Email Blues: Are You A Dinosaur?

"Four things come not back: The spoken word, The sped arrow, The past life, The neglected opportunity" Proverb

About a month or so ago, a student in my program offered to exchange email addresses so we could stay in touch. As I uttered the word @ AOL, he burst out laughing. "Oh no, Ms. Frank, you must lose this email as it dates you back to the days when computers took forever to load." Hm mm, I thought, I never measured my age or level of hipness by my email address but I suppose some people do. I laughed it off and insisted he write it down anyway.  Mind you, I do have both  gmail and ymail accounts, however, I must confess that because my AOL account has been around since ... well, you understand, I proffer it without thinking much about it.

"People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.' Let us not erect walls without doors of friendliness or windows of love." Joseph Fort Newton

Honestly, I truly don't recall getting the memo about hip and unhip email providers. Back in the day, if you were averse to paying for email service, you picked a popular free hotmail handle and left it to the hipsters to duke it out. Life went on and nary another vocal reaction to our email choices until last week. Well, as if my last email bashing experience wasn't enough, I was confronted or read accosted by another friend recently who chose to throw diplomacy out the window when she uttered; "Oh, Oh, has anyone told you that you must be a dinosaur to have AOL?"

What? What? I like my AOL and I think I'm one of the hippest social media savvy chicks out there... Go figure. Since when did we start upbraiding and castigating people for their email choices? I was flummoxed. I truly dont care if your email address is me@me.com (kinda cute though, no?) as long as we can complete our conversation via that medium of communication.  I like all of my email accounts and I will start using the other two accounts more often, but please, next time we exchange addresses, spare me the categorizations; just breathe, smile, and say "Thank You!"


"The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come."- Peter Ustinov 
"Change Your thoughts and change the world." Proverb

While still on the subject of emails, one of the Best Emails popped up in my box this week. It said:
Let The Voting Begin: The audition video you submitted to Your OWN Show can now be viewed on OWN's website. Are you as excited as we are?

Elizabeth's Audition: Liz's OWN Pet Show! - OWN TV

In case you're wondering, I recently decided to jump in, feet first, and put myself in the arena as a full fledged contestant in the search for the next fortunate soul to win their Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) show. I typically don't enter contests like this because I often wonder about how one navigates through the masses to get heard. However, after a rather fun though all night sit-in for the Linden, New Jersey, open casting call, which I attended with a local friend from Irvington, more on that another day, I seriously started to re-think my position on the video component.

Once I confirmed that only one open casting call was allowed by the rules, I forgo my plan to drive to Atlanta and mulled over pushing past my reservations and general concerns about a video submission. I discussed it with my kids and other family members and they were actually eager to help me find the right videocam recorder for the shoot. "Go for it!" was the general consensus in my home.

My teen twins who are card carrying members of the tech savvy, impatient teen set, assured me that a gritty "one take street reporter" video would be a viable contribution to the contest. We all agreed that since pets rule in our household and we had supported and raised money for the Best Friends Animal Society in our Live Your Best Life Oprah walk, my show would be on Pets. I love pets and farm animals and have blogged about this on my weekly wordpress blog.

On my OWN page, I shared that this has been a journey of grace, family love, and faith in the good that comes from an honest effort to not let life's setbacks stop me from making a comeback. I believe we can all do our part to honor and applaud the spirit of  those who can't speak for themselves; animals, babies, the very sick and the silenced. We must support and applaud them too.

On one level, my show is about nurturing, applauding, healing, learning, embracing, loving and understanding the world of animals/pets. True. Pets love their owners unconditionally, domesticated animals live on grace and the care of their owners, wild animals and, ultimately all animals, live by God's grace and the gifts and challenges of mother nature. On yet another deeper level, my show is about making positive, loving and respectful connections in our exchanges with each other. What do we see in the lives of loving animals that can be a lesson in living for each of us? ...

Oprah encouraged us to push for our videos ... I did, in more ways than one. No regrets. Have a great upcoming July 4th weekend ahead!