Blackberry cleanse

Day four...

I feel almost completely disconnected from society now.  Even more so than normal, I mean.  Friends I once had daily contact with, I haven't heard from in weeks.... or, days.  Last night, I managed to scrounge up some mushrooms for dinner.  (And fish and rice.)  Were they poisonous?  Who knows.  (OK, probably not, as I got them at the grocery store.)

Such is life with no cell phone.

My Blackberry bit the dust on Wednesday.  Died on the 4th of July, someone should make a movie.  Since then I have withdrawn further and further into an isolated, text-less, cell-phone-less existence.

When something you have relied on so heavily is taken away, you can't help but start to ponder things.  Things like, I never realized how texting has almost entirely replaced instant messaging in my life.  I used to have like 186 friends on AIM.  Now, there are five people signed into my Gchat.  And four of those are orange.

I still have a landline, but no one calls.  Or if they do, I don't know it, because they would be calling my Blackberry, which isn't working. And I can't call anyone, because years of reliance on cell phone directories have erased my memory of virtually all phone numbers except immediate family members.  And/or it's long distance.

I suppose I could email someone and ask them to call me.  But I'm not that desperate.  Yet.  Also, sometimes people act like they never got your email, even though it's clearly in your "sent mail" folder and there was never an issue with them getting any of your emails before when they complained because you're still Rickrolling them once a week, but as soon as you send one asking if they want to hang out, all of a sudden they're having Gmail issues!  I mean... I've heard.... that happens.... to other people.

Spending all this time alone, thinking about all the calls and texts I'm missing... it can, uh, make a man crazy.  How bad has it gotten?  Today I almost struck up a conversation with a telemarketer.  Almost.

What's next?  Speaking to someone face-to-face?  I shudder at the thought.

I'm sure some of you might be asking, "Bone, why in the world do you still have a landline?

What can I say?  I have trouble letting go.  Of course, I also have trouble committing, which is kind of a rare combination.  It's not easy being me, OK?

Still others of you may be wondering, "Bone, why don't you just get a new phone?"

Well, that would be the easy thing to do, wouldn't it?  It's just that I dread going to the phone store.  It's like we Blackberry customers have become anathema now.  When I bought mine, the guy was doing everything he could to talk me into another phone, any other phone.  And that was 18 months ago.  I can only imagine he and his good-time iPhone buddies laughing it up after I leave this time.

Also, it's been a welcome break for my Texter's Thumb.  *flexing thumbs*  I can really tell a difference already.

Besides, this has now mutated into some sort of masochistic exercise in self-deprivation.  You see, there comes a time in a man's life when he needs to strike out on his own, remove himself from society for a few days, and see if he can survive without all the modern-day amenities. 

So for the past four days, it's just been me and the bare necessities: my laptop and my TV. 

How long can a person live like this?

As my number of Gchat friends online has now dropped to three, I'm guessing not much longer.

"Open your eyes, you might see / If our lives were that simple, we'd live in the past / If the phone doesn't ring, it's me..."

Carrying a torch

What does Bone's title refer to today? Oh, well, let's see, it could be anything. It could refer to the Olympics. An old flame, maybe. Or perhaps his new blowtorch side business. All are stimulating possibilities. They're also all wrong.

Today's title refers to my latest foray into the world of technology. After three-and-a-half years, two roller balls and three batteries with my previous phone, I decided it was time to make a change. Tuesday morning's sticky roller ball episode was the last straw. So I went to the AT&T store.

I'm proud to announce you're looking at new owner of a Blackberry Torch. Oh sure, they tried to talk me into an iPhone, but I stood my ground. I played with the iPhone some, but I kept misspelling words. And if there's one thing I wouldn't be able to live with, it's that. Can you imagine me sending email after email with misspelled words? Me?!?! I think not.

Besides, as a dear friend of mine said, "You're an old man. You like the qwerty keyboard. You don't like change." To which I replied, "Exactly."

No newfangled touch-screen keyboard for me. I'll stick with my ol' trusty slide-out qwerty, thankyouverymuch. Anyway, I'm not so big on being on the cutting edge of technology. I'm much more comfortable back here in the meaty part of the curve -- not showing off, not lagging behind.

Every single iPhone person I've ever talked to has said something to the affect of, "I love my iPhone. I could never go back to anything else." It's almost like they're all trained to say the same thing. I don't want to be like that. Next thing you know, they'll be like those Harley riders, who only wave at the other Harley riders. Oh, like you're so special because you have a motorcycle, you can't be bothered to wave at the lowly car people. (Just kiddin' bikers... really.)

Without realizing it, we've become a society divided into classes based on our cellular profile. You have the iPhone people, aka the Glitterati, followed by the Blackberryists. I'm not sure what you call us. Stubborn, perhaps. I prefer loyal. Then there are the rebel non-mainstream smartphone people -- Droids, Androids and the like. These are your 21st Century hippies.

Next are the non-smartphone people, the upper middle class of our techno-age caste system, who think a phone should be used for things like, oh I don't know, making a call. They probably think those of us who treat our smartphones as another appendage need to get out of the technology beltway and remember what it's like to, oh I don't know, speak to someone in person. Weird, I know.

The next classification would be people like my Mom, who only recently figured out how to send a text message. If you never learned how to program a VCR, you're likely to find yourself in this class.

Lastly, we have those who don't own a cell phone at all. These Tibetan-monks-of-technology have to rely on someone stopping to help them if their car breaks down, stop for directions if they get lost, and never have to worry about overage charges, texter's thumb, or anyone calling them when they're on vacation.

My friend LJ falls in this class. Although I found out today that he just got a DVR, which has me questioning everything I thought I knew about everything.

Who knows why these phone-Mennonites do what they do. Maybe there are religious reasons. Perhaps they just enjoy depriving themselves of things. Or maybe, just maybe, there is something deeper. Something the rest of us cannot understand.

Ah, but who has time to worry about such things? I have a new phone and I'm kind of addicted to Word Mole already.

My name is Bone, and I carry a Torch. You can reach me by email, text, AIM, Google Talk, Facebook, Blackberry Messenger, and... probably a lot of other ways that I haven't yet and likely never will learn how to use.

Kind of odd for a wannabe-hermit, don't ya think?

"And I'd have given anything to have my own Pac-Man game at home. I used to have to get a ride down to the arcade. Now I've got it on my phone..."

I took off for a weekend...to try and recall the whole year

(Weather permitting, I will be participating in a 36-hole putt putt tournament Tuesday evening. I'm thinking of bringing my own putter. Is that too much? BYOP! I'm in it to win it!)

I hadn't had a vacation or holiday since New Year's. Work seemed to only be getting busier and more stressful. People around the office had become amused and/or frightened by my constant yelling at the phone for ringing. It was getting to the point where at least three times a day I felt as if my head were about to explode like a Gallagher watermelon. Clearly, I needed a break. So last weekend, I got away. To Myrtle Beach.

It was a bit of a last minute decision, as most of mine are. I didn't know for sure I was going until about four hours before I left on Friday. I was also a bit hesitant about going from a financial standpoint, considering the $600 car repair bill I'd just accrued last week and the kidney it was going to cost me in gas.

On the other hand, I was going to have a free place to stay. And it was the beach. So I ignored the overly cautious little Bone sitting on my left shoulder--who speaks with the voice of Carlton on Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air-- and just went.

It was my first trip to Myrtle Beach. The drive wasn't that bad, though it did cross my mind that the country is definitely wider than it is tall. Google Maps put it at a nine and a half hour drive, but I shaved a little more than an hour off that. The final tally was 591 miles in roughly 8.5 hours for a 69.5 mph average. That included a drive on the Strom Thurmond Highway. And one six hour stretch where I passed three cities that host NASCAR races--Talladega, Atlanta, and Darlington. Only in the South.

My stay was most relaxing. The weather was perfect. There wasn't a cloud in the sky Saturday or Sunday. My Blackberry didn't have a signal inside the beach house, which I was kinda bummed about at first. But in hindsight, it was probably a good thing. I needed a break. It was good to be disconnected for a few days.

I got to meet an old friend for the first time. We hung out on the beach during the days and enjoyed outstanding seafood in the evenings, my two favorite things to do at the beach. One particular place we ate was called the Bonefish Grill. Yeah, I really liked the name, too. It felt like I was meant to eat there.

I arrived home Monday evening feeling refreshed and recharged. My head clearer. My skin a bit darker. And feeling glad that I "just went."

There were times in the past when I might have found some reason not to go. But that was the old Bone. A lot has happened this year. Things that have caused me to appreciate and try to live each day, taking advantage of opportunities to do things and spend time with people. I've found myself saying "yes" a lot more this year. (Creepy pseudo-suave voice:) So... ladies?

Oh, one other thing happened at the beach. I went plaid:



Uhh, ladies?

"With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh we would all go insane..."

Your text is on my list

"How was your Christmas?"

The text message came as a surprise. I don't recall where I was when I got it. Work, maybe. As we texted back and forth a few times, I began to wonder how long it had been since I had heard from her. I wondered where she was and what she was doing. I wondered if I should read anything into her texting me, beyond just keeping in touch. And not least importantly, I wondered who she was.

That's because, though I've had my Blackberry Curve for two months, I've still yet to transfer the names and numbers from my old phone to it. Therefore, I had not the slightest idea who I was texting.

My last phone was so old, all I had to do was pick it up and say, "Sarah, get me the drug store." No, seriously. It was so old that the sim card wasn't compatible with the Blackberry. So the only way to get all my numbers on the Blackberry is to enter each one manually. Think of it as the technological equivalent of needing to transfer all my Tom Jones 8-tracks to iTunes. In both cases, I've yet to get around to it.

Cell phones have completely ruined me from remembering phone numbers. I feel lost now. I know like eight phone numbers, total. Even those I have begun to recognize, I mostly know only by the area code or prefix. I still couldn't dial the entire number from memory.

Incoming calls aren't so bad, as I can usually recognize someone's voice within the first five minutes of a conversation. But anytime a text comes in, unless it's one of the eight I've committed to memory, I sit staring at the ten digit sequence like it's one of those 3D pictures. And maybe if I squint a little harder and concentrate a bit more, the name that goes with the number will magically come to me. Which, by the way, is also pretty much how I approached most of my tests in college.

Texting has become like my own little game of 20 Questions. I send a series of fairly general, innocuous messages, until finally the other person unknowingly reveals some clue as to their identity. During football season, I would typically have two or three people texting "Roll Tide" to me before, during, and after games. To this day, I'm still not certain who a couple of those people were.

My call list on the Blackberry stores twenty numbers, and has become my ad hoc phone book. If you're not one of the last twenty people who have called me or who I've called, there's a decent chance I won't be able to contact you until you call me again and get your name back on the list.

Anyway, back to the conversation which inspired this post. The unknown "she" eventually sent a message asking, "What is ur address?" Still unsure who this person was and only knowing she had an out of state area code, I chose not to respond. I mean, as a semi-popular blogger, one can never be too careful, right?

About a week later, after a complex process of research and elimination, I finally figured out there was a 99.95% chance the mystery texter was Lil' Booty. (That's almost as good as a DNA match right there!) I called and gave her my address, and we shared a laugh.

And no worries about me getting all my numbers transferred onto the Blackberry. I've officially put that on my bucket list.

"Jenny, I've got your number. I need to make you mine. Jenny, don't change your number. 867-5309..."