Nice-Ass Paper

It's been forever since I've written, and I have to say there are many reasons. (I always start these out with some excuse, so it's my format. Please be patient.)

I admit it here and now and will say it only once; I skipped about 4 days of letter writing. I've made up for them with doubling down on certain days prior and following, but this wasn't originally about putting out 365 letters, but putting them out consistently. But you know what? It's my project and my tiring life so it'll have to do. I will re-work and mold the rules as I see fit. Whatever it takes to make it so that what I actually did, works perfectly. It's nice being me.

A bunch of things have happened in the last month. I got married. That was huge. It was fun writing the letter on the wedding day. To whom, you might ask? My mother. I wrote my husband the following day, the first day of our married life together. He got a postcard because I was exhausted. A little foreshadowing into married life, perhaps.

I've been swimming in letters, postcards, writing materials and inquiries. 'Are you still doing the letters?' etc. is one of the more common openers from friends these days. It's replaced 'How are you?' and I'll take it. The answer is either Yes! Or an exasperated, grrr, yes - or a barely-audible-because-I'm-so-tired yes. There are many inflections to the answer yes, as I've learned from responding to the letter-project inquiry.

Mostly though, I want to report that today, in the mail, I received the following:
Four postcards. One from a friend who lives in Norway, but is on vacation in Paris right now. One from two friends in Brooklyn, where we live, congratulating us on the marriage. The other two are from a friend in Tennessee, and one contained a poem, even! Then a card addressed to both of us again. The last piece of mail was a check.

This is a red letter day for mail, folks! I've reached Nirvana. Not only way more personal mail than bills, but NO bills AND a check in the mail!!! The only potential problem I see here is that I will cease to appreciate my good fortune should it keep up. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to invite hate mail. Not ever. There's something more sinister about a piece of evil traveling through the post and making it to your door than if someone just called you or yelled in your face. I much prefer a hate phone call. But knowing someone took the time to write out the hate and send it your way, nobody needs that. Except the hater, maybe.

But curseth thee, thy haters! I am here to say that I didn't pick today's mail contents to discuss because it was so exceptional. Though it was better than average, today's mail actually represented the gestalt of my mailbox these days. Lots of love. So three and a half months in, my overall rating rests at WORTHWHILE. Only eight and a half months to go. More reports to come, but for now, I will adjourn - I have a friend who signed her divorce papers yesterday so she needs something written on some nice-ass paper. (That means 'paper that is nice'. I'm not going to write her a letter on fancy toilet paper, nor do I have stationary that says 'Nice Ass!' though, come to think of it....)