If only I had a blogger app

Over the past 5 months, a new relationship has started to consume my life: the blackberry. For years, I refused to get a phone that would cost me more than $19.99, mainly because I knew I would be constantly dropping or losing it. Ironically, my current phone is only my 4th since I went cellular (props to the kyocera that lasted through about 6 flights of stairs and two major bodies of water).

But since I was changing everything else in my life, I figured it was time to make the plunge into what I refer to as dataland. And slowly, I started to see my own autonomy be consumed by my partner. I fell asleep to the fading backlight of my screen. I wouldn't buy any purses that didn't lend themselves to the increased bulk.

I'm to the point now where I use my crackberry (as weakley named it) to avoid awkward social situations. Only one person in your group heads to the bathroom at the movie? Time to sqeeze in a Gail Collins Op-Ed. First one to arrive at a happy hour destination? Catch up on the latest snowpocalypse forecast. Even if I'm sitting with people, in public or otherwise, I find myself constanly checking, in the off chance I got an update from Kayak in my email about useless one-way flights to Nebraska. (And according to the Washington Post, I'm not the only one to sometimes find my smartphone more stimulating than the real world).

I considered for a hot second giving up my data plan for Lent. One of the only successful Lent abstentions, after all, was all non-academic computer or internet use my freshman year of college. But then realized that I just love Gail Collins (don't miss Feb. 13, or Jan. 20) too much to be separated from her just because I'm getting a pedicure. Even my dad, the antithesis of technology, stole my phone for like 2 hours over Christmas break to read the Wall Street Journal, even though he had the print edition sitting right next to the couch.

And actually, my lack of motor skills have risen to the occasion. I've only dropped it twice, and once was actually useful because it jolted my speaker's function back into operation. Now if only I could figure out how to text with two hands while driving...