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Friday, January 27, 2012

And The Password Is...

When I was ten I spent much of my time outside. Smelling flowers, climbing the hill across the pond, building large nests out of mowed grass. Life was good.

Now I spend my days fighting spammers, who just lately have hacked into my contact list and have been busy sending god knows what to everybody I know: viruses or porno or invitations to collect millions of dollars from Nigerian princes. I've spent the week changing passwords. Unlike in my youth, when I spent time watching butterflies spinning through the foliage, now I fiddle around with passwords. 

I have passwords for everything. Email. Voicemail. Blackberry. Investment accounts. Bank accounts. Google. Blog. Twitter. Facebook. American Express. Visa. MasterCard. Amazon. Paypal. Ebay. Etsy. Sometimes I can't get into my own business because I can't remember the password, and if I should call a toll-free number and speak to Billy Bob with an Indian accent I am offered no assistance. I have a Rolodex full of passwords. If I forget my passwords I have to reset them. I spend hours doing nothing but trying to remember passwords, or looking up passwords, or resetting passwords. My entire world is now taken up with passwords. My parents never had passwords. They had boats and cars and jobs and relatives and long drives through the country and Sunday dinners. I have passwords.

So today my password is BURNEDOUT. I need to take a couple of days off and recalibrate myself. I'm thinking of going to the casino this weekend, although now that you can't put money in the slot machines anymore, now that you have to have a special card with a special computerized situation that somehow identifies you and adds money to your special computerized account card, they'll probably ask me for my password. I hope not. I'm thinking if they do my head might blow off.

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About Me

Newspaper columnist; blogger; author of Delta Dead; author of 101 Tip$ From My Depression-Era Parents; author of Australian Fly; editor: ...And I Breathed (author, Jason Garner, former CEO of Global Music at Live Nation), "A History of the Lawrence S. Donaldson Residence"; "The Port Washington Yacht Club: A Centennial Perspective"; "The Northeastern Society of Periodontists: The First Fifty Years"; editor: NESP Bulletin; editor: PWYC Mainsail; past editorial director: The International Journal of Fertility & Women's Medicine; past editor of: Long Island Power & Sail, Respiratory Review; Medical Travelers' Advisory; School Nurse News; Clear Images; Periodontal Clinical Investigations; Community Nurse Forum