Email Limbo
All email falls into three categories:
1. The kind you delete the moment you see the sender's name (or in some cases, the subject). The sender is usually someone that, in an imprudent moment of candid disclosure, we shared our email address with, only to regret for the remainder of the decade.
(E.g. This chick worked at the Beard for three weeks--this was a YEAR ago--and ever since I overshared and gave her my email address, she has been sending me email forwards about every conceivable danger lurking in the universe: auto thieves posing as insurance salesmen, maggots and vermin on public toilet door handles, HIV-infected syringes concealed in movie theatre seats, exploding cell phones in gas stations, space monkeys, deadly mutant cicadas... all of which must be forwarded to 30 different people within the hour, she warns me, if I do not want to endure bald spots in my nostrils.)
2. The kind you open, read, and in response, dash off a minimally punctuated one-liner
3. The kind that you read, and say to yourself, "This warrants a proper reply."
You of course do not have time for a proper reply right then, because you need to rush to work, or rush home, or rush to the bathroom, so you put it off till the next day, when you know you'll have the time. Which you won't. You'll flag it or mark it somehow so you don't forget it. You'll postpone your response for as long as the email remains on the first page of your inbox: once it's relegated to Page 2 by the unstoppable influx of more Type-3 messages, you won't think about it again until the Next Great Email Reorganisation, circa 2014.
I just got four Type-3 emails (and by 'just', I mean sometime in March): one from an old high school friend, who sent me a warm, affectionate message and asked me to reply in detail (I flagged that message, so at least the intention is demonstrably present); one from my favourite cousin (well, one of my two favourite cousins) detailing the doings of her two little girls, who are absolutely adorable even if they certainly earn their nicknames of "Hurricane" and "Tornado".
The last two emails, which arrived last week, are from Mil, telling me to get off my lazy ass and do something with my life, goddamn it. The underlying hypothesis is spot-on (I am sitting on my lazy ass and not doing much with my life) and the pep talk timely and necessary, but that only makes it all the more difficult to reply to. Till Monday, my excuse was "I have something I need to do: taxes! It's urgent! And important! I have to do them, and till I do them I cannot eat, or sleep, or reply to emails!"
Maybe what one needs in these circumstances is an invigorating new bread recipe. Ah, yes. Something nice and easy, yet yielding satisfying results. Irish Soda Bread.
1. The kind you delete the moment you see the sender's name (or in some cases, the subject). The sender is usually someone that, in an imprudent moment of candid disclosure, we shared our email address with, only to regret for the remainder of the decade.
(E.g. This chick worked at the Beard for three weeks--this was a YEAR ago--and ever since I overshared and gave her my email address, she has been sending me email forwards about every conceivable danger lurking in the universe: auto thieves posing as insurance salesmen, maggots and vermin on public toilet door handles, HIV-infected syringes concealed in movie theatre seats, exploding cell phones in gas stations, space monkeys, deadly mutant cicadas... all of which must be forwarded to 30 different people within the hour, she warns me, if I do not want to endure bald spots in my nostrils.)
2. The kind you open, read, and in response, dash off a minimally punctuated one-liner
3. The kind that you read, and say to yourself, "This warrants a proper reply."
You of course do not have time for a proper reply right then, because you need to rush to work, or rush home, or rush to the bathroom, so you put it off till the next day, when you know you'll have the time. Which you won't. You'll flag it or mark it somehow so you don't forget it. You'll postpone your response for as long as the email remains on the first page of your inbox: once it's relegated to Page 2 by the unstoppable influx of more Type-3 messages, you won't think about it again until the Next Great Email Reorganisation, circa 2014.
I just got four Type-3 emails (and by 'just', I mean sometime in March): one from an old high school friend, who sent me a warm, affectionate message and asked me to reply in detail (I flagged that message, so at least the intention is demonstrably present); one from my favourite cousin (well, one of my two favourite cousins) detailing the doings of her two little girls, who are absolutely adorable even if they certainly earn their nicknames of "Hurricane" and "Tornado".
The last two emails, which arrived last week, are from Mil, telling me to get off my lazy ass and do something with my life, goddamn it. The underlying hypothesis is spot-on (I am sitting on my lazy ass and not doing much with my life) and the pep talk timely and necessary, but that only makes it all the more difficult to reply to. Till Monday, my excuse was "I have something I need to do: taxes! It's urgent! And important! I have to do them, and till I do them I cannot eat, or sleep, or reply to emails!"
Maybe what one needs in these circumstances is an invigorating new bread recipe. Ah, yes. Something nice and easy, yet yielding satisfying results. Irish Soda Bread.
