e-vites

[Documad]

I hate them.

A to Z's wedding thread reminded me.

[enree erzweglle]

I was intrigued the first time I got one. Then, when I got another one or two and the interface was awful and buggy, the mystery and appeal went away, and I started to not like them much. I think the thrill is all gone with e-vites and my friends--we just ring each other up or send email or mention it when we see each other.

Which was related to a topic of conversation today while I had a bunch of hours in between visiting my dad. I mentioned to my sister how I used to forget to get the mail out of my mailbox because mail is usually not an important thing to me. But now that my kid writes letters (ink on real paper), I can't get home fast enough to see if anything from him is waiting for me in the mailbox. It's like the mailbox exists to me again.

That brought me back to a time when, as a kid, I relied on physical mail for a thing--for a personal letter to come or to get something that I saved cereal box tops for or to get news of some sort. (Did I get into that program or that school? Did I get that internship or that job? Did the travel brochures arrive? Did the order forms arrive so that I can order X book, X record, X catalog?) Now, so much is so much more immediate and when that breaks down or I'm forced to take the sort of old-fashioned route, it's :eek:

For me, this waiting for letters just reminds me of when I was younger. But for my kid, it must be weird because he's never had to wait for anything to come in the mail. Must be tough for him, having to hand write letters and then having to wait for handwritten responses to come to him...yikes. Probably a tough lesson for him--maybe harder than doing 200 8-count push-ups.

About e-vites again, my dad gets completely turned around on those e-vite sites and he'll either ignore them outright or get sort of belligerent about them--he'll forward it to me or my sister and get a cranky e-tone of voice and say, WHAT IS THIS?! and we go :rolleyes:

[Documad]

I have missed a few things because it was an e-vite. I can't open them at work, which is where most of them have been sent. And if I forget and try to open one, I'm sure my computer narcs on me to our IT people because I tried to access an "entertainment" site. :rolleyes:

If people send them to my home, then all kinds of other people know my full name and they know that I've been invited and they know whether I'm coming, etc. Sometimes I don't like my friends' friends. I've seen people put in all kinds of personal excuses for why they can't come. They apparently don't realize that all us invitees get to see that they're having marital problems.

I have been making a real effort to write at least post cards to people lately. My mom can't remember when I call so letters are good. I have also been trying to write more formal thank yous to friends who've done nice things for me.

It must be amazing to get letters from your kid. If I had realized that my mom was saving them, I'd have written more. I lived in the same town for most of my life whereas my sister has this whole history of her life via her letters to mom.

[marsdaddy]

I don't mind them. There are ways to make your data only viewable by the party promoters. I can't view them at work, either, but I can see them fine at home.

[GetYourWarOn]

i never get invited to anything

[enree erzweglle]

Those formal or even quasi-formal thank-you notes. They're hard to get right. It's tough to get just the right semi-formal conversational tone without sounding stiff and overly formal or too casual. I screw it up every time. When I try to do an informal sort of thank-you note to good friends--those notes usually come across with the wrong tone as well. I have to work on that.

Yes, it's cool to get hand-written letters from my kid. Really, with the prevalence of computers and printers in our lives, before this, I hardly knew what his handwriting looked like. It's pretty crap but it works. :)