The Lost Art of Letter Writing

A friend of mine recently moved to Michigan to go to grad school. Before he left, he had a going away party, at which he became exceedingly intoxicated. He walked/danced/stumbled me to my car when I was leaving, and in his drunken state, declared that he wanted to write to me.

"A real letter," he slurred. "That's so ROMANTIC and old-fashioned, don't you think? Like Kerouac! Send me your address and I'll write to you." I agreed, lest he puke on me or pass out under the wheels of my car before I could drive away. I was fairly sure he wouldn't remember any part of our conversation anyways.

The night before he left, I called to say goodbye and he once again promised to write if I sent him my address. I complied, and a few weeks later, a letter - handwritten! - showed up in my mailbox.

If I haven't ever mentioned it, I LOVE MAIL. I go through my mail with an eagle eye each day, sorting it into piles: trash mail (junk mail, mail with other people's names on it, past due bills), shred mail (anything from a credit card company that has my full name on it, because I'm paranoid), interesting mail (sales at my favorite stores, free samples, pornography), and REAL MAIL (the most rare mail of all - something addressed just to me, not machine-generated, from a real person). I even shake out the trash mail just in case a piece of REAL MAIL might be hiding inside of it.

So it was pretty freaking exciting to get the letter. Of course, instead of quickly reciprocating, it took me a month to write him back, because I'm a dick. In the ensuing wait for a second letter from him, I became impatient and had to call, despite our agreement to try the writing thing for the sake of...I don't know, being Luddites? We've since been in touch on Facebook and occasionally over email, but he did FINALLY send me a second letter which arrived today.

While it was typed, instead of scrawled in longhand like the first letter, it elicited the same squealing happiness as before (perhaps even moreso, since the entire thing was actually legible) and I giggled at his stories, imagining him making faces and gesticulating wildly as I read. Is there anything better than a letter from a friend?

My favorite part of the letter would be that he signs off "Sincerely", except that this time he had to use butterfly and bumblebee 41 cent stamps, which made the letter a thousand times funnier. Man, I miss that kid.

Yum!

Dear Corazon:

Thanks so much for coming over last night and bringing dinner! Those hot dogs were delicious. I am so happy I finally got to use my grill! (I actually used it again to make hot dogs for lunch today.)

You are the best!

xoxo
City Elf

Everything's Gonna Turn Out Fine

This is such an amazing duet; I love both of their voices. I heard this song on the radio yesterday and knew right away I'd be posting it for NaBloPoMo.

The artists are Alison Krauss and Robert Plant; the song is Please Read The Letter. I chose the live version because the official video drops the second verse, which is really beautiful.

Look With Your Eyes, Not With Your Machine

Dear TSA:

I don't want to be virtually nude.

Or riddled with tumors.

Please keep your skivvy-seeking waves away from me!

Modestly,
City Elf

Dear God

Dear God:

Please, please, make the hot stop.

If this is your way of giving me a little taste of Hell so I'll go back to church, consider the lesson learned. BUT ONLY IF IT COOLS DOWN BEFORE SUNDAY.

Mama don't like to sweat.

Peace out,
City Elf

And We Only Used The Small Ones!

Dear Kettlebells:

We hate you.

Sincerely,
City Elf's Aching Back and Calloused Hands

P.S. See you Monday.

Blagh

Dear Stomach:

I am sorry about last night. I'm not apologizing for the drinking, which we both know you can handle, but for the mixing of various hard liquors and the presence of waaaaaay more sugar than usual in the drinks.

Strawberry mojito...not bad. Vero Beach daiquiri...pretty good, especially the ginger. Pomegranate Lemon Drop...yum! Eida's Delight...my favorite of the evening, but perhaps Tuaca and Butterscotch Schnappes weren't the best additions to the rum and vodka I'd consumed earlier.

I hope the Pepto-Bismol MAX and gallon of water I sent down this morning helped a little bit.

xoxo
City Elf

P.S. I promise I'll stick to wine or just one liquor at a time in the future.

Freud Vs. Jung

Dear Subconscious:

Please stop being so susceptible to anything anyone else says regarding dreams. Thanks to an off-hand comment by the Ex, I had a nightmare in which I was chased by a strange man as I ran in a dark parking lot at night. I very much did not enjoy that, not only because it was frightening, but also because I barely like to exercise when I am awake.

kthxbai,
City Elf

Be Awesome

Dear Ryan North:

Please, please, please will you marry me?

I have a thing for redheads (or sort-of redheads) and dinosaurs. Also robots and ice cream, but perhaps that's irrelevant.

Anyhow, let me know. You don't have to come to the States; I would totally move to Canada.

xoxo
City Elf

Won't You Leave, My Neighbor?

Dear Neighbor:

Since I moved in almost a year and a half ago, you haven't exactly endeared me to you.

First, you parked in my spot repeatedly, usually when it was cold and rainy. I liked being forced to run to your door in the rain to ask you to move your giant Suburban, which you did slowly and reluctantly.

Once I finally broke you of that bad habit, you took the opportunity to show me your better nature. You backed your giant Suburban into the front end of my poor little Bumpy in the wee hours of the morning, right after she'd gotten back from the repair shop. You didn't even have the common decency to leave a note; I had to figure out what happened myself like Nancy Drew, matching the paint and dent on your rear bumper to the giant dent on the front of my fender.

I really liked how you pretended you didn't know what I was talking about when I confronted you, claiming that you thought you "nudged" the trash bins, not my car. (Despite the fact that they are located on opposite sides of the driveway.) Even better, you were - and probably remain - uninsured, so I had to pay the $1000 deductible out of pocket. I'm sure you thought it was no big deal for me since I make decent money, but that $1000 would sure come in handy for bills these days. I've gotten a bit of money back through AAA, since they sent a collection agency after you, but I doubt I'll see more than the couple of hundred bucks I've gotten back in the fourteen months since the accident.

Since I mentioned trash bins, remember when I used to leave mine out with yours and our other neighbors? It was so kind of you to dump all of your trash into my bin, and often into my recycling bin as well for good measure. You let me lug your filth to the curb each week. Your bin either didn't get put out for collection at all, or if it did, it stayed on the curb in front of my house for three or four days straight. Sometimes people who wanted to park on our street would put your bin up on my parkway, which made my house look wonderfully ghetto. I keep my bins on my back patio now and you seem a little grouchy that you have to take out your own heavy garbage these days. You're still not much better about bringing them in after trash day, though.

I would think your surly teenage boys could help out, but I guess not. After all, they're not really great with trash either. They often drop their litter (McDonald's wrappers, Metro passes, homework, and the like) on my lawn. Once, they left a skateboard helmet on my lawn for a few days, and I threw it in the trash. Man, that felt good.

The little fat one enjoys hanging out by my parking space and kicking his soccer ball against the wall of the garage next door. I used to be nice and ask for him to please play elsewhere, but the last couple of times, I shifted into bitch mode and just yelled at him to move the hell away from my car. I think he finally got the hint because he hasn't caused me any problems since then.

Your teenage daughter, who picks up the boys to visit their mother (your ex-wife), likes to park in the driveway and honk repeatedly and scream obscenities until the boys come out. Her behavior certainly sets an excellent example for her toddler!

Your girlfriend and her mother like to hang laundry from the fence in front of your unit, which is very classy. I also note that while you can't seem to figure out that the blue bin is for recycling only, you have a small mountain of recyclables outside your front door. The beer cans are an especially nice touch.

I was so thrilled when you converted your garage - which is attached to mine, if you recall - into an extra bedroom. I'm sure having seven people in a one-bedroom apartment (weren't there only three of you when I moved in?) can get a little cramped. It was a brilliant move to run an extension cord through your window so the boys could have a lamp and a heater in there! I'm sure that's not a fire hazard or anything.

Anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that I wrote a letter to go with my rent check this month. I told our landlord that I was fed up and that if she didn't do something, I'd report you and her to the city. She gave me a call back yesterday afternoon, and I got the best news I'd heard in ages.

You're being EVICTED. How exciting for you! I wish you all the best in your new place and I truly hope your new neighbors give you the same warm welcome you gave me.

Best,
City Elf

We Write Letters

Today's moment of righteous indignation brought to you by the color brown, and the letters W, T, and F.

From: City Elf
To: readers.rep@latimes.com
Cc: molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com; francisco.varaorta@latimes.com; andrew.blankstein@latimes.com
Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 10:21:28 PM
Subject: Identifying the race of alleged perpetrators/victims of crimes

To Whom It May Concern:

I read the story regarding the shooting of a man on the 105 Freeway by an off-duty sheriff's deputy and was interested to know why exactly the race of the shooting victim - a Latino male - was mentioned, but not the race of the deputy. Is it the policy of the Los Angeles Times to only identify minorities in newspaper articles? Am I to assume that the deputy was Caucasian? Am I to assume that because the individual who was shot was Latino that he was somehow more or less at fault in this incident?

I would also like to know whether the Times would have mentioned any possibility that the incident may have been gang-related had the shooting victim been Caucasian, rather than Latino. ("The two men did not know each other, Hocking said, and the shooting was not gang-related.")

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
City Elf