Blogs and bubbles

It's funny that I'm such a johnny-come-lately with this blog thing. I've had an email address for about 25 years. I chatted on newsgroups via the usenet over 20 years ago. I was always the roommate with the PC. I was online with a Mac laptop when they didn't come with color screens. I met my husband online, for crying out loud. I thought I was a technogeek. But at some point the world caught up and passed me, and now there're all these blogs and flickrs and mp3s and I'm just lost in the wilderness, enjoying a look around, but not sensing a path.

My friend James has always understood that I'm not all that. He laughs at me. It turns out this is simply because he's brilliant, and I am one of those poor ignoramuses wandering helplessly at his feet. Luckily, he blogs! So when I have a moment of clarity and a good cup of coffee, I remember to visit his world and attempt to understand it all. This morning, I find that he has been talking about bubbles.

Someone recently suggested that Luther was too old for nipple rings. This will seem very much off-topic, but bear with me. Bubbles? It seems that on July 2, a whole lot of adults with or without kids trekked down to Old City Hall in Toronto to blow bubbles. There are even pictures to prove it, James reports.

This is the kind of gathering that makes me really miss "my old life." Outside Toronto (and New York and London), I have not met many adults that spontaneously gather to blow bubbles just for fun. This is whimsical. This is youthful, even. And outside a place like Toronto, Luther and I are told we are much, much too old to do such a thing. It's for "young people," or it's for "children."

So I've been wondering why people are so old outside the city? Why do they just stop playing? And once again, I find myself blaming the automobile. Picture this same event, for a moment, taking place in your average new-city sprawl. Everybody drives to the location. Everybody has to park. This alone rules out most locations where people would mingle with the wider world. The whole charm is lost, the whole silliness factor. A bunch of adults, some with children, standing around in a parking lot blowing bubbles. Uh huh. Fun. Okay, bye. Everybody walks back to their vehicles. The doors shut, and they are disconnected again. No more bubbles.

Everybody knows I miss the city. What I love is that I'm starting to understand why, and it's beautiful. People should live in cities and towns or be farmers. I think the two extremes are the only way to keep living. You should always know some guy who got his nipples pierced when his kid was in High School. You should always see people of all ages enjoying the world, making friends, sharing new experiences. And blowing bubbles.

And then they should blog about it all, so that everybody gets to be there with them.