In 2009 I caved. In my mind I became the last living adult on the planet to buy a smartphone. Before then I didn’t think I needed one. I was in denial.

My attitude toward the gadgets stemmed from the 1984 arrival "the brick," the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It cost $3,995 and it was hideous. Yet the high cost guaranteed it would be a status symbol to the masters of the universe. Never mind that it wasn’t practical, weighing in at 2 pounds and offering only a half-hour of talk time per charge.

As cellphones shrank, many were purchased with safety as an excuse. The argument always went like this: "What if your car breaks down? How would you call for help?"

But my view of the typical phone user was the blowhard who loved the sound of his own voice and didn’t care who he subjected to his inane conservations. No thanks.

Then along came Twitter in 2006. In the first few years, it was perfectly OK to tweet late at night from a desktop, but as participation grew, so did the 24-hour, live-on-the-spot updates that followers craved. It became apparent one needed a smartphone to be relevant. So, in 2009, just before heading to New York Fashion Week, I finally got my first iPhone to document sights and sounds and relay them back home ASAP.

After that I vowed not to be the last to try Google Glass. Glass is a wearable computer that displays information on a half-inch screen through a prism projector that sits above one’s right eye.

It’s obvious that the technology and fashion worlds are converging, and I’m interested in developments on both fronts. Last year, Apple went on a hiring spree, but it wasn’t seeking engineers. In short time the company hired Yves Saint Laurent CEO and President Paul Deneve, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts and Levi’s Senior Vice President Enrique Atienza to head special project and retail operations. The moves suggest Apple is intent on becoming recognized as a fashion brand.

So the idea of Glass, one of the first wearable devices with camera and video capabilities, was tantalizing. In print I’m limited to telling a story with words and pictures. Videos now allow people to see the beauty of subjects in movement and hear their voices. With video the stories are complete.

Glass is not available commercially yet, but you can request to become a "Glass Explorer" by signing up at www.google.com/glass and telling Google why you’re interested and what you will do to be involved with the program. I did that late last year and forgot about it.

In January I received an email invitation to become an Explorer. For that "privilege" I had to buy the $1,500 device, and I was given a week to decide. What made it easier is that you can get a refund if you return it within 30 days.

I did a lot of research into what other users thought and learned all the pros and cons. You have to be fairly tech-savvy to use Glass, which connects to your phone using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. You’ll also need Google and Google Plus accounts to share photos and video.

Early users said the device was difficult to tether to an iPhone. Some went out and bought Android phones just to use Glass. And I knew wearing the device conveys geek status and that early adopters have been christened "glassholes."

I decided it was worth the money and jeers to be able to shoot hands-free video and photos for my blogs and social media purposes, and if I had to go out and get an Android phone, so be it.

The reality wasn’t all that. One has to be on the way to becoming a true believer to commit $1,500, plus time to learn the ins and outs of using the device.

I was relieved to learn that Glass now plays well with an iPhone, so the setup went smoothly. It’s a bit clumsy to wear and can feel lopsided because of the weight of the display and features on the right side.

You can operate Glass two ways: via a touchpad on its arm, swiping forward, backward or up and down through a short menu of actions, or by voicing commands such as "Take a picture" or "Record video," prefaced by "OK, Glass."

For folks afraid of invasions of privacy, neither method is discreet. Tapping to shoot makes a shutter sound, and talking to the device is just plain dorky.

Glass takes a minute to boot up, so if you suddenly spot something interesting and want to take a photo, the moment might be gone.

Another problem came when I wanted to delete photos. Google’s interest is in sharing information, so that’s what Glass is set up to do share everything immediately across your Google network. I was yelling at the thing, "Delete, delete!" to no avail.

Then I tried to download photos and video to a computer, which didn’t happen either, so I emailed Google for help and got a phone call a second later. I was so pleased someone called back and was so pleasant that I never did get the answer I wanted.

He told me photos are immediately synched with my Google Plus account, and once I saw them there I was satisfied. But I was never able to download video I shot.

With this much difficulty, I wasn’t able to use Glass beyond my yard. I wanted to use it to document fashion shows and foodie forays, but its futuristic look was bound to get attention and it wouldn’t look too smart when, after all the excitement, I couldn’t extract footage from it.

I thought it would be great to capture travel, but the places I want to go aren’t likely to have Wi-Fi that Glass requires.

It was also easy enough to see the screen at night, but by day, against white light, it was impossible to see the menu, which is in white type. The only way to see it was by attaching a sun shield, which is not easy to pop on and off. My only solution was to leave it on all the time, which makes Glass difficult to transport unless you’re wearing it. I can already foresee trouble with the law if drivers were to adopt this technology for navigation. (I learned other users created 3-D printed sunshades to block light coming into the prism.)

In early versions, users had to have perfect eyesight or wear contact lenses to see the screen, which Google has described as being equivalent to viewing "a 25-inch high-definition screen from 8 feet away." Since then Google has come up with prescription-ready models and someday might come around to the idea that most women will probably not care for the cheek touch of the current sun shields.

The last straw was when I updated my phone’s operating system because of a hacking scare. After that, Glass could not recognize my phone at all. A call to Google resulted in the advice to turn it off and on, which I had already tried dozens of times before calling. Since then I have let Google know about my problems with the device; when future versions emerge, I will be able to say I had a hand in shaping Glass.

The bottomline is, despite the technical issues, Glass is a great concept. There are some tech-savvy folks who will find a way to integrate it into their lives.

It was a mere 16 years ago that "The Truman Show" was released, with Jim Carrey starring as a man unaware that his entire life is a reality TV show construction. What seemed far-fetched at that time was the idea that a billion people around the globe could be riveted to the minutiae of this Everyman’s life.

Since then we’ve learned that, yes, there is an inordinate amount of interest in what normal people are eating or where they are going from minute to minute, even what certain cats are up to.

There are already hundreds of video diarists who want to capture as many moments as possible to present the world through their eyes. Glass makes that possible.

Given its current capabilities, which are less than that of a smartphone, more realistic pricing when it is released to consumers should be about $350. Pricing it at $650 to $800 would place it just out of reach of enough people to give early adopters perhaps a year of bragging rights.

But for those who demand utility for the money, it’s just not there yet.

To get an idea of what it feels like to view the world through Google Glass, visit www.google.com/glass/start/how-it-feels.