Friday, February 9, 2024

A letter from me to you

Dear Julienne: I thought you might enjoy receiving an actual letter in the actual mail, so I’ve actually written you one. I know it’s not the most “modern” thing to do, but sometimes a little bit of “old school” is what the doctor ordered.

It wasn’t all that easy to write, let me tell you. First, I had to put away my cellphone. The urge to just send you a text message was strong. Finding a decent piece of unwrinkled non-lined paper was difficult, too. But as you can see, I found one. Next, I had to find a pen that actually worked (Who owns ink pens anymore?). I went through two dozen buried deep in our “where did this come from?” drawer before I found the one I’m using. Finally, I set thought to paper, checking the dictionary as I went along so as not to misspell anything, then put a stamp on the whole thing, and there you have it. At least I hope you have it.

Well, that’s all for now. Have a great day. And I hope to hear back from you, if you feel up to it.

Dear Steven: I hope you don’t mind, but I just wrote a letter to your wife. Since she’s a teacher, I thought she might enjoy one – you know, out of the blue, vintage Pony Express. And then I started thinking, you being an accountant and all, I might need to send you a letter, too, just to keep things even. I’m hoping you don’t find that odd. (HaHa, accounting humor)

Just curious: when you looked in the mailbox this afternoon and saw there was a letter from me, was your first thought, “I bet he wants me to do his taxes, even though I keep telling him I’m not that kind of accountant”? HA! Fooled ya. It’s just a letter saying I wrote your wife a letter. 

And that’s all I have to say about that. Wish you well, good accounting, and I’ll see ya when I see ya.

Dear Susan: Just giving you a heads up, I wrote letters to both your brother and his wife. I thought while I was at it, I might as well write one to you, too. I know, I could’ve saved a stamp and just told you, but then my words would’ve simply evaporated into thin air. This way, you can save all these words forever in a drawer and bring them out on a rainy day to reminisce about the time I sent you a letter that says I wrote a letter to your brother and his wife. And if that isn’t old-timey romance, I don’t know what is.

Dear Mom & Dad: I’m sorry I never wrote many letters to you two while you were living. It would have been a nice way to keep you informed with all the events in our life, and vice versa.  Of course, we did keep each other up to date through electronic means, but a lot of those emails/texts are lost in The Cloud, and I don’t see it raining anytime soon. Digital correspondence is all about ones and zeros, fonts and point size, legible words mostly spell-checked and approved. Physical letters are all about ink to paper, anticipation and excitement, trying to decipher what is actually written.

I’m guessing we could keep all our emails on a tiny flash drive stuck in a box somewhere, but that’s just not the same as rifling through a pile of letters, all rubber-banded together, and knowing it came straight from your hand to mine.

Ah, the things we should’ve done but didn’t; the things we didn’t know, but now do.

Dear Kids: I’m sending you this text message instead of writing you a letter because I’m not sure you know how to open a real envelope without getting paper cuts. JK. LOL. Hello? Is this thing on?

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Wife of a snorer

My wife doesn't sleep with me anymore.
She says it's because I snore.

She says
sleeping with me
is like sleeping with a
freight train
using five engines to pull
195 railroad cars
filled with trucks,
lumber,
patio furniture,
bricks,
refrigerators,
and ice cream
up and over a mountain pass
it has no business trying to climb.

She says
sleeping with me
is like sleeping next to an
outlaw biker
riding 80 mph down the interstate
on a Harley Fatboy
followed by hundreds of his
leather-clad friends
wearing sunglasses,
long beards,
smoking cigs,
hauling ass and biker babes
to Sturgis for the weekend
and then maybe on to Canada. 

She says
sleeping with me
is like sleeping on an
Air Force base
at the end of the runway while
fighter jets
punch their takeoffs with
afterburners,
screaming engines,
low fly-bys,
strafing runs,
flying on training missions
over the ocean and back again,
or some secret mission to the Middle East.

She says
sleeping with me
is no guarantee of 
sleeping
at
all.

Which is so strange
because I sleep like a log.


Friday, January 5, 2024

It's Friday, it's my birthday!

I try to eat healthy.

Every morning for breakfast, I have either home-made granola cereal with fruit, oatmeal and fruit, or avocado toast, hold the fruit.

And coffee.

Every morning.

But today, even though I've already had breakfast (granola cereal with fruit), I decided to have a SECOND breakfast.


More than likely
my heart will stop today.
Because it's Friday.
And it's my birthday!