I Like 'Em Older

I like 'em older, I must confess. When I look back, I always have. The older, the more attractive to me.

I must be from another time; that I belong in another decade. I miss the 1920s. I miss the 1950s. I have always felt a little lost in modern times.

Don't get me wrong. I do love my iPhone. I do love my coffee maker. I do love air conditioning.

In the end, though, I have such a longing for the older times and I seem to relate a little bit more to them. I used to love listening to my Grandma tell me stories about "downtown" or someone she knew and a party she went to at a house on Bay Street (as if I knew where Bay Street was exactly.) She told me about working downtown at the big department store. It all sounded like a glamorous era, even if it surely wasn't. Times were probably tough, but there was such a golden angle to it. It just sounded nicer than it is now. I could almost picture myself right there with her.

So, it makes sense at least to me why I am simply drawn to those that are older. The older, the better.

Well, not too much older. Just maybe 50 years older than me, or maybe more.

At the very least, I am looking for something before the LBJ era.

That's how I have always felt about older ... things. Yes, things. What did you think I was talking about?

Some people may call them antiques. That word sounds kind of sad to me, though. I just like to think of them as older things. Things with history. Things that tell more of a story than you or I could tell.

For example, there is something exciting for me about a box of old postcards at a flea market. And I have had that feeling since I was a teenager.

The only box most teenage boys would get excited about would be a box of old Playboys. But I was different - for many reasons, one could say. For one, I knew as a teen that I would never, ever, ever like Playboy. My apologies to Hugh Hefner.

But, I just love that you can look at history in such a small way. You're looking at the past and it's right now. They have old stamps and dates. People even wrote stuff on the back. And often, it's pictures of places lost long ago. Hotels that are now demolished. Amusement parks that were bought or abandoned. Lakes that lost their luster. But not then. Then, they were beautiful and something to see and write about.

For about a year now, I have been looking for an old telephone. It has to be black. It has to be rotary. I'd love an old early 1900s telephone. You know the kind? The kind with just the ear piece and has a stand.  I would settle for a 1950s era telephone that has a hand set that is so heavy you have to weight train before deciding to use the phone.

The interesting side note to all of this: I don't even have a land line. I have a cell phone. I want the old telephone because I like old things.

The other interesting side note: I will probably buy both kinds of phones because I won't be content with just the one. I want both kinds.

It's strange about me why I like 'em older. But, don't judge. It is because I love the past.

I love Downton Abbey. It's awesome. And no one can ever say any different. Period.

I love biographies and memoirs of all kinds from Grover Cleveland (yep, I read it cover to cover) to Rob Lowe (because he is beautiful). Oh, Rob Lowe. I couldn't resist you.

I love CBS Sunday Morning. In today's episode alone, I learned about former president Ulysses S.  Grant, and a luxury liner from the 1950s called the S.S. United States, as well the Volkswagen Beetle.  (Side note: some friends either love the show or mercilessly make fun of me because I allegedly am a 90 year old man in my TV choices. It should be noted that I have watched Murder, She Wrote, Father Dowling Mysteries, as well as the occasional Perry Mason TV movies, so these friends have some valid talking points.)

I remember stars from old movies and get excited when I see them on something I have never seen. If I see Ernest Borgnine guest star on a TV show, I will scream out his name as if I just solved the Scooby Doo mystery. "Ernest Borgnine!!!," I will scream to no one. Old Hollywood and all of its starts are just the coolest to me.

I love black and white photos.

I love old cocktail glasses. Did people really drink such little amounts of alcohol back then?

I love Miami Beach hotel architecture, Monaco Grand Prix posters, and the Chrysler building.

I make my friends in DC take me to at least one memorial when I visit. The Jefferson is my favorite.

I love hard cover books, and anyone who says a Kindle is better is wrong. Period. Hold a book, feel the paper. See the art work. The Great Gatsby cover is just as memorable as the words on the page.

I love Louis Armstrong and his song, "We Have All the Time in the World."

When I travel to a new city, I like to buy post cards that say "Greetings From ..." whatever city it is I am in. It's both kitschy and classic.

And lastly, when I do travel, I usually go somewhere historical and/or educational. I was in Bermuda last month and I saw two former British forts.

I long for history and I hope I leave a little behind. Ironically, I am writing on a laptop and posting this to the internet, where it can never be touched or maybe later found at a flea market as part of someone's old leather bound journal.

The irony is especially biting because I desperately want an old style black typewriter. It shouldn't be one of those 1960s color ones that comes in its own case. Those are awful. This should be like the ones old reporters or secretaries used in a screwball comedy with Katharine Hepburn.

So, see - I am a little bit modern. And I do like newer things.

But, I still like 'em older.

Cancelling Your Relationship and Renting A New BF

Sometimes, couples last forever. Like George and Barbara Bush. Silly example, but true. There they are: up in Maine, or maybe down in Texas - who knows? The fact remains, though: they are still together and have been forever.

And some couples take awhile to get there. Ronald Reagan had a wife before Nancy. Good ol' Barbara Streisand had been all around Hollywood before going down the altar later in life to the dashing James Brolin. Even Brad Pitt had multiple (and multiple) pit stops along the highway of love until he landed at the destination known as Brangelina.

(Side note: it's a gross name, and I am totally Team Aniston.)

(Side, side note: did you hear the news that Mike Tyson was on his way to hookup with Robin Givens - his then ex-wife - only to discover she was in bed with Brad Pitt at that exact same moment? That's the kind of low brow, celebrity gossip that is hilarious and awesome and should always and yet never be talked about endlessly.)

I digress: some couples last. And some don't.

Sorry, Justin and Cameron. Sorry, Ben and J-Lo. Sorry, Taylor Swift and whoever you're using this week.

Some couples are for a limited time only. Expiration Relationships, if you will.

That's how it was . . . with me and Netflix.

Netflix had been so amazing. So dependable. So sweet.

He wears red. I love the color red.

He was on time. Every time he said he would be, there he was.

It was all so easy.

I would even brag to friends how amazing it all was. I would want something, and within a day or 2, I had it. Hours of entertainment. Because of Netflix, I was able to catch up on Lost, just in time to watch Season 3 and finally know what everyone at work had been obsessed over.

That was all in the beginning stage. But, oh... how times changed...

By last summer, clearly the relationship had been taken for granted. He started asking for more of me and not in the good ways. It was always the same with him: he needed more cash.

"Why do you need more money? Are you strapped? Did something happen at the office?," I asked. Netflix wouldn't answer entirely. Something about postal fees increasing, but his excuses seemed like ploys. He seemed shifty, uneasy with the relationship, about what we had started together.  The worst part was that he wasn't able to perform like he used to.

His service had been getting slower. Sometimes, I only saw him once a week because he would be delayed, even though his office was just over in Queens.

I stopped trusting him and I cancelled my mailing relationship with him. We were now limited to only streaming.

He should have taken it as a sign. I mean... I had Captain America on my DVD queue for months before I finally got to see it. Captain America? Are you kidding me? I used to be able to see those movies when they were released right away, but now I had to wait... and wait. Waiting a "very long wait" was not what I had hoped for when we had started out.

Well, I was done waiting. I was done with all of it. But, I waited to make my move. I wasn't ready yet to be on my own. In a way, I still needed Netflix. It was still comforting to come home at night and know he was there, even if it was only streaming videos. It was something and, for the time, it was enough.

Over the Christmas holiday, though, something had changed. I started hearing of Amazon Prime. I had shopped on Amazon. It's great. And what? I can get a year of free shipping and all the same movies and TV that Netflix has? Well, clearly this was a potential suitor who meant business. I was interested.

In the end, I made my decision. But what I didn't realize, until the very day it happened, would be how hurtful my timing would be. How insensitive. I never thought of myself as a Brad Pitt, but in the end, I did manage to be so callous.

I ended my nearly 6 year relationship with Netflix ... only 3 days before Valentine's Day.

It was thoughtless on my part. I had been so caught up with making sure my decision didn't affect the next month's billing cycle that I didn't realize what I had done.

Netflix took it with dignity. He didn't ask any questions. He didn't prompt me with any attempt to stop me from my mouse clicking ways. He let me make the decision and he took the classy way out. He was the bigger person here clearly.

Later that evening, he simply wrote an email stating the below:

Your Plan Cancellation Dear Gregory, As you requested, we've cancelled your Unlimited Streaming plan. This change will be effective 02/27/2013.

I appreciated the clean break he allowed us to have. My only regret was how I had let it drag on. I had been unhappy for awhile and I waited to find something better.

It's a life lesson I am taking on into the new relationship with Amazon Prime. If this whole "free shipping fast while giving me lots of movies and TV to watch" doesn't work out, maybe I will go back to Netflix. Maybe I won't. All I know is: in the next relationship, I won't settle. When I order a movie, I know I will get it or I will move on. I expect more.

And I have Netflix to thank for that.