Meow House Theatre

is my iPhone.  I might be in mad passionate love with an inanimate object.

I used to have a Mac, a computer I mean, and I don’t recall it being this much fun.

It’s nothing new that I *LOVE* small electronic devices.  I have all manner of computers, laptops, tablet PCs, phones, iPods, iTouch, graphics tablets, CD players, external drives, four small digital cameras (let alone my two DSLRs and ten, I think, lenses), and just about everything else you could think of that you can hold in your hand and play around with or connect to the Internet or take pictures or make art with.

But I might love this one best of all.  And it’s only been about 3 hours that I’ve had it.

I read this book a while back, The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor.  It’s got several intertwined stories about the residents of a low-end housing project or neighborhood in some unnamed American city.  I think it might be Baltimore, or possibly Chicago, or maybe Gary, Indiana.  Someplace big and ugly and dirty and poor, at least in the part the characters live in.  Anyway there’s one story about this woman who has about 10 children, because every time she has a baby and it gets to be about 3 years old, it changes in her mind and becomes uncute.  Oh she still loves them all (although she is exasperated at the time the older ones take away from her being able to spend more hours with the newest baby) but at some certain point, every child she has no longer has this mysterious undefinable allure that she has this inexplicable attraction to.  It’s explained, sort of, that she is drawn to the smell and feel and appearance of a sweet cute round little baby, with its big eyes and innocent smile and soft skin and total devotion to her, and even though she loves her older children more or less, nothing can compare to the joy and wonder she feels when she has an infant to kiss and cuddle and take care of.  I could never understand how this–loving one over the other–could be.

Until now.

Because this thing is freakin’ awesome.   And my formerly beloved BlackBerry is just a gangly clunky-appearanced child who used to be adorably cute and is now rather sad and pathetic since the baby came along.  Poor pre-adolescent BlackBerry, his mommy doesn’t love him anymore.

Oh god keep me away from that incredibly gorgeous Mac Book Pro I was gawking over at the store or I might do something terrible to my Windows computers.

Well I’ve broken down and submitted to the power of Mac. I am picking up an iPhone in a couple of hours. Ever since they developed support for MSExchange–which they didn’t used to offer and which I *must* have–I’ve been thinking about it and although I love my BlackBerry Pearl, the stupid problems with the goddamn trackball are driving me nuts. And there is just a lot more possible (or at least, the same things are possible but they’re easier) with an iPhone. So I am going to nearly double the cost of my my ancient grandfathered T-Mobile voice/data plan ($40/month unlimited) and start a new romance with AT&T.

I can’t decide between the black and the white phone. I have to see which is more pretty when I get there.

In order to recoup some of the money I’ll now be giving to Steve Jobs, I plan to cancel my cable since I hardly watch TV anyway. I can see CNN on line and most TV shows, if I even want to watch them which I probably don’t. I’ll keep the cable for 2-13 and get rid of all the extra channels. It’s just a waste. Sometimes I don’t turn the TV on for 3 weeks at a time. I have no idea what some of these shows are. “House”?? I thought that meant it took place in a house. Apparently it’s his name? He’s some kind of doctor? Acts like a dick but always figures out the problem, sort of like like Matlock but younger and hipper? I don’t know and don’t care. “Lost”? Wouldn’t a more apt name be “Stranded” or “Crash-Landed, Can’t Get Home”? They aren’t lost; they know where they are, just nobody else does. What’s that horrible show about Hugh Hefner’s whorehouse? Oh sorry I guess he lives there with his “girlfriends.” That is one weird arrangement they got going on there.

Hmmm I guess I know more about current TV than I thought!

Anyway today it’s an iPhone, tomorrow it might be a MacBook Pro. O it’s a thing of beauty. Oh all RIGHT I won’t get it tomorrow. That’s more of a Want than a Need.

Now don’t get started on the iPhone not being a Need either. Take your Rousseauean Philosophy and go find some jungle-inhabiting nature man to tell it to.