On Birds, Blogging, Unanswered Email, and Magnetic Poetry

SATURDAY
Photographed by: Brandon
Posted to: Brandon's Flickr Account


MONDAY

Email: 1:53 PM
From: Peefer
To: Jill
Subject: Fresh, Exciting and New
[bunch of thoughtful stuff about web design]


TUESDAY
Photographed by: Jill
Posted to: Jill's Flickr Account

Location: Jill's Flickr Account
Comments
Scott : Too cool. You're like a National Geographic photographer now. This means, of course, that you have to stop shaving your legs and armpits. Sorry, it's a union thing. Hello, Jill.

WEDNESDAY

Email: 9:49 PM
From: Jill
To: Brandon
Subject: I feel so awful…
[...] Everything is coming out flat. This fucking sucks. I’m giving up writing. I’m going to move into the forest and photograph birds.

Reply: 9:25 PM
[Notice the reply is EARLIER than the initial email. This is because my computer is POSSESSED.]
From: Brandon
To: Jill
Subject: Re: I feel so awful…
[...] sorry, but moving to the forest and photographing birds is a position that HAS ALREADY BEEN FILLED, SISTER [...] silly [...]

Re-reply: 10:41PM
From: Jill
To: Brandon
Subject: Re: Re: I feel so awful…
[...] I’m feeling Silly Jill coming on tonight [...]
I am totally coming to the forest to join you.
Birds. Fucking. Love. Me.


THURSDAY

Location: Brandon’s Blog
Brandon’s post about… uh… not sure… “And By X, I Mean Y”. Just make up a sentence that somehow follows that pattern.
Brandon writes: Okay, someone please tell me what this ubiquitous rhetorical device is called, because it’s frickin hilarious, and by hilarious I mean enough already.

Comments
8:26AM
Jill: Is this what you were doing while I was suffering, and by suffering I mean not receiving a response to my last f***ing email?

8:58AM
Brandon: [...] Jill, technically, i was drinking. Yikes.

9:24AM
Peefer: Brandon, you'd better respond to Jill's last f***ing e-mail real soon, because only then apparently will SHE respond to MY last f***ing e-mail. Just saying [...]

9:30AM
Brandon: normally i'm very good about responding to emails and by normally i mean rarely. and by very good i mean very bad. unless used together in the same sentence.


Location: Jill’s blog
Jill’s post about… uh… not sure… there was a pen involved.
Jill writes: [...] the only thing you care not for in your hands, a pen.
Your words scrawled: a mere practicality.

Comments
9:52AM
Brandon: EXACTLY. I care not for a pen in my hands, and by pen i mean notebook computer. And that's why I didn't respond to your email, because my words are a mere practicality, and by mere practicality i mean i passed out 2 seconds after posting to my blog.


Location: Brandon's blog
Comments
1:01PM
Jill: /begin rant

PEEFER, answering your email has been on the top of my guilt-inducing-to-do-list, and by guilt-inducing-to-do-list, I mean STUFF I AM TOTALLY NOT SMART ENOUGH TO GET DONE THIS WEEK. But rest assured, I think of doing it several times a day. In fact, I just re-visited your blog, thinking, WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????

BRANDON, well I hope your drinks can leave you naughty voicemails, cause I sure as hell will not be doing so.

JILL, stop being a crazy bitch and go do something useful.

/end rant

Email: 1:53PM
From: Peefer
To: Jill
Subject: WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????
I believe you're making the erroneous assumption that intelligence is paramount.

Reply: 3:01PM
From: Jill
To: Peefer
Subject: Re: WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????
[...] Uh, yeah. Perhaps it's not intelligence. Perhaps what I should have said is that "This week, I lack the power to focus." And therefore, can't get myself to sit down and complete tasks that I have been planning to complete. I have completed many things THAT WERE NOT PLANNED but nothing that arose from previous intention.

In other words, my id has taken over, and my superego has been hog-tied.

Like, my id is totally babbling this right now. My superego wants desperately to open your earlier email and discuss [thoughtful stuff about web design], but my id is like "No way! I'm going to babble! AND THEN, you are going to take this pile of magnetic poetry and sort it into PARTS OF SPEECH. But not really parts of speech, because some words are several parts of speech; and some parts of speech we will separate. Like forms of "be" and other helping verbs must be separated from action verbs. Because you often look for the be/helping verbs for functionality, but the action verbs are more for BROWSING FOR INSPIRATION."

Reply, Continued: Now
From: Jill
To: Peefer and Blogosphere
And why I am sorting my magnetic poetry? Well, first, because I have a lot of it. And everyone knows, you can’t properly use something you have a wide assortment of unless you know what is IN the assortment. That’s why we have ARCHIVISTS, for God’s sake. Archiving requires degrees. That’s why LIBRARY SCIENCE is an actual course of study.

And besides just wanting to write some things with the magnetic poetry, I also had the thought that I would mail one of my friends a message in magnetic poetry. You know, to be reassembled. It would only be 2 sentences, and there really wouldn’t be any way he could get the message wrong, unless he can justify to himself some way that “rock told you remember” conveys actual meaning, and if so, I’d hate to think what he’d have to tell himself to make the remaining words seem like a coherent thought.

Because sometimes I send my friends random things. Like pictures of snow.

Or paint swatches.

Oh, no joke.

One of my friends received a paint swatch in his Christmas card; I’m sure his first thought was something along the lines of W.T.F., or maybe more like “Uh, Jill… W! T! F! ?” but the paint swatch had a message inked on it, and I’m thinking the message--which was in no way related to any sane message that one would expect to accompany a paint swatch, such as "Do you think I should paint my office this color?", or "Wouldn't this be a cool shade for edible body paint?"--made sense after following the proper directions, making the paint swatch make actual sense, given the context.

Though I can’t be sure, because we never spoke of it.

That’s right, we’ve just carried on for 4 months of emails and voicemails and assorted other interactions NEVER HAVING MENTIONED THE FACT THAT THERE WAS A RANDOM PAINT SWATCH ATTACHED TO HIS CHRISTMAS CARD.

And I can honestly say: Jill, W.T.F.? How do you find people that think it’s perfectly reasonable that you would send a paint swatch completely unrelated to a Christmas card, and they would continue interacting with you as if this were an everyday occurrence, that they get paint swatches in their Christmas cards? Or maybe I should say annual occurrence? Because who sends Christmas cards at all--let alone with paint swatches attached--at any other time of year, so as to make it possible for it to be an everyday occurrence?

[Note--Anaglyph, your Christmas card has been re-mailed. Coming Soon! Look for it in a post office near you!]

And--perhaps more importantly--how can we find more of those people?

And more people who will continue answering your emails after, in response to a discussion about web design, you send a treatise on compartmentalizing your magnetic poetry?

And--perhaps MOST importantly--CAN WE BUY MORE MAGNETIC POETRY?

Because we really don't have enough. There was no "rock", so we're going to have to MAKE a rock--that's right, MAKE A ROCK, one of us should call a geologist and find out how we do that--if we intend to send the aforementioned esoteric two sentence message that cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

Not to mention we could find no "very".

And definitely no "afraid".

Strangely enough, we did find "trenchant". Go figure.