Dear Abby

Five things about myself:

1) I don't like to talk on cell phones because I am afraid of cancer.

2) I don't like to text because I'm cheap (see my other blog, which is about this very subject)

3) I like to talk about myself verbosely and without any interruption or acknowledgment of any other communication partner

4) Due to the fact that my last two work places have been 1) the woods and 2) a ghost town, I am not used to having reliable access to email

5)I like to subject people to seeing my awful penmanship.

All of this leaves only one for medium to communicate: Letters.

Yes, I write letters--pages and pages and notebooks and notebooks of letters. It can get pretty friggin stressful, one of the many things in life that sends me into a feverish fit during which I pull at my hair and repeatedly yell "I CAN DO IT ALL! I CAN DO IT ALL!"

So...a healthy hobby.

I will also say that my letters are also always a mess. If I had a camera, I would take a picture of all the insane assemblages I've managed to come up with. Here is where my picture would be if I had a camera:















But I don't have a camera, so I'm going to have to describe it to you. About a month ago I ran out of envelopes so I've been making my own which is basically just a recycled piece of paper taped together with the bulkiest and most unattractive tape I can possibly find. Namely duct tape or sometimes masking tape. Today, on the other end of the crazy spectrum, I had ONLY envelopes but no paper, so I actually disassembled an envelope and wrote on it and then just stuff it into another envelope. Also, a masterpiece.

So why do I subject myself to this? Why do I subject others to this? Well...if that's your question, then have I got the question for you....

Have you ever gotten a letter? Opened up a handwritten letter by someone you really care about or from an acquaintance that may have intrigued you but you never got to know? Getting letters is an incredible feeling, something completely lost in emails and (do I even need to say it?) text messages. Writing something by hand allows you to express the nuances of language rather than stripping it bare. It's just a wonderful feeling and to imagine a friend's excitement about receiving a letter, opening it up like a present, makes it totally worth it.

...and did I mention you get to talk about yourself uninterrupted for, like, a page?