The Subject Line

by gretchen

Tessa, next to my dear, long-suffering not-husband, is my favorite. She really is. And as my favorite, I've become privvy over the years to her little quirks and tiny hot buttons. For example, do not, I repeat: DO NOT try to help her collate unless you are a professional collator and have the degree to prove it. I tried once. She made me cry. I bring this up as often as possible to try to make her feel guilty. She doesn't.

Among my favorite quirks is her annoyance when you don't fill in the subject line. SUBJECT LINE GOES HERE. She wrote that over and over when responding to work emails I sent that lacked a subject line.

I don't like putting in subject lines.

It's too much pressure.

It's like titling a paper and when I was in college, I prided myself on having unique and wonderful titles. "The Danse Macbre With Grammar" was among my favorite. It was a paper written about Dom Jean LeClerq's book on mideval monks. I hated the book so much that I threw it in the shower when I finished the paper. And confessed the crime to my professor.

Anyway. I spent quite a few years emailing back and forth with a highly intelligent and witty man. He was the type of writer who made you want to write in complete paragraphs, with topic sentences. I loooooved writing to him. But I started to put this immense pressure on myself to have incredible subject lines to sum up the wonder that would flash upon his screen when he clicked on my name and opened my letter. "That Gretchen," he was supposed to think, "she's an amazing writer." This, by the way, is the fantasy of all insecure writers. That and an agent who really gets your work.

The problem is, my subject lines started to stress me out and while the email would be crafted in a few minutes, I could sit for days on a draft, waiting for the flash of brilliance for the subject line. This was when I was watching a great deal of Law and Order and I think it started to rot my brain. After awhile subject lines deteriorated to, "I've got nothing" or "Something witty goes here." Pathetic, I tell you.

We stopped writing. I think he was disgusted with me. I was disgusted with me.

When I email Tessa, I try to see how many I can send before she puts something obnoxious in the subject line to remind me that she NEEDS TO KNOW what she's about to read before she commits her precious time to doing so. Thing is, I never wait to that point. The memory of the Collating Fiasco still vivid in my mind, I cave after two emails and start putting lame-ass subjects in there.

I resent the subject line now.

I rarely use it.

Which is very annoying to people who get my emails.

Not the least of which is dear Tessa.

Who will, shortly, tell you all the reasons why it was logical to make me cry when I tried to help her collate.