A Portable Cocoon

If I had gotten this assignment about a week earlier, you'd be seeing all kinds of beaten up papers, such as reminder notes and receipts, featured in this picture down here. Sometimes my bad is more of a gallery for mementos of recent purchases and bank withdrawals than anything else. That receipt down there is repping that aspect of life in my purse, carefully documenting the fruit purchasing excursion I went on a few days ago. A lot of the items in my bag, just about all of them, represent preparedness and comfort to me. I realize now looking the picture below that it is sort of interesting to have my external hard drive, my phone and a book lined up next to each other. My copy of the Odyssey represents, for me, my desire to get some productive reading done at whatever random chance I may find some free time. According to our reading, this book qualifies as mobile media just as much as any sort of electronic piece of technology like a phone does.  You might also notice there are two business cards there, they are actually from artists at First Friday and in the same vein as the receipt, are records of a place I have been to recently.

I can't say I totally feel that I fit into what the reading describes in the "Historicizing Mobile Media..." section, however. I don't carry an ipod with me, unlike many people today, and my phone is not a smart phone so I would say it isolates me from those around me only moderately - on the subway, I don't get service. For other people, the subway is an opportunity to pull out some device, listen to music or play a game for a few minutes. But people watching is still a thing, I say. However, my cell phone is totally my pocket watch. It's my alarm that wakes me up in the morning. I don't really care too much about my phone, however, I do have to say there is content on it that I seek comfort in. It has the contact info of all of the people that I really ever could need to talk to. It used to have messages that I saved from my boyfriend when he would say nice things that cheered me up, but last week my phone freaked out and deleted them. So I guess I have distanced myself from wanting to rely on it too much, because it's an unreliable so and so. It'll shut off if you slide it open or closed too quickly, and really, it's just way too high maintenance in terms of that for me to be able to gush about how great it is. I dropped it and the back of it scratched up I think on the first day I got it. I'm not sure what that says about me, aside from being a butterfingers.


That silly-looking owl to the left in the picture above actually holds my tokens. While I am having a hard time feeling that I truly feel an emotional connection with any of these things, I love that goofy owl bag that holds my tokens. It's like my little passport into anywhere worth going to in Philly, and provides me with comfort knowing that it enables me to be mobile.  Most of my other objects I keep with me enable this as well. My hard drive lets me get work done and carried with me, my different sets of keys for work, home and my apt in Philly all represent places of comfort for me.

Honestly, looking at the things I carry, (this is from my big purse, so when I have a small purse it's the basic wallet and keys kind of deal) a majority of them are for the sake of preparedness. I'm not as into chapstick as some other people expressed in class, but it is nice to know that it's there in case. I carry deodorant with me, even though I almost never need it, because, well just in case. Kind of silly, really. Now, the carrying a hairbrush thing is actually something I can explain, I have really long hair and it gets terrible and messy quite quickly, so that is important for me to have. I like to have my contacts with me so I can switch from glasses when I get tired of wearing them.


Now I have to confess something silly, following my argument that I do not imbed myself in a media cocoon in quite the same way as many others, who use their smart phones and mp3 players. At times this summer when I was commuting to NY for an internship, I would carry my contact lenses and makeup with me and put my contacts in and do my makeup on the train. That I think is the epitome of being cocooned. While I'm doing that, I'm pretending no one is around for my own sake of not feel supremely silly or rude, and refusing to acknowledge the passenger beside me just in case he might seem irritated. However, I don't see why they get to bring their iPads and laptops and on their way back from work, their beer masked by brown paper bags, while I should get frowned upon for taking care of myself in a more immediate way. Just throwing that out there. The technology of makeup is a bizarre thing to examine thanks to the socially constructed notions that makeup carries with it. I had to use it to feel ready for my day in the professional world, even though I really don't like to wear it.


Just putting it out there that while I don't fit into the smartphone and iPod stereotype, I absolutely have cocooned myself in my acts in transit. I will use my phone as soon as I get off the train to check the time and see if my boyfriend has texted me. It gives me a sense of security to have it with me, because if I need help I can call for it. But the closest thing I have to zoning out as other people do with music or games, is reading a book. Which is absolutely, in my mind, an old school media cocoon, but one nonetheless.