SL 744

~ Laura

I watched the first episode of Marie Kondo’s Tidying Up show on Netflix last night. After Hoarders, I think I’m spoiled for organization shows. Unless you are living amongst garbage bags of your own poop, then you’re a minor league sloppy person. So much about Kondo’s show is about how we can deal with having too much crap and coping with the guilt about throwing stuff out. What weird period of history we live in.

KJ Dell’Antonia writes a post about why she doesn’t answer her e-mail and spawns a whole bunch of nasty comments. Honestly, I couldn’t get past her second paragraph. It didn’t help that I once pitched her a story topic back when she was an editor at the New York Times and she never responded. Not that I’m holding a grudge or anything. (The comments are good.)

More on the cuts to liberal arts departments at Wisconsin colleges.

Published by Laura

13 thoughts on “SL 744”

  1. I also got to the second paragraph, and, my vague thought on quitting reading was “she’s going to be rude and say ‘it’s because I love my children more.'” Well, we all love our children more. It doesn’t excuse bad behavior.

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    2. Aah, but that might be because your children are still in the “boring repetitive” age (yes, I skimmed more, because I wanted to know if my impression about the article was correct).

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      1. Now in the “shouting at the computer because he can’t make slides right” age. I think that one is going to last longer than the one where he would poop on the floor if we would have let me.

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  2. I haven’t read the email piece, but my particular contribution to rudeness/efficiency is that I think before sending stand-alone “thank you” emails to people that I know are probably fielding hundreds of emails a day, if there’s nothing else to communicate.

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  3. It didn’t help that I once pitched her a story topic back when she was an editor at the New York Times and she never responded.

    Well, now you know why. Although according to her column she is still thinking about your pitch that she never responded to, so that’s something.

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  4. More on the cuts to liberal arts departments at Wisconsin colleges.

    Funny how you aren’t hearing the same stories about universities in Minnesota. Elections have consequences, they say.

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  5. OK, I’ve read it now.

    This is not going to sound very sisterly/liberated, but if she’s talking about work stuff, I feel like a good alternate headline would be, “Why I shouldn’t have my job.”

    If she’s talking about social emails, you need to have some sort of life outside of your work and your nuclear family, and you need to stay connected with people that have been close to you, especially if they are far away and you don’t see them in person often. I took several years off of Christmas cards but got back to it this Christmas. I discovered that (EEK!) I had a 2015, 2016, and 2017 card from the same family in a pile among my papers–and (bigger EEEEEEK!) the 2017 card had not even been opened. (I believe I had been planning to record their new address and never got around to it…) I don’t do Facebook, so not doing Christmas cards/notes for several years is a huge big deal in terms of losing touch with people, so I’m trying to get back on the wagon.

    I only sent out one physical Christmas card this year, but I sent texts, personal messages (via a forum), and a number of holiday emails after Christmas. It was very gratifying to get messages back over the next week or two and see what everybody is up to (although I’m pretty much giving up on the idea of doing this BEFORE Christmas).

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      1. I have done that at some point…

        I got an Epiphany email note from an old student of my husband a week ago. *high five*

        The liturgical calendar has a lot of wiggle room.

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  6. From one of the NYT posters: “This is how I lost so many friends. Friendship needs attention also.”

    Yep.

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  7. Here’s an email gripe:

    When school (or whoever) sends out a mass emailing, followed by two mass emails with corrections of the first mass email.

    Get it right the first time, people!

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