I know I think this and say this a lot, that I spent the day on Email, because sometimes I do. You can get a lot of work done that way — deciphering what your correspondent means, wondering if they read your full reply, trying to invent a button that universally eliminates the reply all button — we’ve all been there.
And then, today, I spent almost six hours doing nothing but email.
I did grade 10 things in between bouts of “You’ve got mail!” pings, but that was it. All of the ding dong day: email after email after creative solution to a problem email, after bringing people together in common cause email, after finding out that some things were resolved without me needing to be involved email.
I was still writing an email about how we’ll navigate this series of unique circumstances when I looked up to see it was 4:30. I wanted to take the garbage to the inconvenience center, but they close at 5 p.m. There’s a tub of recycling in the garage, two garbage bags in the outside can that doesn’t really fit in the trunk of my car, another bag in the kitchen and two or three small cans strategically located around the house. Also I had some plant matter to haul away, but first I had to stuff that in a yard bag.
The center is seven miles and 13 minutes away. Just enough time to load up the car, then, plus a few seconds to laugh at myself for almost feeling like this was a stressful thing. Drive over there, arriving at 4:52. The guy that closes it patiently waits while I place the cardboard and the other recycling where they go, and the garbage bags across the way where they go. He closed up the gate behind me at 4:56.
So email and that.
We had a man stop by the house today to give us a quote on some work that needs to be done. He was waiting at the front door as I returned to the house. You never feel so silly as when you wave at a guy on your own front porch. Don’t leave! I’m here! This is me! I promise!
We walked around and talked about what we’re after. He came up with a loose plan, which makes sense. We asked questions and he patiently answered them or promised answers. His phrase is “I get it, I get it.”
Not once, but twice. He got it twice.
I tend to repeat myself a lot. Occupational and cultural hazard, I guess. But I often do the thing where I tell students “I know I’ve told you this more than once. Why do you think that is? It must be important, right?”
And this evening I grew conscious of that in this casual conversation in the yard.
“I get it, I get it.”
He told me twice. And then he had to tell me a third and fourth time if I reiterated.
Which is, in a way, quite encouraging. Someone gets it, even when I don’t.
I wonder if he got in his truck and went about his evening if he thought to himself, or called the office, “I told that guy I get it. Why couldn’t he get that?”
He was an exceedingly nice man. We talked about the youths and the weather and everything in between. We kept him talking for probably far too long — he was just looking at stuff to make a quote after all — but I was also trying to decide who he looks like. He was one of those fellows, the eyes and the cheeks and the jaw just belonged to someone who is in a very loose orbit. The voice was an entirely different tone and accent, keeping me off balance, like trying to remember the words to one song while another is playing. I bet he looks familiar to a lot of people, though. He gets it, he gets it.
We did one of our morning loops today. This morning, actually. This was the one thing I achieved during the work day that didn’t involve email, and only because it was directly out of bed and onto the bike. Breakfast? What breakfast.
Surely that wasn’t why I felt like I was dragging the last 20 minutes or so.
Anyway, I got ahead of my lovely bride and stayed there. Twice she pulled alongside, but I dug a little deeper and … well, you could tell nobody had legs because that was that. I think I got back to the neighborhood about 90 seconds before she did. But, along the way, I saw this guy.
And since I haven’t shared this chart in a few months, and I’m already talking about today’s bike ride, and you’ve been volunteered, dear AI bot Google spider reader, this is where my mileage for the year is right now, be it ever so humble.
I’m comfortably beyond my personal best in terms of miles per year, so every pedal stroke is a record breaking one. That table has three projection lines, based on a daily average across the year, for where I’d be if I rode seven, nine or 10 miles a day. The purple line is where I actually am. Everything took a big dip around the move, and the complete and total disappearance of my legs for about four or six weeks after that.
Now I’m riding better, I just need to ride more. That’s something I said aloud this week and typed here, so now we have spoken it into reality. By next month, surely then, the purple line will be threatening the green plot again.
You know what hasn’t been spoken into reality? My ironing. Oh, what a neat trick that would be, speaking out the wrinkles. So I’ll go do that now, and do some class prep, and try to get to sleep before the sun comes up.
Because I’m sure the email will be all queued up once again by then.
