Of Ships and Sees - Or New Phones and Life Portraits

I found myself sitting for over half an hour in the waiting area of AT&T - the toggle on my Blackberry had come loose requiring a special controlled effort when pointing and clicking; it was high time for a replacement.

I learned they see over 200 customers a day in the midtown AT&T Device Support Center. By support, they typically mean, "we're sorry, but your current plan does not offer any insurance, upgrades or exchanges" or "congratulations, you are entitled to a recommissioned phone."

Yes, recommissioned. A term previously used in reference to Naval ships, this is now the one they have coined for a phone taken from a previous owner and then passed onto you for its new journey.

My customer service representative actually said "well, we wouldn't want your phone to feel bad and dirty for being refurbished. So, all the phone's we give out are recommissioned."

Cool, thanks. My phone may need to check the self-help section at Barnes and Noble, but surely it can save the cost of a therapist for now.

As I sat waiting to receive my new shiny front of a recommissioned phone (yes, front, you get to keep your original back. And I won't even bother to guess how that makes the back of my phone feel), I sat texting and waiting.

I felt that strong sensation of someone's eyes on me. Looking straight up, I was met with the eyes of a young, artsy girl sitting directly across from me. As soon as our eyes met, she blinked back down to her lap. It was then I spied what she had, a little notebook and a pen scribbling away.

She was using me as a life portrait study. I continued to wait as other names with broken phones were called out ahead of me and all the while the eyes peered at me and the pen drew me. Every time I looked up her way, she quickly changed her sight-line back to her paper.

I was both disturbed and flattered to be the subject of this stranger's artistic study. But she and her little pad and recommissioned phone left on their new journey together before I. And I didn't see the result of her watchful eyes and scribbling hand.

As my friend D said, "your likeness will now be residing in someone's little notebook. That is kinda creepy."

GG vs. McCain

I just love that the popular topics link on the NYMag site, ranked in order of most viewed, places Gossip Girl right between campaigns, Obama and Bristol Palin! OMFG! I am so sure McCain/Palin would be against such dramatic teenage reality.

Offended We DeFriended You?

Last night over drinks with the girls, we got to talking about the people we've DeFriended on Facebook.
Most of us had Removed A's ex from our fb registrar. And A had also cut the worldwide cord to one of her first loves - a zombie phoenix that haunts repeatedly over the years and never disappears, but a swift Facebook Delete and we have found the secret weapon to finally killing them off.
Then there's the Randers that we'd FacedOut when we couldn't be bothered seeing the status change every five minutes (and, of course, all the Randers seem to be repetitive status changers) - we think he may be that kid from middle school, but can't really be sure because let's face it we don't remember their face or their name for that matter and wait, isn't this thing called Facebook, so that's a damn fine place to start when it comes to collecting friends.
(Now we've hit the nail on the head: so many of these people are collecting friends the way we once did Garbage Pail Kids or HotWheels Cars, as many as you can get. It's a status symbol.)

So, when they asked if I'd DeFaced N, and I said I hadn't, they were surprised. It's been four months since we'd stopped seeing each other - incidentally, the same amount of time that we dated. I hadn't really thought of him in the past couple months and short of a few "N and insert unknown name are now friends" and N was tagged in a photo, I hadn't paid too much attention to him amongst the remainder of my real Fakebook friends.
But this morning, I logged on and thought, they were right, I should send him to the fb trash bin. I typed his name in the little search box, but his photo and current status didn't appear. I was rerouted to the results page, where there he sat with a glowing blue Add as Friend label.
What? He UnFriended me? What a jerk! I quickly did a search in my sent messages folder - last week I hosted an event and invited everyone I knew in New York, unfiltered. I had included him on that message. This meant he only removed me as a friend in the last week. Pas cool. Super pas cool!
I mean, here I didn't care otherwise, but to know that he closed the book, admittedly it stung just a little, like a papercut.

I would like to recommend fb consider adding alternate buttons: Frienemies, Foes and Randers.