Spotify, or My (Kind Of) Open Relationship with Technology.



Completely unrelated photo! Woohoo!

Hey friends! This week is crazybusy (I say that a lot, don't I?), but that’s alright because I’ve got a brand new best friend to get me through it: Spotify!

That's right, Spotify. I’m going to wax transparent here and say that I didn’t realize it was a universal music player, like Pandora but better. I’d heard about it but never checked it out…if there’s an app for something mentioned in a commercial, I generally tune out. I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t have a smart phone; I don’t even have internet on my phone. Hence, moot advertisements ignored, I go about my day. Spotify-less, apparently.

Fastforward to about a week ago when I FINALLY got curious enough to look it up and see what the buzz was all about (forever late, as usual)…and AWESOME DAY when I realized that all of my song-at-a-time youtube search days were over! Because here, albums are all in one place and I can listen to them. For free. Forever.

Even better? I can make playlists!!!

But you clever minxes already knew that! This is the “curse” of having been raised to appreciate technology from a distance. My family didn’t get cable til I was 16, and I’m pretty sure we had dial-up way longer than was necessary. I’m not naturally drawn to tv or the internet, or the fanciest computers, or the flashiest new phone on the market (maybe because those things cost serious dollars...? I dunno). You’re talking about the girl who recently bought a $4 VCR at Goodwill, and whose vinyl collection gets more use than her iTunes account.

I mean.

That’s not to say I don’t LOVE technology sometimes. I love my laptop. I love watching dvds on my laptop. I love my phone, basic as it may be. I love programs like InDesign and Picasa (I would say Photoshop buuuut…I don’t have it anymore. And didn’t even really understand it when I did. So). I LOVE FONTS. Blogs and Etsy shops and the internet in general: not bad things, guys. Not at all!

It’s that just, for my humble slice of life-pie, sometimes it’s too much. There was a point in my life where I seriously considered graphic design as a career goal (don’t look at my layout for evidence of that…this is a dream that never left highschool, haha), but I knew too many people who “wanted” the same thing, and they were already so far ahead in their knowledge..it was a bit discouraging, and I was already pursuing so many other interests. But despite feeling behind-the-times, I still did some design work. There were plenty of late computer work nights with my co-editors completing layouts for the highschool paper, as well as the literary magazine. I was completely in love with it, but had to bs my way through quite a bit of it because I didn’t know the basics, and it took me away from what I TRULY loved: art, and hand-crafting in general.

The fact that I am living in a digital age makes me laugh, sometimes. I don’t understand how or why this is my chosen life-timeframe, but whatever. My friends joke a lot about my grandma habits (crocheting, sewing, baking, etc) and my way with technology sometimes falls into that category, I think. I enjoy blogging but the first month proved to me, yet again, that technology is fun once you figure out what the heck you’re doing (true for most things, no?) but it also comes with a price. And that’s how I know I was never destined for graphic design greatness. As much as I love editing photos, learning and applying HTML, and “designing” some cool whatever, I can’t spend too much time in front of a computer or my eyes will melt out of their sockets and I'll explode, Raiders of the Lost Ark-style. Incorporating blogging into my lifestyle has stretched me to a certain extent, but it’s gotten better with time and knowledge.

I’m rambling now, but here’s the bottom line: I have to create things with my hands, or I will die. It’s as simple as that. Design a cute card or stationary template or graphic with some fancy font and special software, that’s great. I respect it, do it myself sometimes. People whose careers revolve around working with computers (le Boyfriend) or creating incredible web designs blow my mind; they’re like magicians, making awesome things appear from codes and files and text that looks like straight gibberish to me. If I did some serious research maybe I could get the hang of it, but it's just not my passion, so kudos to you guys with those madskills!

At the end of the day, I’m a handmade kinda girl. Sometimes it feels silly when there’s all this technology to save me the time and energy, but…this is me. I can still balance the two by working on a project and jamming out to music (or ogling episodes of Mad Men? Yeah?) at the same time. And that’s usually what happens.

PS how this went from Spotify is awesome to my lack of computer skills, I don’t know, and I apologize, haha. Here’s what I’m listening to lately:

Birdy*

Bon Iver

The Civil Wars

The Fratellis

Fun.

Gotye*

Good Old War*

Lovedrug

The Mountain Goats

Of Monsters & Men*

The Staves

Zed’s Dead (seeing them Friday! Ahhh!)

 

*featured in Christine's series of Tunes-day posts. She finds the BEST music. Do you have any great Spotify recommendations for me?