Jen's Column / E-mails

For better or worse, I've chosen a fairly antisocial career. I mean, as much as I adore working from home — and I do adore it — the truth is that I spend roughly eight hours a day alone. Even my cat ignores me.

To fill the gap, I bargain with myself. I say things — not usually out loud, but sometimes — like, "When I finish this draft, I can check my e-mail." Or, "When I get to the bottom of this page, I can play Facebook Scrabble."

Oh, Facebook Scrabble, how I love thee. In case you haven't discovered the glorious time suck that is Facebook Scrabble (not to mention Facebook itself), I'll fill you in. First, you join Facebook — a social networking site that will put you in touch with a good half of your graduating class. Then you start a Scrabble game with one (or two or three) of your Facebook friends and take your turn whenever you're available. The game can last hours or days or weeks, depending on how often you play your tiles.
I have 13 games in progress as I write this. But even those are fairly solitary games, unless I'm playing with Missie, who sends me roughly six messages a day that read, "It's your turn!" and "Have you taken your turn yet?!" and "Hey, did you get my message? It's your turn!"

Which leads me to my true sanity saver during those long days when I'm craving human interaction: "Reply-to-All" e-mail messages.

I'm pretty sure this is a system perfected by stay-at-home parents craving adult contact. In just one day — over the course of a mere 8 hours, in fact — 27 messages went flying through my inbox to and from a group of fellow moms from my sons' school. The e-mail chain started innocently enough with Deb recommending a title for her burgeoning book club. "Hey ladies," she wrote. "How about reading The Lace Reader next?"

I hit "reply all," commented on the book, and told the group to Save the Date for an 80s Prom fundraiser a friend and I are planning.

The next message came from Amy, who wrote that she'd read anything and, "I love the 80s! Bon Jovi rules!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Except there might've been more exclamation marks in her version.

Missie then claimed that half her closet is still stuck in the 80s and attached a YouTube link to Bon Jovi performing "You Give Love a Bad Name." I should point out that this was during Bon Jovi's seriously big hair phase.

After a digression on 80s hair — including a side conversation on bad home perms —
Theresa agreed to read The Lace Reader and said that while she doesn't use Aqua Net anymore, she does use a hairspray called Big Sexy Hair. And also, the last time she got a home perm was in fifth grade and then even her teacher laughed at her.

There was a comment or two on Jon Bon Jovi doing jumping jacks in red spandex and then Deb wrote that Big Sexy Hair has enough aerosol to gag all of Rochester. And also, if you turn your head upside down, spray and come back up, everything stays straight up. She knows because she tried it last summer with her sister.

Missie piped in, wondering if perhaps Big Sexy Hair would work on another saggy part of her body. To which someone (maybe me) replied, "It doesn't. Don't ask me how I know."

And then Deb replied, "FOMCLOL." And I have no idea what that means. But it doesn't matter. Because this, my friends, is why I can survive working from home. Vive la Internet — and Vive la Friends who require just as much entertainment as I do!