Mourning the Loss of Data

It seemed so innocuous. I needed some AAA batteries to operate a digital hand recorder and was too lazy to go to the Walgreens on the corner, so I took them from my Handspring. An hour later I put the batteries back in my Handspring and turned it on. The blank screen seemed so strange.

I hit a few more keys, checking my address book, my memos, my settings. The screens were as pristine as when I bought the PDA nearly four years ago

I called Craig, my technical friend in residence. He thought I wanted to talk about our usual—the psychological underpinnings of heterosexual relationships and the stuff he’s just bought on eBay.

“I scored a cheap version of Quickbooks for you,” he said. “You were looking for that, right?”

I tried to remain calm; so many times I’d called him in a panic over some computer malfunction, and all it took was a key stroke to restore my data. This time, I assumed, would be the same. I couldn’t entertain any alternative outcome.

“Craig, I can’t find my Handspring data.”

“Did you re-set?”

“Yes. Nothing’s there.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. I just took the batteries out and then put them back in.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. So what?”

“That was royally stupid.” Craig reserved these comments for when I’d truly done harebrained things, like when I spilled coffee on my laptop and insisted on turning it on to see if it would still work. Like when I shut off my Norton Anti-Virus to avoid those pain-in-the-ass popups—for six months. But this was different. I had simply taken the batteries out of my PDA. What was the harm in that?

Apparently I’d discovered the technological way to give my PDA a karate chop in the carotid artery.  I had taken out the batteries for longer than the three minutes its little brain could survive.

“Yep,” Craig said, “You’re screwed. That was stupid, but that’s why you sync up your data.” I swallowed hard and remained silent.

“Oh no,” Craig said.

“Yes,” I said.

“You never did?”

“I did! A long time ago. I just…well.”

“I thought I told you…”

“I know you did.”

“How could you?”

“Who’s freakin’ data is this? Yours or mine?”

“I can’t believe you did this.”

“Do I need to remind you, Craig, no one has died.”

That wasn’t entirely true. My Handspring and I have shared a very close relationship. It had gotten me to job interviews, through meetings and holiday card campaigns. Computers had crashed on me within the four years we’d been together, a car had been totaled, my address had changed three times, and yet I still had my trusty Handspring. My memory. My Rolodex. My most reliable friend. I had unwittingly put it to sleep.

I used to date—I mean, use—a Day-Timer. We were together for years, despite my issues with its weight and its demands on my time. Every year I’d have to replace the address book portion, order more pages. It seemed to require more and more maintenance. Once I moved to San Francisco and worked at a Dot Com, I saw that so many others were using these sleek, light PDAs—synching up, sending contact information. These people seemed so much less encumbered than me, the Luddite.

I had been eyeing PDAs for weeks, but I wouldn’t cheat on my burgundy binder. Then one day I strayed, while passing a Comp USA, where Handsprings were on sale for only $200. “I’ll just use it for addresses,” I said, denying the inevitable.

We had a rough start. Transferring the contact information I had in my paper address book was grueling. My back ached from being hunched over my Handspring, tapping electronic keys.

“The point isn’t to use the typewriter function,” Craig said to me, when I called him fresh from a visit with the chiropractor. You need to learn Graffiti; then you’ll get text in there much faster.

“Yes Obi Wan,” was my reply.

Writing in hieroglyphs was awkward. I struggled with commas and with trying to remember which way to slant the final stroke in the letter X. I almost dropped all friends with the letter Q in their name, but I persevered. I looked inward and tapped into that natural gift of mine for abbreviation and half-finished sentences. By the end of the first month I was ready to move beyond addresses and was scheduling meetings and creating detailed background notes. I had mastered to-do lists, but I was ready for more. The Handspring seemed to beckon and say, “you’re ready.”

“Then show me,” I said.

I suppose I’ve become a Jedi of the Handspring. I have notation down to an art, using shorthand that sets off Natural Language Processing in my head. I could jot down abbreviations that signal to me full concepts:

“Call fem/JED for no” (translation: follow-up with that lady whose name you’ve forgotten; get her number from your sister.)

“mntn 5d vac 6/1” (don’t forget to tell your boss you’ll be out the week of June 1.)

“sb flt 3p” (call the airlines and see if you can get a standby flight closer to 3pm.)

"eat dinner" (actually COOK something tonight; no cereal)

I realized that I had spent too much mental energy trying to remember state capitals, meeting details and the intentions I had when I called someone; jotting them down in the Handspring seemed so much easier. I learned to wake up each morning with a clean slate and arrive at work each morning not knowing what to do with myself until I turned on the Handspring. I hoarded AAA batteries in my desk like they were sugar packets.

I elicited the bewilderment of my boss, who wondered what I was jotting down in my PDA while he spoke to me. At that point I was beyond taking notes on paper and could transcribe them in the form of electronic To-Dos.  I could wake up in the middle of the night in a panic at some unrealized long-term goal and rest assured that I wouldn’t forget it—it went into the Handspring, somewhere in June, 2006, where it belonged. No having to write a note that I may or may not find later; no having to wait for a Day-Timer refill.

Recently my boyfriend tried to stage an intervention. I had compromised myself and forgotten to bring PD (we’ve been on a nickname basis for years now) to work, and I hadn’t a clue what to do, what projects I had planned, what meetings I had scheduled. I called my boyfriend, knowing that he would be home and could read to me what I’d scheduled that day. I should never have let him into this precious world of mine:

“Jesus, Jory! You have ‘Eat Lunch’ scheduled in here!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep reading.”

“It says here, ‘Call tom,’ whoever that is.” Hah! Let him think I was going to be calling some tall, handsome, management consultant named Tom. Little did he know that, if I had morning phone meetings for which I had to wake up early, I wrote a reminder the day before. My date with Tom was actually a phone call I had to remember “tomorrow.”

“Looks like you have an eleven o’clock with Rich.”

“OK, got it; what else?”

“You have errands to run at lunch. Don’t know what.”

“Check the note attached, please!”

“OK, geesh. It says here to pick up tpons, deo, tp, bcps and gum at Walgreens.” I often abbreviated the more embarrassing feminine products.

“OK, that it?”

“Don’t forget to leave work today and come home.”

“Smart ass.”

Clearly my boyfriend was jealous of the bond I shared with PD and lashed out by mocking our intimate language. He didn’t understand that, while I was fully aware that I would have to eat meals, even if they had not been scheduled in my Handspring, there was reassurance in knowing that even the most mundane aspects of my life had been recorded; that I could see a chronicled version of my quotidian life at the touch of a button.

For the first year or two I backed up PD religiously, but, I imagine, I got cocky; a bit too comfortable with my ability to remember things. I’d forgotten that none of it remained in my memory, but rather it had been shelved electronically. I had forgotten that my social calendar, my rent payments, my mother’s birthday, hung in the balance.

So, here I sit, post holiday-cards (yes there is a God, and He is merciful), but somehow empty, wondering what piece of my life I have forgotten but had recorded in PD. Who will be calling me with an expectant tone, wondering why I’m shopping at Nordstrom when I was supposed to be on a conference call.

And then there’s PD. He’s like someone else now; so unresponsive. I just wonder, should I put him out of his misery while he has no memory? It hurts; somehow you just think, what if, what if I can get him back? But then denial fades and reality sets in. And in its wake you pick yourself up; you start over. One contact card at a time.

Comments

[Jon Strande]

Jory, I'm so sorry to hear that!!! Urgh! How frustrating!!

Much sympathy!!

Jon

[Joy DJ]

Oh Jor....I feel your pain. I know your loss. If you need to talk....I'll be here.
Mom -xo-

[robert]

ohmigod, this makes you the Claus Von Bulow of the PDA universe ... call Alan Dershowitz, now! (Or Ron Silver, who played him in the movie) :-)

[Don The Idea Guy]

Poor PD...
You gave him a AAA Lobotomy!
~DON

[Hazard J Simpson]

If your email is provided by your work and run through exchange, you should check out a wireless solution like Goodlink. (www.good.com) It synchs your email, contacts, calendar items, tasks, appointments, etc - all wirelessly. So if you don't sync... it does it for you, realtime. Pretty killer stuff.

[Jeff Paul Internet Business]

I am running a small internet marketing business as my side business. This has helped me cut time when I’m free from my busy schedule. I really get satisfaction when I am my own boss.