Word: plan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...just leave your plan file blank. Every writer knows that sometimes silence is most eloquent...
...plan files are upbeat. Filled with pleas for pity ("I can't get over her" or "Thesis is killing me"), some plan files are tiny cries for help into the void of cyberspace. But by their design, these messages must go unanswered. Their authors don't really expect consolation over e-mail. Fishing for actual sympathy over the Internet would betray a great deal of weakness; on the other side of things, nobody wants to admit to e-mail stalking other people ("Dear X: I was fingering your account at 4:30 a.m. and noticed your distressing plan file...
Occasionally, one comes across a plan file that was clearly written with a specific person in mind. It's like opening a letter that was misdelivered to your house--you know you really shouldn't be reading it, but it's just too absorbing to put down. When the intended audience is a tight group of friends, the plan file is characterized by cryptic in-jokes, humorous anecdotes and such. In other cases, the author knows he or she is being stalked by a particular person (usually some jilted romantic flame), and tailors the text accordingly. These plan files...
...majority of plan files, however, are written to be read by anyone who is interested enough to finger you in the first place. These kinds of plan files are intended to make their authors look aloof, mysterious and witty. They must tantalize the reader's curiosity but not give too much away. We find the ancient Greeks so fascinating because we only possess fragments of their work. A plan file is like a fragment of a personality, a shard from a giant amphora. It tempts us to put all the pieces together and reconstruct the person from the parts...
...scholarly account of the plan file is complete without a few critical suggestions. In order for the plan file to survive as a genre, it must continually reinvent itself both in terms of form and content. What makes for a successful plan file? The trick is either to be fascinatingly banal or else ambitiously epic. For example, keep a list of everything you've eaten, item by item, in the last week: "Two Snickers bars, eight cups of soup, one serving of baked scrod...".Update us on your nightly dreams. Transcribe your internal monologue in the most minute detail: "Itchy...