You can move the apartment number literally up one integer in your address book if you have it.

I think of that scene in the beginning of Amelie when the older gent erases his best friend from his address book when he gets home from his funeral and sighs heavily.  I imagine keeping an address book for a long time, like that.  That’s kind of morbid, probably.  But when I consulted my address book a few weeks ago, I noticed at least two entries of folks who aren’t around anymore: my grandfather and my great-uncle and his nice wife.  All three folks passed away in the last year.  I didn’t cross them out, though.  I won’t.

Anecdote about address books: My very good buddy and his lady are expecting a baby very soon.  For her baby shower, he called me on the phone to get my mailing address for what he claimed was the millionth time (it was only like twice).  So, amidst the clothes and baby gear, there was a medium-sized navy blue address book for him, with my mailing address in it. The weird thing is that I had a hard time finding it.  Other than Moleskines, I didn’t find a lot of address books at all.  And I checked a few stores with a lot of stationery.

Am I so old-fashioned that I went looking for an object that fewer and fewer people are using?  I’m not that old school.  I’m certainly a bit of a techno-junkie.  I’ve been blogging for five years and spend entirely too much time on Flickr and reading other people’s blogs.  I embrace technology more often than I really am comfortable with.  It’s also a little disturbing that my buddy didn’t already have one, since he’s more old-school than I am sometimes.  And I mean that in a good way.

Are address books going to disappear in favor of information stored in cell phones and computers?  Admittedly, phone numbers are more convenient when they are stored in the device you’re going to use to dial them (your phone), and the same is true of email.  I store phone numbers and email addresses that way.  But I never put anything else in my computer or cell phone address books on principle.  No phone numbers in the email client, etc.

This could be a result of the fact that I stubbornly use the postal service whenever I can.  A friend of mine in Oregon and I keep in touch via letters and mail.  I send postcards when I travel and beg others to do the same (and my brother always does).  Are address books going bye-bye with letters?  They have other uses, though.  Holiday cards.  Birthday cards.  Thank-you cards.  Or are less people sending them?  I get less every year, but I thought I might just be annoying people.

Geez.  I feel like I should buy all the address books I can get my hands on and hoard them for when people come to their senses and want them again one day.  I could give them out with the only form of payment requested being a letter once a year sent to me.  I’d give them out with my address filled in.  I always return letters and often include goodies like stickers and obscene ad-lib-ed pictures from junk mail, etc.

I’m so melodramatic.

Anyone else treasure their address books?