Things I've Learned So Far This Week

Never keep a drink on my desk

It's been ten years since the last time I knocked one over, shorting out my keyboard, so I guess I'd gotten overconfident. On Tuesday I went to answer the phone and my elbow knocked over an 18-ounce glass of iced tea. Luckily my keyboard, and most of the stuff on my desk, was spared...


Never try to blow dry a book

...but the book I'm reading -- had almost finished, only around forty pages to go -- was drenched, soaked, sopping. I felt awful; a book is a precious object to me. Swaddling it in Bounty did nothing. So I ran into the bathroom with it, plugged in the T3 Featherweight and yes, tried to blow dry it.

Here's what happens when you blow dry a book: Some of the pages curl up. A book with a perm is not a pretty sight. Other pages just break off, in pieces. Continuing with the perm metaphor, I guess those pages were overprocessed. Half-pages and paragraphs were blowing around and falling. Sentences were fragmenting, particples dangling; it was a mess.

The book has been sitting there ever since, with its curly pages (even after I weighted them down) and missing pieces. Early this morning I picked it back up, to read what I've got left -- well, what's left of it. It's one of those books where the ending is totally obvious, but I'd like to finish it, to close the book on it, so to speak. And why not, when this will be the only time I ever read a book shaped like George Washington's wig with pieces of pages literally blown away.


Never argue with a friend via email

This week a dear friend and I got in an argument via email. She's in New Jersey, I'm in Florida and neither of us has Skype, so we always email. What happened here was a conversation turned into a disagreement that evolved into an argument and escalated into a fight. And most of it was my fault. I was so focused on what we were talking about that I didn't even realize I was hurting her and I was, more and more. She thought she was saying one thing and I thought I was hearing another. This went on for two days, until she took a very powerful shot at me and then her emails stopped.

After a few hours went by and there was still silence, I called her. We talked, our voices raised sometimes but not most of the time, and we listened to each other. I could hear her hurt and it appalled me. I think we both said exactly what was on our minds. Her hurt was palpable, and I was and still am so sorry for it. I apologized and explained and we talked for a long time.

I (we? do you do this too, or have you learned your lesson already?) need to be mindful that emails are black and white; speech evolved in humans as the ideal means of communicating for our species. Emails can be wonderful, they can do so much, but they don't let you hear the catch in your friend's throat as she tries to get you to see how something you said hurt her...and ellipses are no match for a thoughtful pause as you really think about what's just been said, and a smiley face is no match for the sound of the smiling face of a beloved friend.