Publisher’s Notebook

• Taking on ‘Twenty-Ten’ •

ANNE SOBLE

The end of the year 2009—indeed, the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century—was a Malibu day at its best. As I settle down for the first working session of the new year, I am bemused by those who feel the need to debate whether 2010 should called “Twenty-Ten” or “Two Thousand and Ten” when one is saying the year. It’s as if one couldn’t comfortably use one or the other depending on the context, or that this even really matters. The how-to-say-it issue is a reminder of the Y2K quandary that had some people going on and on about how to use that term to represent the year 2000. The wrangling was compounded by those who wanted to argue about which century it belonged in.
There is something so invigorating and optimistic about the start of a new calendar year. Even though I use computer and cell phone applications to handle most of my planning and scheduling needs, every year I faithfully order the same model of the 5-inch by 8-inch, page-per-day datebook from Maryland that I have used for over a dozen years. I don’t use the datebook for as many notations as I do the electronic calendars, but there’s something compelling about being able to hold the promise of a new year in my hands. While the apps are predicated on abstractions, the pages are real and constant.
All that notwithstanding, I prep my computer calendar first. It’s been a hectic week so I haven’t had time yet to organize my print datebook. I will make time in the next few days to insert the monthly page separators in their proper places and note the important annual events on the appropriate pages. The keyboard is faster but the physical connection between the hand, the pen and and the eye has an intimacy that acknowledges the importance of these events. Writing down special dates provides visceral assurance of one’s participation in the future and a continuation of the personal aspects of our lives that help to define our uniqueness.
When I’m finished setting up the datebook, there’s a sense of accomplishment that can’t be matched on the small or the large screen, no matter how much greater the efficiency ratio is. I know that there will be many days in 2010 when I won’t open the book at all. The apps will be do the lion’s share of the routing of the day’s activities. But I will regularly check the datebook to supplement my electronic tools and to renew that magical sense of possibility.