Sipping Tea Over Lost Diaries and Unread Blogs
Remember when email was new and exciting and you sent it to everyone all the time and then sometimes people didn't write back immediately and you got annoyed and swore off email, but then, well then you were back again because it's how everyone communicates, even though there are still those people who never, ever, ever bother to grace you with a simple "I got your message and I'll get back to you later" kind of response? And then there's Facebook, where it's not really clear how much you really should be telling all those folks you friended because they were friends of your friends or you sort of recognize them from college but even then you weren't so sure what you had in common. And now it's blogs, where we write and write and sit dejectedly waiting for comments or followers or some sign that it's not just a lost diary in an attic that no one will ever read unless you have a kind uncle or an aunt who's a literary agent or you wrote the whole thing as a text message to Gwen Stefani.
Enough run-ons. This week I'm under an enormous writing gun. I thought it was intense with the last freelance project, but now I'm back, half swimming in the familiar world of academia and half keeping up with the day to day writing for pay. So I have two manuscripts to edit by, oh, yesterday (because it really doesn't matter if you tell people you need ten days, they can't hear you); I started teaching one real class where I already have assignments to read and return -- and maybe a few lectures to fuss over; The virtual class started tonight and the technical logistics are too frightening to discuss here (even though, as we all know, no one is reading this, there's always that chance that someone from that lovely institution will google me and find the one nasty thing I had to say), but suffice to say that I was supposed to have the ENTIRE semester's worth of lectures done in advance and well, I don't; Then the lovely editor from Academic Press X (University of I Love Your Book) has been back in touch and suddenly it would be really a good thing if I had the whole thing written so they can decide if they want it, but well, it's not. Oh, and some jobs that need applications; Oh, and an article for the Green Website. Oh, and MORE BLOGS.
With all this, I just wrote two or three rather cool entries in the blogs -- one that looks at the history of department stores, another that considers upscale foodies, and a third one on sustainable fair trade tea. I am pretty sure that the first two were cursorily read by the marketing people who speed read that stuff ("where's the money shot?") and the fair trade tea was read by my blog boss and the other writers on the blog, who are quickly coming up with something new to post to cover up my post. Yeah, it's a big conspiracy so that I don't get read.
Well, hell, if you read any of those things or even this, do find some way to let me know. A knock on my door would even be just fine. Meanwhile I'm going to sip some fair trade tea, fret over the two hour school delay for tomorrow morning, and think about something new to write.
(here's a picture of the cup of tea that was on my tea blog).
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