Hmmm. How will I remember the final week of 1999? Probably as one where I was working an awful lot. This, of course, bodes well for things like eating and paying the rent, but not for answering email nor for site updates. Methinks the newest installment of Do You Bring Bottles will be delayed by a few weeks. Sorry.
It might do the whole site a world of good if I took a little break anyway. It seems I’m not writing about anything particularly interesting lately. I’ve been in a relatively good mood the past few weeks, which is cutting into my traditional crankiness. My life has taken a rather subdued turn of late. And I’m finding it increasingly difficult to spend leisure hours sitting in front of a computer, particularly with all the freelance I’m doing right now.
This is not to suggest that I’m giving up the site or even taking an extended break. I’m just threatening to pay a litle less attention for a few weeks, or at least until I feel inspired to write about something interesting or do something exciting. And I reserve the right to change my mind at any time. So there.
What I am admitting is that I’m taking a bit of an email break. It’s just gotten to be too much, I’m way behind (again), and I get this creeping sense of doom each time I look at my In Box. So I’m not going to worry about it anymore.
I used to answer all site-related email almost immediately, often at length. Two things have changed in the past few months: first, I get much more mail now and second, I’m less inclined to spend a couple of hours a day answering it. My lack of response has nothing to do with how I perceive the sender; in fact I often brush off interesting people more readily than quick questions, simply because the intersting mail requires a more thoughtful response (and therefore means more work).
I’m so very flattered that people take the time to email me about the site, and I feel bad about it, but I can no longer beat myself up about every single message I don’t answer (or take three weeks to answer). I just can’t spend so much time attached to a keyboard anymore.
This is, of course, not to say that I’m no longer answering email or that I don’t like getting it. I’m just answering non-essential, non-urgent mail at my leisure. And that means some of it isn’t going to get answered.
Ooh. That felt good.
