cell phones and vacation
my cell phone is a useful thing. it tells me when i'm supposed to go places, when to expect my period, when i've made plans and should pack. it lets me call people and make arrangements or answer questions or address things before i might be in the same place as them or figure out some other tool to use for the same purpose, like email or mail or telegram. [thinks] it wakes me up in the morning. it is a good night light that i can use from my bed until such time as i get a little bedside lamp. it can send messages in text when i don't feel like talking to people. it is good. i like my cell phone. it also tells me the time and date and has a calendar in it that i can refer to any time i want when i carry it around with me in my pocket. it is a lovely entertaining toy that i can use to distract me while i think about other things. (no, i have not installed any games, etc.) it is one of the two things that i check for in my pockets before i leave home. my keys chain is the other thing.
that being said, i am on vacation now. that means that i don't need to go into work every day this week. it also means that, true to form, i have left town. the town i am now in is salt lake city, utah. the lake is indeed pretty and salty and surrounded by mountains. the mountains are huge. it feels a bit like being caught in a video game with a big mountain scene as the background. the cold is not cold the way that it is in the northernish east coast of the united states. the wind does not blow past you painfully all the time. the cold is cold and you are you, and neither of you bother the other. it's nice. the cold snuck up on me this morning and froze my hair. i'm used to the weather telling me it's cold and then putting up my hood so it doesn't freeze my hair. no warning this morning. [shrug] it's nice. but being in a different place isn't what makes it a vacation. that's just what i do with all of my time off because i don't like where i live so much and i like to see people that i don't normally get the chance to see.
vacation is leaving expectations behind. for example, i did not pack a large quantity of work related materials to lug around, worry about getting damaged, and feel badly for not toiling over. that's a recent development in my learning how to give myself a vacation. "i can't do it, and i don't feel bad. i need this time." something like that. okay, but the main reason i was writing this post was to say: i haven't put my phone into my pocket since i arrived at benben's house in salt lake city. someone called me once, and bnebne brought me the phone, but i missed the phone call just in time, and we had a conversation about how there was a rule to ignore my cell phone because i was on vacation. i almost put it into my pocket afterwards, and then i felt it in my pocket and took it out. it weighs too much.
my phone is very useful because it will tell me who called, and if they want me to know why they called badly enough it will also tell me why. later. the trick is learning how to choose how much later without feeling bad or thinking about it all the time. the only reason that i'm thinking about it right now is that i think that it came with me in my bag today...and i'm considering turning it off or silencing it. i think i'll silence it because it doesn't tell me whose calls i've missed if it's off. and i want that information. later.
i wonder if i'll go back to carrying it around when i get back. i think i will, but i think i'll have a vacation every evening. i'll have to think about it and figure out if i want to receive phone calls from certain people or not and how to accomplish that without noticing the other calls or worrying about them if i do notice them. are there ways to filter some phone calls but not others or change the ring tones for particular people (then i can change them to silence)...or is that too much effort? or maybe i shouldn't be taking work related calls at home anyway? what about my parents' calls..? complicated. i'll think about it later.
thanks for hearing me out.
that being said, i am on vacation now. that means that i don't need to go into work every day this week. it also means that, true to form, i have left town. the town i am now in is salt lake city, utah. the lake is indeed pretty and salty and surrounded by mountains. the mountains are huge. it feels a bit like being caught in a video game with a big mountain scene as the background. the cold is not cold the way that it is in the northernish east coast of the united states. the wind does not blow past you painfully all the time. the cold is cold and you are you, and neither of you bother the other. it's nice. the cold snuck up on me this morning and froze my hair. i'm used to the weather telling me it's cold and then putting up my hood so it doesn't freeze my hair. no warning this morning. [shrug] it's nice. but being in a different place isn't what makes it a vacation. that's just what i do with all of my time off because i don't like where i live so much and i like to see people that i don't normally get the chance to see.
vacation is leaving expectations behind. for example, i did not pack a large quantity of work related materials to lug around, worry about getting damaged, and feel badly for not toiling over. that's a recent development in my learning how to give myself a vacation. "i can't do it, and i don't feel bad. i need this time." something like that. okay, but the main reason i was writing this post was to say: i haven't put my phone into my pocket since i arrived at benben's house in salt lake city. someone called me once, and bnebne brought me the phone, but i missed the phone call just in time, and we had a conversation about how there was a rule to ignore my cell phone because i was on vacation. i almost put it into my pocket afterwards, and then i felt it in my pocket and took it out. it weighs too much.
my phone is very useful because it will tell me who called, and if they want me to know why they called badly enough it will also tell me why. later. the trick is learning how to choose how much later without feeling bad or thinking about it all the time. the only reason that i'm thinking about it right now is that i think that it came with me in my bag today...and i'm considering turning it off or silencing it. i think i'll silence it because it doesn't tell me whose calls i've missed if it's off. and i want that information. later.
i wonder if i'll go back to carrying it around when i get back. i think i will, but i think i'll have a vacation every evening. i'll have to think about it and figure out if i want to receive phone calls from certain people or not and how to accomplish that without noticing the other calls or worrying about them if i do notice them. are there ways to filter some phone calls but not others or change the ring tones for particular people (then i can change them to silence)...or is that too much effort? or maybe i shouldn't be taking work related calls at home anyway? what about my parents' calls..? complicated. i'll think about it later.
thanks for hearing me out.