Obsolescent items replaced by Blackberry

A brief list of objects that have become obsolescent in my life since the advent of my Blackberry (props to brother Johnny). They are in chronological order:

1. Land line: really what was the point of having a two phones in the house?


2. My address book: have had one of these for the past 30 years. I liked them b/c they were a landscape and a portrait of the people going in and going out of my life. But they became superfluous.


3. My date book: No longer spend forty or fifty dollars for a sexy Filofax.


4. My calculator: does the math just as well as my old school one--- which by the way I've had for twenty years.


5. My alarm clock. Since I've figured out how to set my alarm and personalize the tone, I no longer need my clock radio. This too is circa 2001.


6. Camera. Didn't have one before, but have one now.

Little by little, I acknowledge the power of the little black beast, my Blackberry, that always travels with me. So much more than a phone, it entertains me, helps me to budget, takes pictures, make phone calls, take notes, and keep appointments, and now recently wakes me up in the morning. But I would be a fool and a philistine to note their passing without some sadness. I enjoyed setting up a new datebook every year--- it was part of the process and part of the ritual by which I welcomed the new year. I enjoyed shopping for it--- would it be the red, slightly slutty Filofax, or the just-mean-business black? Perhaps the sombre brown with gold accents? Or the cheap ones with the cardboard covers. I liked buying the monthly calendar--- that I would hang in my kitchen to remind me in bold letters of important dates. Setting my alarm clock to the public radio station, waking up to classical music. But never let it be said that I cannot keep up with shifting paradigms.