Growing Me

After just three years and some months, my lame Vaio is busy messing with my heart. It's still very usable, but the power source has been giving me grief, and without the power, how does one turn on her laptop?! Of course, this is happening at a time when I need my computer more than ever, but I suppose that's always the way these things go.

While I wrap my head around the reality that it's time to drop a penny on a new system, with work deadlines looming ahead, I'm torn between frantically responding to personal emails while I'm in the office with access to a proper keyboard or painstakingly trying to tap out brief missives on this thing at home in the evenings.

This thing? You see, I've hijacked Soeur's iPad. And let me tell you: you would not believe how hard it is to feel ladylike typing on one of these guys. Writing is just about as pleasant an experience as when I first learned to type in middle school, clumsily pecking at keys, my hands sweaty between the keyboard and a handkerchief. Needless to say, there has been a considerable increase in my email response rate.

This is not a big deal, that I'm offline outside the office. But. I don't have a smartphone. So, outside of office hours, unless you've got my digits, you probably won't reach me. Again, not a tragedy, but since everyone expects immediate responses to emails these days, I run the risk of being rude. With everyone pretty much plugged in 24/7, it really shouldn't take more than a few hours to respond to most missives, you know? Any longer and people think something's wrong or you're blowing them off.

Boo. I don't know why I'm so opposed to technology. I think it's because of my general disdain for rudeness. I fear that I might become a person that I despise. You know, that I might just become one of those people that sit across a table dining with someone, but with my eyes and hands glued to my phone instead of being present and in the moment. Every single time I set foot in a restaurant, I see tables full of friends, only all of them are staring at glowing screens instead of engaging one-on-one with the people they came to dine with. Even worse, a table of two, each guest chewing and reading something on their phones instead of talking to their companion an arm's length reach away, just across the table. It's bizarre. Moreover, it's the norm and not the exception to our evolving rules of social grace. Expectations around the practice of personal interaction are changing. And it feels like I'm the only one who's hesitating to just go with it.

I can't help but sigh. I know I'll catch up eventually. When I finally do, it'll be a momentous occasion. For example, I know myself well enough to know that if I ever climb up onto the Twitter bandwagon, my world will change. It's so against everything that I am; mainly the private part of me. I could restrict my account, but that seems silly because Twitter is fundamentally about community. I'm ok with my being a privacy hoarder. Usually. But these days, I'm feeling some pressure (self-imposed, I promise) to open up the doors a bit. I think it can only bring good things my way. So maybe with the replacement of my home computer, it's time to finally get a new phone, become a Twit, and work on growing a part of myself that I think might benefit from a little attention.