Writer's Block

I think I have writer’s block. I've not written anything in five or six days and frankly I'm racking my brain thinking about what to tell you about. I'm not sure how writers block is different than fatigue. Or whether my writer’s block is caused by my fatigue. Or how they are related.

Anyway, I got this in e-mail from a woman in my office:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh???

I don't know if it's true, but it is kind of interesting that you can, or at least I can, read it even though everything is screwed up. Maybe it just means I have some type of brain defect though.

This, or a version of this, is going around the Internet these days. I've received several versions since I got this first one. I am constantly surprised by (1) the things people send on, (2) the people who send them on and (3) the people to whom they send them.

I rarely ever send anything on I get in e-mail. It's not that I don't find it interesting, but I'm not sure at all that it's "sending on worthy" stuff. I'm also not sure what other people would want to receive, and I don't want to clutter anyone's e-mail box with stuff they don't want, so I error on the side of caution and don’t usually send things on.

There's a woman lawyer I know that always surprises me by the things she sends. And she probably sends out stuff a couple of days a week. Its stuff like those too cute kittens in the rain with some sort of pithy captioned attached to it. This is a normally no nonsense, follow the rules, use 12 point times new roman font always, take no prisoners sort of lawyer who sends pictures of kittens. She's a dichotomy.

The receptionist in my office sends me religious sorts of things. Like "if everyone prays to stop the war at the same time then god would have to listen and stop the killing" sorts of things. That coming from her really doesn't surprise me. I've never inquired (or cared enough to look at the "to" list in the e-mail) but I don't fully understand, however, why she sends them to me. I know I converted to Catholicism awhile ago, but I don't think she knows that. It certainly isn't anything she and I have ever discussed. We've never had any deep conversations and the conversations we do have generally don't go much beyond

"how are you today?"
"Fine thank you. How about yourself?"
"Good, thanks for asking."

The EvilGeniusPartner [this guy is very nice but scary smart so I bestow that name upon him in the best sense possible] whose office is next to mine has only sent me two things in the time I've worked there. Both times it has made me laugh out loud so he's made good choices. I don't think I have ever forwarded anything on to him.
One of the other Partners only sends me stuff when I'm in his good graces. I can gauge how much I've irritated him in any given week by how much tripe he forwards me. When I get lots of stuff, I'm doing well. When I don't get anything for awhile, I figure I need to suck up more.

My rule on forwarding e-mail is: Is it something, if I received it in snail mail, I would save and copy and mail to other people? Pretty much nothing rises to that level for me so nothing ever gets forwarded on.

I am not one of those people who say things in e-mail that they wouldn't say in person. Frankly, I think I'm more likely to say something to someone in person than I would write something to someone in e-mail; I try to be circumspect in my e-mail correspondence. I also try to remember that anything I say in e-mail can be forwarded ad infinitum and ask myself whether it's something I want to see returned to me at some point in the future.

Ciao,