Can you talk to me?

.......piped the small voice from the back of the car last night as we made our weekly trek from Lawrence back to Olathe. And? So I did. While Anjali fell asleep, Arun and I discussed our favorite animals (snakes! spiders!), which ones are good to eat (chicken!) and which are not (frogs!), his Halloween costume options (rocket!) and his current strategy for going to the moon (which involved obtaining some wings, transforming into a bee, then flying there.) As difficult as Three Years Old is turning out to be (the constant defiance, the incessant whining and the relentless demanding is straining my very last nerve to shreds), I do adore the imagination of a three year old. Anything can happen, in their wee noggins. And I relish hearing what they believe could.

So.
First and foremost, I would like to take a moment and frantically wave "Hi!" to Kenna from Lawrence. Last night, I was at a Walgreens there and I heard someone say "Are you Rancid Raves?" I turned around and met a reader who recognized me. *stutter* I was very flattered, of course. But now? Kenna knows that my glamorous existence is vicious facade and that I am really just a dumpy housewife from Kansas. Darn it! Instead of dripping in diamonds, I was dripping in rain, after having frolicked in my mom's yard with the kids.

So.
I was very distressed yesterday. I received an email from a dear friend asking me why I had not replied to any of her comments or Tweets lately. My response? In short, I suck. I have been such a lazy loser with my email correspondence. I still have not really figured out a good method for dealing with my bloated inbox. I clear out messages, then it seems to slowly grow to astronomic proportions yet again. Innernets, how do you handle your emails? Do you reply as each message comes in? Do you file things away into a special folder for "needs response"? Do you designate a specific period of time daily or weekly to catch up? How? I need to get this in line. And now.

Part of the problem, is that I am simply lazy. The other part, is that my time online is unplanned, unscheduled and at best, sporadic. If I can grab a few minutes, then I do. If I cannot? Eh. No biggie. Anyway, I felt absolutely horrible that my friend's feelings were hurt and it was a significant wakeup call for me. Therefore, this weekend, I am going to catch up on my email. And next week? I will respond to every comment (which includes an email to which I can reply.)

However, Twitter? Will probably not change. I am really a broadcasting type of Tweep and rarely reply to Tweets. This is not helped by the fact that I tend to Tweet and check Twitter via my phone, which hampers my efforts at replying in a timely manner.

No, this is not a post complaining about how incredibly busy I am. I am certainly not any busier than anyone else out there. I am terrible at organizing my time. That is all. To add to all of this, I have been sucked into the social maelstrom that is Facebook. Oh My God. It is my friend TLC - she has tracked down tons of our old friends from high school. Then, I tracked down some college friends.

Oh. Speaking of TLC, notice how I linked to her ass? Oh yeah, she has a BLOG now, folks. We infected her and she could not resist our little cult we have going on here. The Koolaid goes down quite easily, no? I am thinking of roping her into some sort of "memories based on a picture" sorta thing. Stay tuned. In the meantime, check out her current post. The one that made me cry - I saw what TLC went through since we experienced so much of both of our childhoods together. I have been the stepdaughter. However, I love my sweet, lovely stepmother so much, it hurts. But, I did not appreciate her when I was younger. I fervently hope that TLC's stepgirls learn the same lesson that my own sister and I did.

I just hope they learn it sooner.