When I opened the package for my new macbook air (after waiting for 24 hours--what seemed like an eternity--for my data transfer), I found an owner's manual wrapped up in a neat little package. "Hello." It declares, "Congratulations, you and your macbook air were made for another." I had a hard time believing it. I was excited, sure, because I had gotten a fancy new computer for my birthday. But electronics have an essentially impenetrable impersonal nature, in my experience, and I hardly expected a new device to alter that. I wasn't even as excited at the prospect of getting a mac as I should have been, considering how much it cost. I wasn't crazy about my old Dell for sure, but it functions fine, other than the broken hinge, and I could live with it for another few months if I had to. Before now, I've never experienced a computer as something other than a time drain or, at best, a tool I begrudgingly admit to be useful, as I lug it around with me for the purpose of completing school assignments. I've never looked at a computer as a companion, or a life partner. That idea seemed ludicrous. Before now.

I used to be very bemused by all the macbook owners. They seemed delirious with computer love, doting upon their overpriced electronics. I didn't get it. It didn't click the first time I used a mac, and it didn't click when I walked into the Apple store of a nearby mall, where seeming hundreds of supplicants were being counseled by mac experts in dark blue t-shirts, each one sporting on iPad. I felt like I was a stranger entering the temple of some crazed cult.

Part of what always threw me off is that the devices themselves have such an alienating, sinister look. They seem like models for some futuristic film, not something that a decidedly non-technologically advanced individual like myself should be interacting with on a daily basis. I was full of misgivings. But I gave in. I have now been the owner of a mac (in my parents' name) for a little over 36 hours, about 4 of which have been spent with my new computer cradled in my lap. From the moment I opened the package, I sensed something different. There is something in the design of the computer--it's unobtrusive size, for one thing, but the internal characteristics above all--which makes it seem like an extension of my psyche. It starts up and functions so comfortably, it's ridiculous. There's none of the stress and hassle I usually associate with setting up new devices. I simply opened it up, and everything was ready to go. I actually feel much calmer now that I have everything streamlined--all of my contacts, calendar, and other miscellany can be found in one container. I now understand why so many of my friends are so attached to their computers. Up until this point, I have always relied on paper Planners and address books, a different notebook for each class I'm taking, a personal journal and any number of random miscellaneous bits and pieces--post-its, scrap paper, etc. All of this, while extremely inefficient, also seems like an indicator of my internal mental disorder. I can't tell you how many papers I encounter daily--the posters hung on my walls, the mounds of books that I'm supposed to be reading, the piles of notes that need sorting through--and it's past the point of being quaint. I suppose I'm tired of being a paper hoarder but ashamed to admit it, because I am very rooted in the reality of material experience, and, as a writer, deeply committed to the pen-on-paper ethos. What I need is a machine that feels just as personal--not a mere vehicle for checking my e-mail and drafting essays for school. Among the names I have considered for my computer (yes, I am one of those sentimental sops who gives names to their electronics in order to grant them some human dimension which they really don't require) one is Eustace, jogged into my memory by Brideshead Revisited, one of the (many) books I am currently reading, but naturally associated with the character from the Chronicles of Narnia who, in a climactic scene which has always stuck in my memory, has the rough and unwieldy hide of his dragon's skin painfully clawed back by Aslan to reveal the boy beneath. That scene always struck a chord with me for its ultimate sense of catharsis; don't we all need our skin removed down to its very roots, in order to reveal the self beneath? I am a true believer in simplicity, and am constantly reminded of my own inability to live up to my expectations. I am surrounded by objects which I do not even notice on a daily basis; nothing about them secures my attention, but I insist on clinging on to them nonetheless. What I wouldn't give to live more cleanly, more simply more earnestly. But I've long since learned that a change in environment or the objects surrounding us means nothing if not accompanied by a change of attitude.
As Henry David Thoreau says, somewhere in Walden, "beware of enterprises that require new clothes and not rather a new wearer of clothes."

It's possible that it's not the computer itself that's significant; we may rather have found one another in precisely the right time of our loves. Either way, it's love at first sight. The apps fit like an old outfit--comfortable and reassuring. Any initial disorientation caused by the misplacement of icons was allayed by the owner's manual--a few pages or so of mostly common sense. The entire operating system is designed to work like a breath--clean and efficient, relaxed to the point of being unconscious. Every action I make is anticipated, or reacted to with a courteous question. I don't know much about the way that computers are supposed to work, but I like the fact that this doesn't feel like a computer. I can virtually 'flip' the pages of my calendar, and it only takes a bit more practice than the actual thing. Everything's so easy and natural, it's ridiculous. I feel like the machine has evolved to be in sync with my actions--not in the creepy manner of a robot stalking my every move, but in the model of a truly successful business--being instinctually receptive to customer's needs and addressing them immediately. The way Google organized the internet and made its information accessible in a way most of us could never imagine it not being. I have to relearn some things, but it makes me wonder why I did them any other way in the first place--it makes so much more sense to have things set up this way that I don't know how I dealt with it before.

I've worked in the customer service industry for the past three years (waiting on tables), and been served by it for all my life, so I know how it works. I also know that most customer service these nowadays is deplorable--probably because people are so lacking in common courtesy in general, they don't even know how to fake it. But the elderly gentleman who sold me my computer was very friendly and communicative, helpful without being overbearing, and very sensitive to our needs. When I called the Apple store to check on the status of my data transfer, after being on hold for 15 minutes (during which an electronic female voice periodically interrupted the music to assure me that I was the "third call to be answered" or whatever the case was), it was gratifying to speak to someone who was clear, polite, and solicitous. I probably put too much stock in the way I'm treated, but these interactions helped put a human face on the Apple icon, and made me feel less like a sojourner in an alien realm.

In any case, that's my plug. I think there's enough advertising out there already that my humble opinion won't really sway things significantly. And anyway, all I can really say is that my computer was made for me. I can't speak for you and yours. Mostly, I just wanted to say to all those mac owners out there: I get it now. I'm sorry I was doubtful. And I'm part of your cult now.