Letter Never Sent

Sometimes at work I listen to Fresh Air streamed over the internet. It reminds me of when I worked at Fedex and carried around a little radio in my truck and listened to Public Radio every day for several hours. Today had a nice interview with director Jim Sheridan. He made some very insightful comments which I wish I could quote here, but I have never been able to find free transcripts of the show. It was something about how his father would bet at the races, and if he won he that would make him feel like he was right about everything in his life. And conversely, if he lost that meant he was wrong and a failure in everything and would feel bad about himself. I don’t know about anyone else, but I definitely do this sometimes. It’s so hard to not let outside things disturb your equilibrium. Small defeats can make you feel so totally defeated.

What happened to the briskly cold fall weather we were having just a few days ago? It’s in the 80’s again. I woke up with the sun breaking through the windowblinds and it made the sheets stifling hot. I had to kick them off like a pissed off zombie exiting the grave.

My weblog has dropped even the slightest pretense of being about anything other than me lately. I hope no one has missed my impotent, political ravings too terribly much. I can’t promise they’ll be back. I just really got sick of hearing myself and I realized that I really don’t know anything. I mean I know things and I have insights and opinions, but I don’t have any answers. Even if I did I don’t know if I would know what to do with them. It doesn’t mean I don’t have certain feelings or opinions it just means I’m more reluctant to say anything totally definitive. Hopefully this is part of growing older or maturing or becoming more pragmatic. I really don’t know. I’d like to stop knowing and start learning.

Anyway, with that said, here are a list of November resolutions that I really need to make:

I really miss having penpals and writing letters. It used to be a pretty big part of my life. I would start a letter and keep it with me in a book or something until I had finished it a few days or a couple weeks later. It was like writing in a journal except that you really had some sort of audience and were communicating with another person through a record of your thoughts. I always liked holding something that someone else had spent time making and writing on. You could almost imagine them sitting at a table somewhere scribbling away. It was a way to get to know the secret, quiet side of people, the meditative side. Email is good for the immediacy it brings, but what’s wrong with waiting for something and feeling the anticipation build? Email is too sterile, and usually too brief.

Then Susan and Steve are headed out for Steve’s whirlwind music-making tour. Good luck guys and take lots of notes and photos!

It’s been an eventful past week or so. Halloween came and went. It would have been more noteworthy except for the fact that I had to work Halloween night. We did have an okay party at work, and someone did steal the huge, uncarved pumpkin from my doorstep. I didn’t mind this so much because it meant I didn’t have to find some way to get rid of it, but it did perplex me a little since I had to spend time wondering who took it, when, and why.

The garage sale on Saturday morning was a big success for the most part. My mom and stepdad came and brought some junk to sell and some bags of pecans from their orchard. Those were selling very well. Jody brought over some of her junk to sell, as did Susan and Steve. It turned into almost a block party with different people arriving from all over the neighborhood. I had advertised for 8am in the paper, but some early birds showed up to be the first to pick over everything at around 7:30am. I would say they got the best deal since I was not very prepared to haggle at that point, having been caught unawares. A little after 8am, my next door neighbor and landlady, Joyce, came outside and hung out with us and brought some of her things out. It really was a lot of fun just sitting around with friends and family drinking coffee and talking. The people who live in the house built onto the old stone cistern stopped by and bought some things and a lot of us ended up walking down to check out their unusual house. My brother the interior design major got a copy of their floor plan and their phone number to call them with some remodeling ideas. He’s quite the operator. I had a really nice time. It made me want to come up with some other excuse to get together and meet the people from the neighborhood. Do people do block parties anymore?

• I was taken under the wing of black motorcycle cop. In the dream, he was like an older brother or father figure. He gave me a book on military strategy, a book on the history of the Soviet Union, and my own pair of motorcycle sunglasses (that’s what they seemed to be) in a case. All of this was wrapped up in a parcel that he gave me when he had to leave. This is one of those dreams where it feels like I was someone else.
• Flying in a jetliner. Travelling around for some reason and spending time in parking garages and airports.
• Talking with Favio on the phone and living in a new apartment in some downtown area with my friend, Phillip.

 

Here’s a photo of Sarah I just took. Sarah says, “Thanks for all your support.”:

I bought a huge pumpkin this evening to carve, but I don’t know if I should since the raccoons might eat it. Breen said I should just let the raccoons carve it. Damn raccoons.

Saturday, Nov. 1, 2003 I am having a garage sale. Feel free to come by and bring anything you’d like to sell. Also, come by and buy some of my old useless junk. It’s time to shed some weight and clean out the closets and get rid of some of the useless garbage I keep moving with me like my own personal caddis-fly shell. Most of the stuff is books and video games and assorted computer junk.