the art of e-mail

As I was studying our great American Heritage today in my usual corner booth at the Library, I was struck by two thoughts - #1. I really am an 'American', in every way shape and form of the word, and, #2. Nobody e-mails anymore, at least, not like we used to.
Of course, e-mail has little to nothing to do with the American Revolution, which was the chapter I read in my book today, but the thought crossed my mind all the same. So, putting my study aside I wandered over to the fancy apple computers they've got set up in the library and logged onto my gmail account. It only took one glance to realize that none of the messages were worth reading - except my daily "word of the day" mail (today's word was 'babel').
I miss the days of long replies and silly stories. It was nice to tell someone (when you had time to tell them) how your day went - all the ups and downs about school and life and boys, and then open up later and find a lengthy tyrannical reply on the horrible school systems, or the stinky boy who dumped so and so today, or how this character in this show was cute, and this one sandwich that tasted great...I used to have conversations with people every day through the convenience of e-mail. Now, not only do I avoid talking to people in public, but I don't even give them the courtesy of my cyber voice - nothing longer than a status update, anyway.
I signed onto my old yahoo account while my thoughts perused over the past, and I came across 15 saved drafts, all half formed messages to others, and all bringing smiles to my face. Some of my favorite lines were "See...that is why I e-mail you. Because your e-mails are completely retarded and make me feel better about myself." or "Seriously, no joke. If Alex Rider was a real person, I'd marry him." In one message I had to ask my friend what a 'stoner' was, and in quite a few others I used the expression 'poo head'. It's funny how easy it was to pick out the messages from middle school (all the aforementioned ones) and which ones I wrote more recently, just before I switched to gmail. You can tell a lot about a person by the way they write - and art I am learning more and more about every day. In fact, today I realized how much I used to write every day, and how the majority of my development as a creative writer happened while online - sending messages to friends, writing story plot lines and asking for feedback...it's a part of my life that I've lost over the years, and I plan to bring it back.

So after this long and ridiculously boring tangent you're probably thinking "That's nice Maddy. You rediscovered e-mail. Good for you. But who cares?"
Well, I do. Which is why I wrote about it. So shut up and have a nice day.