shift that happens with age that will suddenly have me running to wal-mart to buy a pair of sans-a-belt pants and a polyester blend polo shirt. granted, i don’t want to dress like a 20 year old, or a hip-hop star, but when you are interested in fashion, you can’t just abandon all desire to enjoy (and wear) whats in style. or is it out of my control? am i on some horrible collision course with a spinning rack of no-wrinkle nylon shirts and pair after pair of dockers?

i’m going to buy those white jeans, just in case. now if i had just held on to that tuxedo t-shirt.