Calendar Girl

This is the year, the year that I FINALLY join the 21st century and use the calendar on my iPhone.

I don't feel like someone who is behind in technology. I'm not ahead. I'm not exactly right on time. But I'm certainly not comically tardy.

I mean, in my line of work I have to be resourceful. I'm a Googler. Big time.

And I use my phone for lots of things: I email; I check the weather; I Facebook; I read books; I use the Notes section for my grocery list (Or I take a picture of my grocery list that hangs in the pantry. My camera roll is full of pictures of a dry erase board.) I still don't Tweet.

But when it comes to the calendar, I'm old school. I just need the full month in front of me--at a glance. So I prefer the desk calendar. Here's mine:

A few weeks ago Frank and I decided to have a meeting (or I probably decided to have a meeting) to talk about plans, vacations and stuff, for the next few months. I said, "Let's get out our calendars" so of course, he picked up his phone. I hauled my desk calendar in from my office. "What are you doing?" he asked. "What? This is my calendar!" I told him.

"Why don't you use the calendar on your phone?"
"Because I love this calendar! I can see everything right here in front of me. It works perfectly."

But does it? I mean, when I am at a doctor's office or the hairdresser and I make a new appointment, I have to remember to go write it down on my calendar at home. And when I'm out and about I just have to remember things. A friend asked if we could get together to play. As she searched her phone calendar, I searched my memory. "Sure. We don't have anything on Monday," I told her. She said, "I feel like we do. Oh, yes. There it is. We have a birthday party." I had the same birthday party but had no mention of it on my phone of course. I admired how she had her whole schedule right there on this handy little machine. She said, "I'd be lost without this." Apparently I was lost too but didn't realize it!

The first time I noticed I was lagging behind in calendar technology was when I was on a writing assignment in California. Okay, this NEVER happens. I never get flown somewhere as a freelance writer to work on something. So I can't say it like it's all normal. It was actually very exciting and again, the ONLY time I've really traveled for an assignment. Except for that time I went to Paris. (Yes, Paris, Texas. Haha.)

So anyway, I'm on my super exciting freelance writing assignment and I'm meeting with this publishing company that I was going to do some work for. The owner of the company, another employee and I were sitting in the owner's office and we started to talk about the schedule for this book. The owner said, "Okay, how does your calendar look for the next month?" I whipped out not only a physical calendar but the wall calendar from my church. THAT was my professional calendar.

She totally called me out on it. "That's your calendar? It's like a giant wall calendar!" Now back then (2007), the expectation wasn't even that you would have a smart phone but AT LEAST you would have a daily planner. But no, not me.

"Did you just rip that off the wall?" she asked. We actually all had a pretty good laugh over it. They ended up killing the book before we even started but at least I got this free trip to L.A. out of it. And I'm pretty sure the cancellation was not because of my calendar ignorance.

So this year I'm kind of easing into it. I'm still using my trusty desk calendar but I'm also entering appointments and events into my iPhone. But I wish I could SEE it all at once. I just see a calendar with a bunch of dots on it. I have to click on the actual day to see what I'm expected to be doing. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually. It just might not be until the 22nd century.