I met my sister for lunch today. Nothing extraordinary in that.

We made the plans via email. Again, nothing extraordinary in that.

Except, we didn’t talk at all this morning… as we made plans for lunch… as she told me about her job search, and today’s progress… as I told her about my week… as we discussed who would meet whom, where… we didn’t talk at all. We wrote.

I have a cell phone I seldom use, for talking. I have a landline at home I almost never use. And I have four active email addresses, two cell phones (one, a smart phone with Web access) from which I text and send out updates to friends, two laptops and two desktops (if you count personal and work computers), and very good typing skills. This is how I stay in touch with friends and family.

How many of you have friendships that are still thriving thanks to email? (Since, like me, you seldom see these friends in realtime.) Or is that just me?

By the way, lunch was great. One in-person conversation to offset the few dozen we’ve had virtually since the last lunch. Not bad.

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