Anxiety and Angel Wings

Yesterday was a quiet day around the house. I mostly stayed on the couch reading, with brief forays into laundry and vacuuming. The usual Saturday stuff. That oxalis (above) is blooming in our front garden, right next to a mysterious black cable that is coiled beneath the shrubs like a mamba. I have no idea what that cable is for. I think it's an old telephone or TV line and could probably be removed but I'm not doing it, just in case it's our main power supply -- and I don't want to die.

It used to be concealed by our shrubbery until the Russians insisted on pruning the front garden to within an inch of its life. Side benefit: More sun and flowers for the oxalis!

Dave had a dental appointment in the morning. He goes to the same dentist I do -- Dr. Christina, as she is known -- and I asked him beforehand why he was going. Was it a cleaning, or did he have a cavity that needed filling?

"I don't know," he said. "I'm just going to sit down and open my mouth."

I told him he was the only person I knew who went to the dentist without knowing why. But hey, at least he went. (Turns out he was getting a cleaning and checkup, and the verdict is he has a cavity and needs two crowns!)

I tried to catch up on some plant care. (It's a never-ending task!) I repotted our angel-wing begonia (above) and also potted the cuttings I took when I pruned it several weeks ago. They've been in water ever since and have tiny roots so we'll see how they fare in soil. I'm not sure we really need two angel-wing begonias (too many plants!) but you know I can't throw away a cutting.

Self-portrait with passionflower! This blossom was high up on our patio wall and pointing upward. The only way I could get a photo was to stand on a chair, put the camera into back-facing mode and take a picture that included myself. That's why my brow is furrowed in concentration, though I did make an effort to at least not scowl. As you can see, the passionflower has lots of buds so we're going to have plenty of passion this year. It's a straggly looking vine but it does perform.

I started reading Jonathan Haidt's book "The Anxious Generation" and this is one of the pages. Have you ever seen a book printed like this? It's obviously some kind of production error but it's not something I've ever seen before. It's like this page was the start of a new roll of new paper, or maybe the end of an old roll.

Anyway, it promises to be an interesting book, about how social media and smart phones have torpedoed the mental health of a whole generation of kids and teenagers. I may wind up skimming some of it because I have a feeling it may be more repetitive and granular than I really need, but I'm interested in the argument. Our high school is going phone-free next year -- phones won't even be allowed on campus -- and I want to acquaint myself with the reasons why. If I had a kid, I'd give them a flip phone and that would be that, at least until they're well into their teenage years.

In fact, when I think about how I use my own phone, it's not much different from a flip phone. I really don't do much "internetting" on my phone. I use the camera, I text people, I occasionally look up a specific random fact such as Elizabeth Montgomery's birthday or whether May is the only month with two bank holidays. I play podcasts and sometimes music. I use the maps function when I'm out walking.

But I am not a scroller, and I don't stay on my phone for long periods browsing, and I never watch videos. The idea of streaming video on my phone just makes me anxious. All that data! I'm not even sure how much data my phone plan provides but that seems an unnecessary excess.

So while I may be momentarily anxious, I am not a member of the Anxious Generation. More like the perplexed one.