Or, How I Went for Almost Two Straight Weeks Without a Cell Phone
I recently took a rather unplanned hiatus from having a cell phone, which was, to my surprise, not that painful. It’s something I had been meaning to do, oh, forever, but never quite got around to because I love my phone and Twitter and the internet in general and could never quite work up the nerve to give it all up for an extended period of time. How, exactly, does someone take an unplanned two-week hiatus? Well, let me tell you.
First of all, go abroad. Realize at the last minute that your phone won’t work while you’re away and then, instead of freaking out about it, just turn it off, toss it in your bag, and forget it. That part was pretty easy. Vacation! Going with the flow! Who cares what’s going on with Twitter, I’m hiking on a volcano!
Second of all, have a very confusing series of miscommunications with several people, the result of which is getting your phone shut off for six days. See, my birthday present from my parents was a brand new iPhone. I was so excited to get that phone in my hot little hands on May 1, until I realized that my current contract with my carrier (that doesn’t support iPhones) wasn’t up until June 12 and that if I left early to go to another carrier I’d have to pay them $65. Oh. June 12 would work just fine after all. When we got back from Nicaragua but before we left for New York (in those 1.5 days we had in Pittsburgh), we called Verizon and ordered my new phone. It would be waiting for us when we got back from the big apple six days late, like a reward for coming back from vacation, which I think is something we could all use upon re-entry, right? Great!
I flew to New York on Tuesday, and D was set to arrive on Thursday morning. I had shared with him minimal information because we both figured he could just call me when he arrived! HA. Hahahahaha. By Wednesday afternoon I could no longer send or receive text messages. My coworker tried to call me and got a message that my phone was disconnected. Hmm. She couldn’t reach me to tell me this, though, so I had no idea. When D got to New York on Thursday morning, I hadn’t heard from him since Wednesday and didn’t know if he’d even left Pittsburgh. I also had no idea my phone wasn’t working. I just thought that people maybe didn’t want to talk to me, and also that my boyfriend was really bad at returning my calls. When the internet on my phone stopped working on Thursday morning, though, then I figured out something was wrong. Obviously I have my priorities straight.
I tracked down a phone and called D, who had indeed arrived in New York and was wandering around the Times Square area with no idea what hotel we were staying at, and managed to meet up and let him into our room. Crisis averted. Good thing his number is one of the two I still have memorized. For the rest of the weekend we either made concrete meetup plans (I will be standing at the elevators at 11:25 when my session ends; be here!) or stayed nearby. This meant no wandering off in museums (me) or disappearing while I’m taking pictures (him). Although not having a phone while traveling in a strange city had the potential for disaster, we did a pretty good job of keeping track of each other by making plans and paying more attention. I guess this is what people did before cell phones, right?
I did have access to Twitter and my email through D’s phone, but I only checked in a few times over the course of my 6 days in New York. When you have to ask someone to use their phone, jumping on Twitter at every spare moment isn’t as easy. Instead, I tried to forget about the internet. If someone really needed to get ahold of me, they could call D. Not surprisingly, no one did. D is much better about staying off his phone than I am (he isn’t on Twitter or blogs and hardly gets any email) so we were able to have a really good, low-tech weekend where we could enjoy the city and each other without much added distraction. It was actually pretty nice, not having the constant noise of the internet swirling around in my head. When we were sitting or waiting (for the train, in a museum, in the park) I found my mind was much more quiet and content. We had more conversations and silly, non sequitur comments about what we were thinking. Overall I felt a lot more calm (and in New York City!).
Now, does this mean I’m suddenly going to stop using the internet? Um, no. Not even close. I love the connection that reading blogs and chatting via Twitter bring me. I like having my email on hand and being reachable. I like to feel connected. But it does mean that when it’s just me and D, especially on the weekends and when we’re doing something together just the two of us, I’m going to make more of an effort to put the phone away or leave it at home. Although now that I have an iPhone and Instagram (find me! I’m Thisris) I can imagine it will be that much harder.
I recently took a rather unplanned hiatus from having a cell phone, which was, to my surprise, not that painful. It’s something I had been meaning to do, oh, forever, but never quite got around to because I love my phone and Twitter and the internet in general and could never quite work up the nerve to give it all up for an extended period of time. How, exactly, does someone take an unplanned two-week hiatus? Well, let me tell you.
First of all, go abroad. Realize at the last minute that your phone won’t work while you’re away and then, instead of freaking out about it, just turn it off, toss it in your bag, and forget it. That part was pretty easy. Vacation! Going with the flow! Who cares what’s going on with Twitter, I’m hiking on a volcano!
Second of all, have a very confusing series of miscommunications with several people, the result of which is getting your phone shut off for six days. See, my birthday present from my parents was a brand new iPhone. I was so excited to get that phone in my hot little hands on May 1, until I realized that my current contract with my carrier (that doesn’t support iPhones) wasn’t up until June 12 and that if I left early to go to another carrier I’d have to pay them $65. Oh. June 12 would work just fine after all. When we got back from Nicaragua but before we left for New York (in those 1.5 days we had in Pittsburgh), we called Verizon and ordered my new phone. It would be waiting for us when we got back from the big apple six days late, like a reward for coming back from vacation, which I think is something we could all use upon re-entry, right? Great!
I flew to New York on Tuesday, and D was set to arrive on Thursday morning. I had shared with him minimal information because we both figured he could just call me when he arrived! HA. Hahahahaha. By Wednesday afternoon I could no longer send or receive text messages. My coworker tried to call me and got a message that my phone was disconnected. Hmm. She couldn’t reach me to tell me this, though, so I had no idea. When D got to New York on Thursday morning, I hadn’t heard from him since Wednesday and didn’t know if he’d even left Pittsburgh. I also had no idea my phone wasn’t working. I just thought that people maybe didn’t want to talk to me, and also that my boyfriend was really bad at returning my calls. When the internet on my phone stopped working on Thursday morning, though, then I figured out something was wrong. Obviously I have my priorities straight.
I tracked down a phone and called D, who had indeed arrived in New York and was wandering around the Times Square area with no idea what hotel we were staying at, and managed to meet up and let him into our room. Crisis averted. Good thing his number is one of the two I still have memorized. For the rest of the weekend we either made concrete meetup plans (I will be standing at the elevators at 11:25 when my session ends; be here!) or stayed nearby. This meant no wandering off in museums (me) or disappearing while I’m taking pictures (him). Although not having a phone while traveling in a strange city had the potential for disaster, we did a pretty good job of keeping track of each other by making plans and paying more attention. I guess this is what people did before cell phones, right?
I did have access to Twitter and my email through D’s phone, but I only checked in a few times over the course of my 6 days in New York. When you have to ask someone to use their phone, jumping on Twitter at every spare moment isn’t as easy. Instead, I tried to forget about the internet. If someone really needed to get ahold of me, they could call D. Not surprisingly, no one did. D is much better about staying off his phone than I am (he isn’t on Twitter or blogs and hardly gets any email) so we were able to have a really good, low-tech weekend where we could enjoy the city and each other without much added distraction. It was actually pretty nice, not having the constant noise of the internet swirling around in my head. When we were sitting or waiting (for the train, in a museum, in the park) I found my mind was much more quiet and content. We had more conversations and silly, non sequitur comments about what we were thinking. Overall I felt a lot more calm (and in New York City!).
Now, does this mean I’m suddenly going to stop using the internet? Um, no. Not even close. I love the connection that reading blogs and chatting via Twitter bring me. I like having my email on hand and being reachable. I like to feel connected. But it does mean that when it’s just me and D, especially on the weekends and when we’re doing something together just the two of us, I’m going to make more of an effort to put the phone away or leave it at home. Although now that I have an iPhone and Instagram (find me! I’m Thisris) I can imagine it will be that much harder.
