Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

The usual suspect...

This morning when I woke up, it was my pretty standard routine:

• Hit snooze a handful of times.
• Rolled around trying to find that "just right" position I was previously in.
• Once I found that position, I curled up into a ball and yanked the blankets up over my head. So much in a way that I no longer resembled a human, but this khaki, fuzzy blanket creature from the planet "Go Away-ulon."
• Pried one eye open just long enough to greet Mr. Sunshine (who can be a real asshole, more often than not.)
• Swatted my arm around my bed to look for my phone.
• Grabbed my phone, checked it for messages and dragged my tired, zombie-like ass outside for that first morning cigarette.

The last thing I do in every getting-up ritual is always the same -- no matter where I am, no matter whom I am with.

I always have that "need" to reach for my phone and immediately have a cigarette.

Is this merely a pattern? Or am I some sort of tech/nicotine junkie that has lost control and should call the Betty Ford clinic for smokers with iPhones?

Should we feel happy that we've developed such a familiar routine to help coax ourselves to reality and responsibility every morning?

Or should we feel sad that our routine has become so predictable...

...we could do it in our sleep?

Tethered...

This is the standard procedure for me to get up in the morning, and I don't think much about it while I'm in the act.

But now that I've had my eight hours, and some coffee is running through my system, the larger question is... am I in a very co-dependent relationship with my phone?

I'm going to use some Magic-8 Ball wisdom and say, "All signs point to 'yes.' "

My phone never leaves my sight. Granted, it's an iPhone, and if you have one, you can totally relate to my situation. It's a cool fucking phone!

There isn't anything the iPhone can't do for me. I check my e-mail incessantly, I check facebook around the clock, I check up on friends that are connected via certain applications. It feels a little "Big Brother" sometimes, though. But I can't get enough of it.

And although the iPhone is possibly my favorite purchase ever, it also is a magnet for shame and embarassment from time to time.

Luddite... or Bed me -- I have a HUGE...vocabulary

I was out on a date here about a month ago with a guy. We'll call him, "Mr. G."

Mr. G had and I had decided that we were going to go out for drinks one night and get to know each other.

When I told this guy what kind of work I was in, and the degree I was pursuing, he seemed to almost switch into this walking dictionary.

The typical first-date conversation went on, and I don't quite remember how we got on the topic of it, but he referred to himself as a "Luddite."

He was dusting off proper vernacular that hasn't been in common usage for ages, and tossing around a bunch of $10 words. Half of me thinks he was trying to impress me, the other half thinks he was just a showoff, hoping that by using a big word, it'd somehow translate into sex...I don't know?

Anyway, when he referred to himself as a Luddite, I did what any normal person would do.

I scanned my internal database of words and was trying to find Luddite.

I knew it was somewhere between "luck" and "lust," two words that are pretty thematic for my life, but I couldn't find Luddite anywhere.

After 30 seconds of that awkward smiling and nodding you do when you don't really know what else to do, I thought, "Hey! I have an iPhone. I can look up this word."

So, while he's talking, I whip out my iPhone and go to Webster.com.

...In just enough time for this guy to start going into examples of his levels of "Luddite-ness."

For kicks, here's how Webster defines Luddite:

: one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly : one who is opposed to especially technological change

— Luddite adjective

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So, this guy starts telling me how technology is taking over our lives, exactly at the same time that my iPhone is in my lap, and I'm staring at my e-mail inbox for new messages.

Of course, you could understand my shame.

Luddite? It wasn't even in my vocabulary. What the fuck is that? How can anybody hate technology? If anything, I'm the anti-Luddite.

So, while Mr. G, or "Too cool for school" as I like to refer to him, is going on and on about how technology sucks, or whatever the fuck he was blabbing on about, I'm checking the weather, texting people about how I'm on a bad date, checking my e-mail, updating my facebook status and yeah...setting up another date with somebody else.

But even in that moment, I felt so bad.

Granted, it would have never worked. He lives here in West Virginia. He doesn't have facebook. He doesn't text. He doesn't have myspace. He doesn't use instant messenger.

How would I ever stay connected with this guy?

I felt bad, because I got the feeling he thought we were hitting it off, but I just couldn't bring myself to go through another lecture about how the end of the empire is going to come at the hand of technology, or whatever the hell he was going on about.

He asked if I wanted to go to his house, but I politely declined and said he and I were two different people. We ended up closing out the bar--I'm never one to pass up free drinks, even on a bad date--and the night ended with me pulling out my phone, in plain sight and texting someone. Sort of as a parting gift to say, Well, I love technology, so go fuck yourself.

What really irked me about him, and not that it really matters now, but the arguments he was making against technology, I'm almost sure I had read them on the Internet somewhere.

...hypocrite.