Around the World in 80 Emails

Thank you to Yahoo! Mail for sponsoring this post about staying connected. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

I got an email from Australia the other day. My cousin lives there (she's the cool one in the family, btw)and frequently shares pictures of her adorable daughter. Before she became a mom, though, she and her husband did a lot of traveling. Not like the, "Hi! We're in Hawaii eating at a chain restaurant!" kind, but the "Here are the elephants we rode" kind.

The whole time I was pregnant with Ironflower, I lived vicariously through their emails as they lived in Nepal, then traveled the world before getting married. I would daydream about visiting Africa or Chile myself, before driving to Dairy Queen for the chocolate ice cream cones that Ironflower demanded at regular intervals. Sometimes I even researched the latest place they'd been, just to try to wrap my head around the pictures they'd emailed.

It was great entertainment as I transitioned from a frequent partier/community theater participant/art festival volunteer/road tripper to a woman who spent Saturday night organizing her book shelves and watching a House Hunters marathon. Much as I wanted children, I was shocked when I got pregnant with Ironflower. I had been sure I would have fertility issues and that it would take me years to start a family. Instead it happened so quickly that I had a rough time adjusting. It didn't help that I hardly knew anyone with kids and that Hot Guy was working out of town for a long stretch of the pregnancy. I was pretty lonely, actually. So the emails helped me feel connected as well as still part of the larger world.

Now I'm looking forward to the email that tells me about the birth of their second child. Although I wouldn't mind some more pictures with elephants. I dig the elephants. But I pretty much like all the pictures I get in my email, which is why I chose the video below:

I Won't Call You, But I Will Email You

Thank you to Yahoo! Mail for sponsoring this post about staying connected. I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective, which endorses Blog With Integrity, as I do.

I have a deep love for email. I can reply to email while my kids are staging a dinosaur battle or while Hugmonkey is having a meltdown.

Returning or responding to phone calls doesn't work quite as well during those times. Plus, I hate calling people. I don't know why. I'm perfectly happy when someone calls me (unless I'm trying to make dinner, settle an argument between Ironflower and Lovebug, handle Hugmonkey having a meltdown, or I'm in the middle of watching Grey's Anatomy or. . .okay, maybe "perfectly happy" isn't the right description).

The other cool thing about email is that it's so easy to add that info to my calendar. Or respond in social media or save it for a later date or, my personal favorite, respond with a simple "Yes!" or "No!". I can't do that with phone messages, unless the person calls at the exact moment I can sit down at my computer. Or I listen to the message 12 times until I've written down all the relevant info and then don't lose that piece of paper before I get to sit down at my computer. And even then, people expect actual conversation when you're on the phone. Except at my pizza place. There they just want to hear my order as quickly as possible. This may be how they became my favorite pizza place.

Possibly the best thing about email is that not only can I get up and pee in the middle of writing one (without offending anyone or trying to hold the phone and undo my jeans at the same time), I can read it over before I send it. Try doing that during an actual conversation. Now watch the conversation die a slow, painful death.

Also, you can save emails. All the emails I got when my kids were born? Saved. Can't really do that with conversations.




This video reminds me of how I felt when I quit teaching in the evil district and emailed everyone I knew:

This Is What Fox Means By "Fair and Balanced"

Generally, I do not think about the emails I get that ask for my opinion on a news story or a product. I can barely answer the emails of people I love, let alone reporters'. Also, I have no interest in being on TV.*

*Unless it involves a large paycheck or a home makeover. 


So I got one of those emails last week. The only reason I read it all of the way through was because the story is from my former junior high school.  Here it is:

Hi

My name is Megen – I’m a segment producer at Fox & Friends, the morning show of the Fox News Channel.

I’m trying to find a NJ parent who can comment on a recent story out of NJ…

One middle school in NJ (Benjamin Franklin Middle School) has a new math homework policy – the teachers give an allotted time homework should take (10-20 minutes) and if the student doesn’t finish in that time, parents can sign the paper and the child still gets full credit.

I’m looking for a mom of a middle school student who is upset by this – who believes this is going too easy on kids and is against the idea of giving out “A’s for effort” so to speak.

Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Megen.Macdonald@foxnews.com

I emailed Megen back (after a snarky mention of the email on Facebook, which garnered more attention than my usual updates) and asked if she wanted to hear the opinions of people who LIKED the policy. I kept hoping to hear, "Oh, I've already got those people, thanks!"

Instead, I have not heard from Megen. 

I emailed the person who forwarded me the email and asked if she knew anything or was a personal friend of Megen's. 

I have not heard from her either. 

I have been told that I'm just "too liberal" to understand Fox News. I have been told that Fox News is the channel for people who don't like "liberal media bias". I always rolled my eyes over this. I didn't get it. There were talking heads like Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann who were filled with bias, then there was the actual news. How could stating the facts represent liberal media bias?

Now I get it. Liberal media bias means talking to people on both sides of an issue. Liberal media bias means forming an opinion after you've heard all sides, not choosing a side and then finding people who agree with it. Liberal media bias means actually reporting the NEWS, not telling people what to think. 

Silly me. 

My Inner, Only, Child

Maybe it's because I was (slightly) over 30 when Hot Guy and I got together. Maybe it's because I am an only child. Maybe it's because I can barely remember which emails I've read, even though I mark them. . . .

But I just can't imagine sharing an email address with my spouse.

I love Hot Guy. I know his password and he knows mine. We have no email secrets. Half of my emails are forwards from him. But I can't imagine having to read the titles of twice the emails I get now and then having to mentally sort them between his, mine and ours. I can't imagine sending the silly e-cards I send him to my own email address. I can't imagine having to figure out whether I've read the light blue (the Gmail read color) email from a mutual friend, or he has. I can't imagine not having an internet identity of my own.

I suppose I can see having a joint email for certain purposes (although when it's so easy to press "forward", I'm not sure why you'd NEED one), as long as you had solo ones too. But I know some people whose only email is the one they share with their spouse.

Is that weird, or is my inner only child coming out?

I Got D'Issues*

I suck at email. Unless it's something that I can answer in one sentence or less, it can take me weeks to reply to an email. Last night I got this long apologetic email from L., an acquaintance that I'm hoping becomes a friend. She is one of the few people I've met lately that I really hope to become friends with. Anyway, we've been emailing and it took her a while to reply to me, for which she was very apologetic.

I, of all people, understand how email becomes low-priority. I owe people dear to me, like my best friend from high school and my beloved cousin, emails. I very rarely answer comments in email (though I do reply in the comments section, mostly) because I SUCK at email. Before I discovered blogging, I was much better about email. But now there's always a blog to read or write. And I LOVE to read and write blogs. So I didn't feel L. had any reason to apologize for taking a while to reply to my email.

But (and this would be the part that embarrasses me) I was afraid that L. hadn't replied to me because I had offended her. I was so relieved that she didn't hate me. Even though I am notorious for taking weeks to reply to emails that require serious thought, I assume that people will reply to me in a timely fashion. And if they don't I assume that they are upset or annoyed with me.

Clearly I am mentally ill.

And what's worse? I haven't replied to L. yet.

Is there a name for my emailing problem? Am I the only person afflicted?

*When I taught in the inner city, my co-workers and I used to talk about "issues". Whether it was a guy's commitment issues or a student's problem with math homework, we covered a lot of ground with the word "issues." One day my student Latisha was having a really rough day. She threw a huge temper tantrum and during it screamed what sounded like, "I got D'issues!!!!" And ever after that, whenever issues were very SERIOUS, we would call them "D'issues".