I am one of the Mac People. To most, that's like saying I'm a Trekker or I'm going on tour with The Dead (I am a Trekker, but I'm Trekker Lite^tm).

Calling myself a Mac Person may conjure images of fanaticism, a fully functional iLife in which at no time am I more than two feet from one of the Apple products which keeps my sorry life in pristine, Swiss-train order. That's only partly true. I swear.

You've all seen the media images of Mac users and products: slick, hip, insouciant, retro-but-now-tro, clean lines and sagging waistbands, everything a sea of crisp silver and white. Things that do everything, while weighing nothing. Black OR white, you've got choices!

Well, here's how I think of myself, vis-a-vis Macintosh. I've had a number of machines:

- Mac Classic (4MB memory! Astounding! You can write a letter on a computer!)
- 68k PowerBook (purchased just before the 68K processor was replaced by the new thing, and I could hardly run anything)
- iBook (beloved, died in the "dropping of the motorcycle" incident of '05)
- MacBook (I'm on it right now)
- iPhone 2nd gen (will keep this until it absolutely doesn't function any longer)
- iPod first gen (donated by my boss, then I gave it to Little Miss Thing)
- iPod 60 gb (ditto about keeping it a long time)

So, as you can see, much iGeekery abounds in my life.

But I'm not the Happy Shiny Mac person. To me, those people not only have to get every new Mac gadget, but they have to look hip doing it: they've got fashion-forward laptop bags paired with hipper-than-thou jargon they expect everyone to know, and they use their machines while looking ready to skateboard at a moment's notice.

I'm more the focus-on-sustainability, throw-it-in-the-backpack kind of Mac user. I don't need every new thing, and though the list above is still embarrassing, it represents Mac purchases beginning in the early 1990s. I haven't been a Mac Slut, for goodness' sake.

I use my computer for a range of activities that, to most power users, is embarrassingly modest. I email, create business forms, chart my expenses, shoot budgets, write my blog, catalog my photographs, store contact information, and play Free Cell. On occasion I modify graphics, shoot a trend line, or make a little movie. I'm learning how to use GarageBand soon, so I can record my own ambient massage mixes and the few folk songs I have written.

I'm a round-ish, forty-ish shicksa in navy blue Chuck Taylor lowtops, lugging my REI computer bag slung over one shoulder, no skateboard in sight.

I am one of the Mac People.