I did it. I cracked.
I bought a Palm Pilot.
I’m a film major! I’m not supposed to be enough of a geek to buy one. Only engineering nerds and Kellogg students buy them, right? I even overheard 2 Kellogg students discussing their pros and cons when I was in line at Norris buying my books for Italian 101 (yay senior quarter!).
However, I was beginning to realize that I would forget my own goddamn name if I didn’t write it down, and I can’t carry eight thousand post-it notes with me anymore, so I bought one.
I feel a bit less like a cog in the capitalist machine since I bought the shittiest current model off of EBay from what turned out to be a pawn shop in Orlando, Florida for 3/4 of the retail price (including shipping) and didn’t pay taxes on it.
Take that, Uncle Sam!
The sad thing is that it actually helps. I’m much better about actually getting around to doing things when they’re computer-based than when they’re not.
I was so lost on the financial front until I figured out Quicken, and then I turned into the Mistress Of Finance. Or at least the Mistress Of Actually Paying Off All My Credit Cards Every Month. So far.
It’s also kind of nice not having to try and decipher my own handwriting on my planner. It’s really gotten bad lately. Everything is just a little scribble, so I can’t tell if I’ve written “Buy Apple Juice” or “Go to Vegas.”
I am still keeping The Evil Homework Book, as I named my paper planner when I first got it during my junior year of high school. For one thing, it has most of the songs that I’ve been working on for my new album (which I swear will come out eventually!).
However, I also feel the need to make sure to write everything down so that in case I break and/or lose this stupid thing, which I am almost guaranteed to do given how hard I am on electronic equipment, I won’t be completely fucked.
So I’ve really just added another layer of redundancy to my life, but in a way, the redundancy makes life easier, in that I know I’m not forgetting anything. And until now, that had been a major problem for me.
Now, I can embrace my geekdom/toolness (depending on how you feel about palm pilots), take out my little mini-computer, and say, “Now what am I forgetting?”
And I shall be told that I forgot to call my aunt Louise.