rotary phones and paper journals.

Today I realized I have yet another stupid problem to add to my long list of stupid problems.
Oh! Technology, my foe.

More specifically, an absurdly expensive piece of technology that fits in my hand and serves as my major connection to the rest of the world, not to mention being my only journal, calculator, map and camera. All my eggs are indeed in one fucked basket.

IPhone, you are my problem.
Although this problem of mine is perhaps between only myself and me, and there's certainly a simple solution involving some exercising of demons and summoning the power of a great wizard, I'd much rather whine about it here, like a asshole, on the privacy of the internet. So...

I never asked for this kind of responsibility. I never wanted that kind of bankroll in my hands. I don't make enough money to own an IPhone. I don't care for the kind of garish flaunting that is assumed of me while using such a recognizable design. I feel like a walking advertisement.

I am a walking advertisement. And for one of the most unnecessary contraptions ever. First of all, every "generation" of IPhone, like every computer, becomes obsolete every 33 fast seconds. Fact. They're like college textbooks in the way that what you have at hand is never what they tell you you need (they, being Capitalist Bastard-The Man), and you can't sell one to anyone, without lying. No one wants an old IPhone, because in order to be "respected" in The Man's world you have to have the newest, biggest, best. I have had several people ask me if I have the new "generation" or the old "generation" Iphone and when I tell them I received the stupid thing 8 months ago they give me this sympathetic look. It's that look people give you after you shoot your best-friend-turned-rabid-hate-monger Old-Yeller in the head. How tragic that I have an old IPhone.

For those of you fortunate enough to not own one of these asinine communication devices, consider yourself blessed. Please. And quit looking at my phone. I am tired of trying to hide it while I use it. Having to walk around the corner, talk into my sweatshirt, or text beneath the cover of a table. A phone should not inspire envy, nor should it grant permission to shake your head at me in punk rock disapproval. It's a phone. It's an expensive, glorified phone. There are phones on the market for the low, low price of $5. Get one of those. I do not wish the trouble of an IPhone on my worst enemy. It is a constant, and painful, reminder of one more responsibility and a severe dependency on technology.

The real problem for me is that my IPhone has replaced so many things. Where I used to carry a journal and a pen, a camera, a map, a cell phone, a music machine, a day planner and a calculator, I now only carry an IPhone. Perhaps this isn't a problem for someone who has no trouble holding on to electronic devices, i.e. not dropping them in toilets, leaving them on top of cars, or throwing them down many flights of stairs, but for me it is the eye of the storm. I have 8 months of writing and snapshots in that fucker. That's a lot of memories that I've carefully documented and kept with me at all times. That's a lot of emotional significance inside of an emotionally incapable object. It will not cry when it loses me. It will not mourn my absence if it is stolen and used by someone else. My Iphone doesn't care about me. For that much money, it should.

Today, I lost my IPhone for approximately 20 minutes. I was immediately sent into an EPIC state of panic. With each passing second I realized something else that would go lost along with that phone. I became accusatory and emotional. I turned into an asshole. I needed to have been born with an "OH SHIT!" handle attached to my head. I needed to have had some sort of alarm attached to my mouth in moments like those. Something that would inhibit speech, something that would keep me from making a fool of myself. But, what I really needed at that moment was to have actually written in a journal, taken pictures and developed them, and to have learned the ability to not give a fuck about the rest of it.
Today I began backing up all my writing in my own handwriting on paper, and transferring my photos to my computer where I can at least eventually print them out.
Fuck IPhones. Dependency No More! Yay Meth! One small step for me..not really a large step for human kind, but whatever.