iGot an iPhone. iCouldn’t help myself. The moment iSaw the iPhone iHad to have iT.

That’s unusual for me, because I’m slow to warm up to new technology. I like to wait and see if a new product is really going to last before I commit a few hundred or thousand dollars. Still, I have to keep up with change in this fast-paced Valley.

Remember cassette tapes? I thought they’d never replace record albums. Now I can’t buy a turntable to play my valuable LP collection. Same with CDs. I thought they were too expensive—and too weird—to replace cassette tapes. Now they’re becoming a thing of the past, what with iTunes, iPods and iStreams taking over the airways.

I was slow to get an iPod, certain this new gizmo was just a flash in the technological pan. No doubt it would soon be replaced by some kind of implant in the brain, where a music fan could press her temple to turn on the sound and blink a number of times to find her favorite song, all while driving, eating, or sleeping—hands free.

But my kids got me an iPod for Christmas a few years ago, tired of seeing my boom box. It took me six months to figure out how to use it, but I came to love being able to harvest my own eclectic collection of songs, like Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation,” Edith Piaf’s “Je Regret Rien,” Rocky Horror’s “The Time Warp,” and the themes from “Murder She Wrote,” “Inspector Gadget” and “The Sopranos.” Of course, the minute I’d loaded up every song I ever loved, my iPod crashed and I lost the whole collection. (Backup? What do you mean, “backup?”)

In mourning, I gave up listening to music for awhile, until I discovered the XM channels on my TV cable. I spent hours flipping the dial (do they still use that word?) back and forth between ‘40s swing, ‘80s new wave, and today’s techno/house/dance. Then someone told me about “streaming,” and I began to download music from my favorite stations so I could listen while I worked on the computer. (Don’t get me started on Pandora…)

But then came the iPhone, which had it all—phone, email, Internet, YouTube, camera, weather, calendar, and most importantly, music. I’d been happy with my Blackberry up to that point, but when my daughter-in-law got her iPhone—sleek, smooth, colorful, and fun to use—I knew I had to have one.Naturally it took me weeks to learn just how to turn it on, let alone program phone numbers, add iTunes, and download my own personal ring tone (the theme from “Halloween.”) Now, when someone calls, I can see a face on the screen and ignore the call if I want to. I’m still learning how to use the camera (have some nice shots of the inside of my purse), but I know the weather in Denver, how to find the closest Starbucks in any city, and what’s “most viewed” on YouTube (Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel’s “Odes” to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck). I can even find out what’s new with Britney on Yahoo Entertainment.

Now all I have to do is figure out what “Bluetooth” means.Living in today’s high-tech world is a challenge for someone who grew up on typewriters, Princess phones, and transistor radios. But no matter what comes next, I know this: iWant it.