concession.

I have been, for years, an I-Phone teaser. Not a critic. Please don't mistake. I have always thought it was a really cool piece of technology and very relevant to the lives of many. It just wasn't relevant to mine, and so I didn't have one, and therefor, wasn't caught up in the I-Phone frame of mind. This frame of mind can be seen in the eyes of someone holding their I-Phone intently, pressing things, and mostly unaware to the rest of their surroundings.

Because of this phenomenon I wasn't a part of, I made up nick names. I began to call the fabulous little device an I-Telephone. When my friends would refer to new apps they found, I would respond with looks of confusion. An App? What's that? Short for apple pie?! You can get Apple PIE from your I-Telephone?! OHHH. You mean "Application". Sorry.

A few months ago, I moved from Tulsa to another place where streets have different names and neighborhoods different themes. Before moving, I spent a week of travel, mostly alone. I turned getting lost into a hobby. I looked for a bakery in Boston long enough to have baked a thousand luscious lemon tarts for myself. By the time I made it to DC, it had gotten HOT, and the getting lost felt a lot more like a mess than an interesting adventure. My free phone from verizon, that couldn't accept pictures, much less take them, offered me no assistance. And it was defective. I would send someone a text message, and their response would take the form of a message I had sent an entirely different person months prior. With the move and changed life-scenario came the feeling like it was time for an upgrade. "Upgrade" is what they call it in the cellular telephone culture.

"On no", my subconscious thought. I may have to get an I-Telephone and become one of those people! I can't become one of those people. There are other telephones on the market, I told myself. So I looked at the Verizon Droid. Sure. That'll work.

I have a Macintosh computer whom I affectionately named Baxter, and I adore him, er, it. I haven't bestowed a name upon my I-Pod, but the affection is still there. It was the music coming from it's plastic covered body that lulled me through twenty-six miles of running in June, and countless hours of the same during the months preceding the calendar's sixth. And with these electronica thoughts came the voice of my friend Houston touting the logic of "brand loyalty" and purchasing something from a company whose products have proved themselves to you already.

And then I read a review on the I-Telephone, fit with pictures, which may have been the deciding factor. The esthetic side of my being was captured by the beauty behind the telephone's simplicity, timeless in form. The review went on to claim that it's, in their technical opinion, the best smart phone on the market.

And so, days later, I became a user. An I-Telephone user. It's been outfitted with a hand made sleeve from the ruffle I cut off of a dress that's now ruffle-less, as well as a few applications, including FIFA Soccer, entertainment for a bosses son while the adults ate chinese food and drank wine and talked about adult things.

Even without a mirror, I can recognize the glazed over look in my eye, somewhat unaware to what's going on around me, due to the I-Telephone frame of mind. That's to say, I get it. As my dear friend Aimi said, when I told her I was thinking of crossing to the other side of the telephone world, "It's life-changing, whether we want to admit it or not." And she's right. I could go on to tell stories of just how life changing it is, but there's a catch. I heard these stories from others...I sold these stories to people when I worked for Apple...and I didn't really get it until I had it in my hands, and didn't have to give it back to it's owner. So I won't bore you, and I won't tell you to go get one, either. I will just say that I am glad to be the owner of an I-Telephone, and not above getting lost in the stellar resolution of its glowing screen.