Life has changed in the past 25 years. There’s probably dozens of things I did in 1996 – the year I took the Wanderslut 1996 road trip – that I don’t do in 2021.

Off the top, here are five of these things:

When Cameras Were . . . Cameras

I have a bunch of photos from that road trip. Without exception, I took them with a real camera. I’m painfully aware of this because every time I want to illustrate something from that trip, I have to scan an old print because they’re not digital.

I still have a great camera that takes awesome photos, but the truth is I don’t use it that much. Like most people, I suppose, I use the path of least resistance, which, of course, is my smart phone. It’s also a great camera.

I No Longer Go To To The Gym Every Day

For as long as I can remember, there’s been the gay “gym requirement.” The expectation that any interest by an attractive male in one’s direction was directly proportionate to the time one spent in the gym.

This is ridiculous, not to mention exhausting. Yet I dutifully followed this “requirement” for decades. Eventually, age catches up with everything. Also, I discovered I enjoyed other forms of exercise more than lifting weights (including hiking, biking, yoga) – especially things I could do out in the fresh air and sun.

Since the pandemic began and the subsequent addition of workout equipment for my home, I often wonder what the point is in going to the actual gym, even a few times a week, still having to deal with crowds, waits, traffic and parking. I could so easily set up a mini-gym in a corner of my apartment for comparatively little investment.

Stay tuned on that! But in 1996, really, I went. I showed up. Every. Single. Day.

No Longer Read Actual Printed Magazines

I used to have a bunch of subscriptions – Premiere, GQ, Out, Time, Daily Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Spy – and more – that dovetailed with my work in public relations/publicity. I loved reading the mags and thumbing through them.

Honestly I never thought I’d be one to prefer the screen to actual paper, like so many futurists predicted. I swore I’d resist. I did, for awhile. But inevitably, the convenience and immediacy of digital was a lure I couldn’t resist.

For those that survived, I still read them online, of course. I do miss turning the pages and discovering something, though.

I Don’t Go To The Video Store

If you can even find one! It’s another loss, for sure, because there was always the chance of a great discovery which is not as likely to happen with algorithm-mediated browsing on sites like Netflix.

Erectile Dysfunction (ED) is one of the most common purchase viagra slovak-republic.org sexual conditions in today’s time. So it is possible, but you have to break out repeatedly. viagra prices canada Using that analogy you can see how important it is to look again at my old certainties, because that’s the way we continue writing viagra buy uk new endings to our old stories. But, their days have passed and now the new kinds of viagra 25 mg are in the market.

What the algorithms fail at is the human possibility of discovering a totally new interest – something you see from the corner of your eye that you think you might like – randomly, not based on any previous behavior. So we’ve lost that.

I miss the Friday night ritual of going (with my boyfriend at the time) to the various video stores to stock up on regular movies as well as gay porn for the weekend. Now I scroll Netflix, HBO, Amazon, GayHotMovies, what have you, alone in my living room.

It’s certainly more convenient, but I’m not sure I’d call it better.

I Don’t Drink Copious Amounts of Diet Root Beer

When I got sober and stopped drinking any kind of alcohol in 1990, my “drink of choice” became diet root beer, which I had always liked because of the flavor and the fact that generally it never contained caffeine.

It had to be diet because of the sugar and calories. I was going to be sober but I was not going to be fat.

I drank root beer by itself on ice. I drank it with meals. I especially drank it during hot weather to quench my thirst after exercise.

Eventually I came to realize that, in fact, diet root beer is mostly artificially flavored and is actually a chemical stew steeped in carbonation. I was convinced it also made urination more frequent and urgent, which I did not need as I got older.

So now I mostly drink water. Sometimes flavored seltzer-type waters, but usually flat water from the tap. Refrigerated. It hasn’t killed me yet.

I Don’t IRC Chat

Ok, I guess that’s 6 things. But back in ’96 I adored online chatting and the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol conjured up way more interesting guys than America Online could ever hope to.

The thing I liked about it was that it was truly international – I could set up dates with guys from Europe and Brazil which actually then happened in real time and real life. Maybe it was my first sense of how the Internet would really open up the world for me and actually expand my interactions with humans rather than limit them.

Truthfully IRC is no match for apps like Facebook and Twitter. I believe it’s still available, however, and works on PCs (I use a Mac laptop). I used it daily in 1996.

What’s on your list of 5 things you used to do in 1996 but no longer do in 2021?