And, as with most people, I get more out of hearing her voice, her inflections, responding to her thoughts, than reading her e-mails. It's because of talking with Lisa, over lunch many years ago, that I know David. Whom I subsequently married. But to whom I no longer speak on the office phone. Instead, he and I converse, in a way, through an endless, unstoppable barrage of e-mails that are often sloppy and silly.
People feel they're invisible and shielded with e-mail.
E-mail is in its infancy, and we're using it like a toy. Which explains all those cell-phone calls in the cereal aisle. Over time, those things start to damper out. For years, I never heard from my cousins and knew little of what they were up to. We'd gather at Thanksgiving, someone's big birthday.