A Little Nervous/A Little Ashamed

I just got a refurbished old school IPhone on the cheap. CHEAP! Aside from starting a blog, purchasing this phone is the biggest tech-ish step I've ever taken, and presently, I am intimidated by that leaden, glossy black mystery. So ominous! But so exciting! She makes me slightly nervous. (My phone is definitely feminine, a femme fatale, specifically. She goes by Olive. My little IPod is called Tangerine. Guess what color it is. Do you notice a theme in my naming?)

Throughout my life, I have resisted several things in the name of personal convictions: cell phones, seat belts, meats, baths. Well, maybe some of these were in the name of laziness and/or parsimony, but you get the picture. I had many convictions (albeit sometimes illogical) in college. Hub and I have discussed that had we met while we were both at A&M, things would not have turned out so romantically. We both needed time to mellow, so to speak.

In the old days, it took several major annoyances/catastrophes to convince me to 1) get a cell phone and later to 2) actually carry it with me. The most memorable being when I forgot all my students' ungraded research papers at my parents' house in Palestine, and we all had to make an hour-long emergency drive to Corsicana to hand them off. My parents saw the papers, sitting on the floor minutes after I drove down the driveway and left. If conditions had been different, they could have called, and I could have turned around before I even passed the loop. However, I was battling The Man and living life free from the shackles of technology. (I mean, I did have electricity and a car but whatever...) That drive marked a pivotal hour of my life--when the light shone down and realized cell phones really do make life easier, not harder.

They do I admit... still a little begrudgingly though. I am steadily getting better at answering my phone (but it's hard when I have Carter to deal with my calls. He's my secretary. He schedules my dates and appointments--even talks to my family for me sometimes.) I'm half-heartedly ashamed of getting this phone just like everyone else, walking around talking on my shiny phone, using all my convenient "apps" as they say. I know. I know. I do have the phone. I did say it was only half-hearted shame.

(And Hub will get mad at me for this post b/c I BEGGED for this phone. He kept telling me that I, of all people, didn't need it (He's right. Shh.) I was beguiled by all the potential apps though. I want a personal walking tour of Paris! I want help getting around on the subway! What can I say? I enjoy paradoxes. I am nothing if not conflicted.)