Okay, I have to admit, I was a complete Luddite, up until a few years ago. I did not have email, or internet access, or a cell phone, or any of the necessities of modern life. I had a VCR and an answering machine. That was it. Not even a CD player. Really, I'm not kidding.
After the towers fell (I was living three blocks from the Holland Tunnel,) I made a few sweeping changes in my life. Not because the towers fell, it was rather like taking advantage of a major shift in public consciousness to make a major shift in my personal consciousness. I changed pretty much everything, redefining who I am. Well, I kept some things which are core beliefs, like being a vegetarian. That sort of thing.
Cell phones were a particularly big challenge for me, as I had always found them annoying, especially the kind that beep at timed intervals when there is a message waiting for the owner. I hated when people called me from their cell phones and all I could hear was jumbled static. I did not like the notion of being at everyone's beck and call, like wearing one of those ridiculous beepers that people used to hang from their belts as if they were fashion accessories. Worse still, I did not like at all the annoyed insistence of those pushy callers who kept telling me I had to get a cell phone since I was impossible to reach. My reply was always that if I did not answer my phone, they were welcome to leave me a message and I would call them back. Of course, I usually chose not to return pesky calls from needy people demanding to hear from me at once.
It was finally the finances which convinced me to get a cell phone. (That, and all the research I did on which models were the safest, and had the lowest risk of causing brain cancer.) The money talks, when you are always broke. It became cheaper to get rid of the land line and simply pay a monthly plan for a mobile phone. Especially since each phone company, at the time, wanted desperately to lure people away from land lines and other phone companies, and it was not difficult to haggle to get the best possible deal. I learned to call every few weeks and renegotiate, until I managed to find the deal I still have.
Then something amazing happened. I realized how ridiculous it was to do what I do for a living without having a phone in the car!!! Truly, the cell phone proved to be absolutely invaluable to me. I work as a performer, mostly on weekends, mostly at parties, and my job calls for me to drive all over the map, sometimes with little or no time to spare between gigs. Listening to the radio every ten minutes, adjusting my route to avoid traffic and make up lost time, it became clear that having the phone in the car was essential. How the hell did I ever do it without one? Calling the client while running late, calling the agent to report in, calling the other performers to go over the plan, all done from the car. While driving. On the way to the gig.
As much as it used to make me crazy seeing people chatting away while driving, here I am doing the same thing. I know we are not supposed to, I know how risky it is, but I also know I absolutely do rely on that phone in the car while working. Far worse, I have been known to change costume and even put on clown make up while speeding along to perform for little Timmy's birthday party.
Having said that, I still get those demanding needy calls from people who wonder why I never answer my cell phone. Don't you carry it with you at all times? Well, no. I don't. I actually turn it off, or leave it at home if I am going to the movies, or the theatre, or some place where I do not think people should be bringing their phones. I do not walk down the street talking on the phone, and never carry on private conversations in public places. It drives me insane while I am waiting on line at the bank, or am in the Library(!!!!) or am sitting on a train, and there is a person nearby broadcasting all the intimate details of their date last night at full volume, completely unaware that they are audible to every other person in the room.
So, I am not one of those incessantly plugged in people who cannot put the thing down. I do, however, still use my phone while driving, even though I can see the reasons why it should not be allowed.
By the way, on my last trip to NY, there was a story in the news one morning about a guy who was driving while working on his laptop, and drove straight into oncoming traffic, killing himself and another driver in the process. That is just plain mind boggling.
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