Hello, my name is Angela and I’m a phonaholic

“You’re such a junkie,” my granddaughter told me.

She had just offered me my BlackBerry and asked if I needed a fix. She had it because her simpler phone had died, and I’d loaned her mine because she was on her way to Dallas, where she needed to be able to contact friends for pick-up at the airport. I guess I looked too eager as I snatched it from her hands.

My co-workers used to tease me because they said I had organizers for my organizers. They were kind of right, because I had a detailed work organizer, a detailed home organizer, and a purse organizer to combine high points of the two so I wouldn’t accidentally overlap. It was the best way I knew to CONTROL the coordination of a 10- to 12-hour-a-day job (sometimes six days a week), my husband’s conflicting work schedule, and our kids’ and grandkids’ activities.

Then my employer gave me my first cell phone with a calendar. I was in heaven. Here, in an easy-to-carry package, not only could I keep track of my meetings and appointments, but I could set an alarm to remind me to go. (Then, as now, I tended to get caught up in my writing and forget to eat lunch, attend meetings, etc.)

When I retired, I got a BlackBerry. Now I have a calendar with an alarm, a separate wake-up alarm, and I can check both my email accounts, facebook  and twitter anywhere I have phone service. (When the publisher who has had my novel for five months sends me that acceptance letter, I want to KNOW, baby!) I can carry my to-do lists in my pocket and jot down micropoetry on my note pad. With my phone and my Mac, I have conferred with clients and written and delivered articles while 1,000 miles away from my home office. In Scotland without internet, I was able to post on facebook and twitter and keep track of all my friends, actual and virtual. I am not a cell phone junkie; I am merely in CONTROL.

But for the last week, I have been without my full QWERTY keyboard. I almost missed my hair appointment because it was on my BlackBerry in Dallas. (Thank heavens I had written my doctor’s appointment on my day planner.) I’m behind with facebook and twitter because I can’t check them while I’m waiting to see my optometrist, and I can’t check the weather forecast for next week to plan my wardrobe. My life is out of CONTROL.

I am so looking forward to seeing my granddaughter on Sunday. She’s a delightful, lovely, intelligent and talented young woman—and she has my BlackBerry.

copyright Angela Parson Myers 2011