My love yet mostly hate relationship with my cell phone

I’m not even going to beat around the bush with this one, kids.  I’ve needed to get this out for a long time so I’m just going to go ahead and put it all out there in the open.

I hate my cell phone.

God, it feels good to write that.  It might also feel good to shout those words but I have neighbors and don’t want to tarnish the illusion of normalcy I have so tediously created for myself.  Of course, now that I have written those words and subsequently published them here in the blogosphere, I suppose I need to explain myself.  So pardon me while I stretch out on the imaginary psychiatrist’s couch in front of me and bear my soul about my love/hate (but mostly hate) relationship with cellular telephones.

I’m not sure when it began.  I’m not sure how it began.  But I think the turning point was definitely around the time I purchased my iPhone.  To go on record officially, I did not want an iPhone.  I had no inherent desire to own an iPhone.  But standing there in the AT&T store I let myself fall under the persuasion of my husband and a fast-talking salesman.  I let myself be seduced by a touch screen and instant compatibility to iTunes, email, and “apps.”  I cannot tell you the memory capacity of my iPhone or any detailed, specific information most technologically educated people would rely on when making the decision to buy a product.  Hell, I just recently learned how to look up a phone number while on the line with someone else.  That’s about as advanced I can get. 

So, let’s move this story along.  I get the new phone and okay, it’s kind of cool.  I mess around with downloading some apps, I connect it to my email account, I surf the web faster than I can on my overloaded laptop, and I think that maybe this phone is one of the greatest things I have ever owned.  With the passing of time I soon come to the realization that this phone isn’t the greatest thing I have ever owned and has in fact ruined any chance I ever had of being able to disconnect.  I realized that apps such as Drinking Games, Mike Tyson Main Event, and Calorie Calc really didn’t do much to better my life (by the way, two of those apps came from my husband’s phone.  I’ll let you guess which ones), and in fact the app I used the most on my phone was the free version of solitaire I downloaded on the very first day.  Also, as time goes by I realize that my hatred does not extend merely to the smart phones, but to all cell phones throughout the four corners of the earth.  But back to the disconnect statement….what does that even mean?  I’ll tell you what it means.  It means that I have now become an absolute FREAK about checking email on my phone.  Sometimes I’ll do it several times in the course of ten minutes.  It’s not even a conscious choice anymore, I just do it whenever I happen to be in the vicinity of my phone and not because I care if I have new email, not because I feel like writing an email, no, I check simply because of the fact that I CAN.  With the swift touch of my pointer finger I am instantly connected to my inbox.  It’s so convenient, so effortless, and really helps me stay efficient and on top of things.  Yea, okay, except for the fact that I don’t want to be checking work email at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night.  Yet when I see that number “1” staring back at me from the bottom of my screen I am almost powerless to resist the urge to see, to just peek, at who is the sender of the note.  This is infuriating behavior and yet I feel powerless to stop. 

My next rant can be applied to all cell phones.  I am an equal opportunity insulter of all phones, all shapes and sizes.  And believe me, I feel like such an old person when I say this….but texting for the most part drives me nuts (as I typed that last sentence my little sister sent me a text....man I love her).  Most people describe texting as quick and instant communication.  I call it the longest most drawn out way to have a conversation with someone.  Plus, people can choose to ignore text messages for hours, days even, without any kind of reply.  At least when you are talking on the phone or in person it’s usually a quicker response time.  Texting also forces you to split your concentration for an unknown amount of time.  You could potentially be attempting to carry out a verbal conversation with someone while intermittently taking breaks to respond to a conversation you are having via text.  Kind of an exhausting process, and kind of super annoying for the person who has to watch you text. 

I think the thing that bothers me the most about cell phones is that, hypothetically, they make us accessible to everyone at all times.  And I know this has benefits, such as if you are being chased by a crazy axe murderer all you have to do is pull out your nifty little cell phone and presto!  Help is on the way!  This is comforting and probably could have saved the lives of many doomed characters in those campy horror movies I love so much.  But herein lays the ultimate question.  How accessible do we really want to be?  Why do we feel the need to be connected to so many channels and so many people at all times throughout the day?  I will admit, I feel lost when I don’t have my cell phone tucked away in my purse or, more often than not, clutched in my hand and ready to be used in a moments notice.  I resent that lost feeling I have when my phone isn’t with me and hate that I am so committed to this one device.

So what is one to do?  Is there a happy medium that exists between staying technologically current and blissfully unconnected?

Maybe this is about more than cell phones.  At the root of it all the emails, the texting, the apps, and all the other fantastic features of the modern cell phone are nothing more than distractions.  I personally am coming around to the idea that when it comes to a cell phone, less is oftentimes more.  And by less I mean less of my personal time wasted on simply playing with my phone.  Therefore, I am on a mini cell phone strike until the day when my cell phone can clean the house, walk the dogs and fold my never-ending pile of laundry.  But really, who am I kidding.  They probably have an app for that.

Vacations and book reviews

I am back after a minor hiatus.  After some much needed time at the Oregon Coast admiring the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and walking the beagles for miles and miles along the shore, I am back in the swing of everyday life.  Am I happy or sad about this?  The jury is still out.  Let’s just say the return to normalcy was inevitable so I have no choice but to suck it up and start fantasizing about the next vacation.

One of the great and wonderful things about vacation is that you have all this time on your hands to do pretty much whatever you want.  Before leaving on this trip my family and I made all these plans about what we wanted to do at the coast, what sites we wanted to visit, how we wanted to spend our days.  But when we got there we kind of realized the one thing we really wanted to do was lie out on the sand, stare at the water, drink beer, and read.  Okay, mainly it was me and my mom who did the reading, but everyone else still had a fabulous time watching us.  I had recently been going through a reading slump.  I could only read for a few minutes at a time, couldn’t get into the subject matter, and just was overall restless with the act of reading itself.  This is highly unusual for me, so I was hoping it was just a phase which, thankfully, it was.

At the ocean I immersed myself in a truly remarkable, fascinating, all-around marvelous story by Laura Hillenbrand.  The title of the book is “Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.”  If you keep up at all with the New York Times Bestseller lists you have more than likely run across this title a time or two.  The book follows the life of Louis Zamperini, a record-setting Olympic runner who joins the Army during World War II.  During a mission, Louie’s plane is shot down and he and two other soldiers are lost at sea for an astounding 30-something days before they are captured by the Japanese and sent to a POW camp.  This however is only the beginning of Louie’s trials.  He is a prisoner for the entirety of the war, moving around from camp to camp, forced into slave labor, and beaten severely almost every day.  It’s an understatement to say that the man went through hell and back, and the fact that he survived it all and eventually made his way home truly does boggle the mind. 

I won’t get into the nitty gritty details of the book too much for really there is far too much to cover.  In its entirety the story of this man’s life, of his will to survive, is something I have never come across before in my history as a reader.  Reading about Louie, about the situations he faces and the awful things he has to go through, feels like reading about a fictional character.  It is extremely hard to wrap your mind around the abject cruelty and menace that was directed toward these American POWs.  I could feel myself shaking my head as I read and exclaiming out loud during particularly incredulous passages.  However, due to the superb writing and research done for this book I also felt instantly connected to Louie as a person, as the main character of this story.  I could feel his determination radiating from the pages, his hurt and anger manifesting through the seemingly never-ending days of being a prisoner.  I found myself silently cheering him on as I got deeper into the story, and cried like a small child when he finally made it home and got to hug his mother again.  Let’s face it; stories like this are inevitable going to be an emotional roller coaster and I did my best to prepare for that going into the first chapter.  But I did not expect to be so amazed, so in awe, of this one human being and the different courses his life took.  The writing is superb and even if you aren’t a WWII buff you will have no trouble following the events and keeping track of what is going on. 

This book was exactly what I needed to break me out of my slump and it is hands down the best book I have read this year.  I was so sad to reach the last page and have my brief glimpse into this man’s life come to an end.  I sound a bit like a stalker, don’t I?  Well, I challenge everyone out there to read this book and come away feeling any different.  I completely and totally recommend this book to, well, everyone!  Please read it, tell me what you think, and we can gush about it together.  Go, fellow bookworms, go forth and read!       

On painting

The art of painting is in the preparation.  Have you ever had to paint something?  A wall, a door, window trim, no matter what the job the true work is in the preparation.  You can’t just open up a can of paint, dip in your brush and get to work.  No, there are steps to be followed in order to make sure the job is done right.

First you fill the holes.  Once the holes are filled you sand down the rough spots, until you are working with a perfectly smooth canvas.  After you have sanded your area you wipe everything down with a wet cloth, removing the dust and grime and exposing a clean surface.  When everything is clean and ready to go, you tape along the edges and around anything you wish to protect.  This is one of the most important steps in your preparation, and should be done slowly and with great care.  Once the surface is clean and smooth, once the edges are taped and protected, the easy part of the project begins, and that is lathering on the paint. 

Of course, painting is the easy part.  It’s everything that comes before that takes the most time and requires the most attention to detail.  If you skip even one step or try to cut even the tiniest corner, it can make a noticeable difference on the final outcome of your project.  While this isn’t always entirely detrimental, it can take away a small piece of one’s self satisfaction.

I feel through the course of our lives we are always undergoing painting projects, and not just on walls, windows and doors, but on ourselves.  We are constantly filling holes, working hard to eliminate our rough patches, and yearning always to wipe the slate clean and start again, fresh and new.  We get tired of the person we are and think, maybe I’ll try being something different.  Someone different.  Someone more colorful. 

So we slap on a new color to try out for awhile but it doesn’t always….fit.  Sometimes no matter how diligently you complete the prep work, the final outcome just isn’t what we wanted, what we expected.  Sometimes we are actually better off with what we started with.

I’m not sure if this rambling metaphor has a conclusion or a definite point.  But I will try in the least amount of words possible to sum up what I think I was trying to say.  Sound fair?

 We spend the majority of our lives prepping; for new careers, new haircuts, new houses, and new babies.  We spend so much time getting ready for all these major milestones in our lives, and then we spend even more time sanding them down to make them absolutely perfect, wiping them off so they always stay clean and new, then taping them off to protect and keep things just the way they are.  We do all these things, and it all takes so much time.  I’m wondering if our lives are just an endless series of painting projects, and I wonder if even after all the prepping are we ever really ready for what life has to throw at us.  On top of that, if we are keeping ourselves so busy with preparing, when do we finally get to start living?  Is living in the preparations, or can we actually skip all the tedious steps and get right to the heart of the matter?

I have never pretended to know the answers to any of the questions I pose, but I think at some point we have to just say enough is enough.  Sooner or later we need to just put down the sanding block, throw down the wet towel, and call it good with the painters tape.

At some point, we have to just pick up our brushes and finally start to paint.