I get my Kindle Fire today.

I think I’m supposed to be excited but I’m not really sure. To be honest, I feel like I’m commiting adultery. I’ve spent years trying to avoid the whole tablet business in an effort to stay loyal to my various laptops. Sure, tablets are sleek and elegant and tantalizing but they lack the processing power of a good, solid piece of hardware (ssh, not a word about desktops). Sure, they’re outright sexy but I don’t actually need one, right?

Good god, I think my palms are sweaty.

Okay, maybe not but hyperboles are deliciously fun. And I was being truthful, by the way. This is the first tablet I’ve ever allowed into my personal space. How do you normally greet new tablets? Do you coyly offer the screen protector or wrap them up first chance you get?

Ahem.

I spent the last week checking out reviews about the Kindle Fire. Reports from the big sites seem to be pretty unaniminous: everyone thinks the Kindle Fire is a little too big for its britches. It’s too big. It’s not big enough. It’s strong, it’s not strong enough. It’s – you get the picture. And you know what? I sort of see where everyone is going with this. The Kindle Fire isn’t a $500 dollar Apple behemoth but neither is it its prim Amish predecessors. It’s stuck in between, this oddly stylish-looking attempt at being the poor man’s Ipad.

I’ll be honest. I don’t expect the Kindle Fire to do the job of real men. Instead, I envision it as the charming poet with the awkward moustache that frequents your favorite cafe. He’s funny, knowledgable but a little flighty. He won’t tell you what he does but he’ll indulge every imaginable hobby with you. You’ll wile away hours with him, always conscious of the fact he’ll only ever bring you home to his bed and not his mother. It’s going to be a love-hate relationship, I know it. I’ll take him out when I want vapid arm candy to discuss philosophy with. He’ll pay attention to me for so long as his battery lasts. It will work the way most metropolitan relationships work.

In short, it’d be my dinner date when I’m feeling too finicky to pay attention to another human being, my portal to Kairosoft essentials and yet another way to indulge my obsessive-compulsive need to check my e-mail every chance I get. (I’m sorry. I’m a New Yorker at heart. You know what we’re like. )

.. I just checked FedEx, by the way. My Kindle Fire will be arriving in three hours. Do you think it’d seem too desperate if I sat by the door later?