13 Thursday: You Got Mail
1. Sometimes I feel my writing is something like Erma Brombeck meets Rumi.
2. Pen and ink is to art what acoustic guitar is to electric.
3. I don’t write for a living but I live for writing.
4. My notebooks are to my mind what pans are to a house with a leaking roof.
5. DSL has finally come to my part of the mountains. My bill will go up from $25 to $40. I guess I’m invested in this blogging thing.
6. On two occasions this past year my girlfriend neighbors couldn’t get through to me by phone because I was online and had to walk over to my house to tell me something.
7. Considering all the junk mail I get these days, bills are starting to look like good mail. At least they have something to do with me, and I’m motivated to open them due to the late fees that accrue if I don’t.
8. Best news of the week: Our local grocery store just started carrying “Amish Chicken,” which means that it contains no preservatives, hormones, or antibiotics and was not raised in pens with the chickens on top of each other. It tastes good too!
9. The grocery store I’m referring to is a locally-owned one named “Slaughters.” When my son broke his leg years ago his doctor’s name was Dr. Boneset. Sometimes our names are our assignments.
10. Driving to Blacksburg to attend the book club of woman who just finished reading my book, I heard Stewart Sellman’s story on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” Sellman kept an audio diary after learning that he had a brain tumor and only had about a year to live. They played clips of his diary mixed with interviews with his wife. It was fitting to hear such a poignant story about dealing with death on my way to talk about my book, which chronicles the deaths of two of my brothers a month apart. Other things converged that evening into an eerie fit, the telling of which deserves a full future post.
11. The next night I heard Washington Post columnist and humorist, Art Buchwald being interviewed on the PBS News Hour from a Washington-based hospice. Buchwald talked about his decision to forgo kidney dialysis that would prolong his life. When asked if he believed in afterlife, Buchwald said, “The question is not where are you going, it’s what are you doing here in the first place.”
12. DSL internet hook-up isn’t cheap, but neither are stamps. They used to be cheap. It cost 3 cents to mail a letter back in the 1950s when I was born, and I think typewriters actually had a key symbol for cents, back went cents actually amounted to something.
13. Sometimes I miss writing and receiving letters sent snail mail. Emails are usually typed too quickly, read too quickly, and forgotten too quickly.
Note: I’m heading out to the mailbox to see what is there. Talk amongst your selves. Click on my 13 Thursday sidebar icon if you want to meet some new friends. Nicole has the 13 master plan. My other 13’s are here.
March 30th, 2006 9:05 am
#7 got me to think… it seems I shredd 95% of what I get anymore.. and I miss handwritten letters also. I still write my gram… but she’s it… Happy TT! Oh– *love* the picture of the mailbox… first time here, so… 🙂
March 30th, 2006 9:10 am
I’ve been to your site before, Frog Legs, but can’t comment because I’m not with blogger and so am anonymous to them.
March 30th, 2006 9:28 am
I love your analogies, Colleen! Congratulations on the upgrade to DSL – you’ll never go back. 😉
I had a dream lastnight that was really vivid, I plan to write about that in the next few days. I would love your analogy of it, of course.
Thank you for stopping over today!
xo!
March 30th, 2006 9:28 am
you will love High speed access, I am sure.
i love the way you write, though I am not sure I
could handle your book at this time. I will check into it anyway
Bless you – today and always
March 30th, 2006 9:49 am
Hey Auntie,
DSL in Floyd? Way Cool!
There is a Gynocologist in Floyd by the name of Dr. Clapp (not sure if it is spelled with a C or a K) – would you see her? LOL
My TT is up and I’m linking yours today too!
(Good to see someone else mentioning that fact that not all of us use Blogger. That is like my absolute worst thing – I go to comment on someone and can’t…. it’s so frustrating. I sometimes sign in under Sam’s name (who has Blogger) just to comment and tell them how frustruating it is that I was unable to comment on my own).
Luv ya lots!
March 30th, 2006 9:49 am
“Amish Chicken”? Well, why don’t we have that in Iowa!
I empathize with you about snail mail – nothing like it in the world.
I get way too many forwarded e-mails and junk e-mails, anyway!
March 30th, 2006 9:54 am
The book also has a lightness to it….and my family is pretty funny.
The doctor’s name wasn’t exactly Boneset but it had the word bone in it. I couldn’t remember it exactly.
Does anyone have a dream blog yet?
March 30th, 2006 9:56 am
Loved your analogies!
When I read #8 about the “local grocery store” I wondered if you were referring to Slaughter’s. Then I read #9 and was proven right! I like that store – good selection, friendly people, and boys who will roll your cart out to your car and unload your grocery bags for you! It reminds me of days gone by.
March 30th, 2006 9:58 am
(By the way, in case you don’t remember me, we met at Oddfella’s on St. Patrick’s Day night. We were having dinner with Deana and Martin.)
March 30th, 2006 10:00 am
I really like #2, and believe that its true. My TT is up too. Happy Thursday!
March 30th, 2006 10:29 am
Oh my goodness…..Dr. Boneset? How ironic.
Enjoyed your list
My T T is up.
March 30th, 2006 10:37 am
I can so relate to #s 5 and 6. I refer to the day I got DSL as “independence day”
March 30th, 2006 11:03 am
“Considering all the junk mail I get these days, bills are starting to look like good mail.” Amen. I hate junk mail. I do enjoy sending junk mail from one place to another… using their “no stamp required” envelopes. Stamps aren’t cheap 😉
I miss letters, too. Writing them and reading them. I miss them!
Happy Thursday! Thanks for stopping by!
March 30th, 2006 11:14 am
Hi! Long time no see! 🙂
I have been meaning to stop by and let you know I am on a scrabble kick now!!!
The other night I had the word Quinoa and couldn’t put it anywhere!
March 30th, 2006 11:46 am
Not tying up the phone line is great we have cable internet, Comcast.Around where I live its not hard to find amish chicken!:) MyTT are up!
March 30th, 2006 11:47 am
Love the list this week… I wonder about last names and our ‘destiny’ somedays. I know a person with the last name Putz. 😀 Always wondered what they would do for a living.
My TT is up!
March 30th, 2006 11:59 am
Lucky you, getting DSL and all. Still on crummy dial-up, I am. We have DSL, cable, and such in my area (Cedar Rapids, IA) but haven’t invested in getting it yet.
Anyways, speed on down here to check out my TT. Enjoy.
March 30th, 2006 12:59 pm
Gosh… I wish we could get DSL. I love getting emails but I get really excited when I get snail mail. I wish people did that more too.
Happy TT!
March 30th, 2006 1:20 pm
#4 is a great line and I like the quote in #11 too. I signed up for a Blogger account just so I would have one for commenting. Way to go on the DSL. The nice thing about the price jump though is that it isn’t quite twice as expensive, but it’s at least twenty-six times as fast. Just think if the price jumped up to match the speed!
March 30th, 2006 1:49 pm
I just got a handwritten card last night! It was awesome, and I’m sending her one in return. Congrats on the DSL! My 13 are up!
March 30th, 2006 1:49 pm
Another High speed convert……
My 13 is up.
March 30th, 2006 4:17 pm
Great 13! Mine are up too 🙂
March 30th, 2006 4:34 pm
You’re right. No body will ever find a dusty box of anyone’s old e-mails. Biographers better learn how to do detective work on PCs.
Think of all the future “grown ups” who will be spared/deprived of their shoebox in the attic full of those first cracks at love letters? Do they instant message love letters? Maybe they actually do write them on paper.
March 30th, 2006 4:34 pm
I miss snail mail too……I think I might write to you soon via this route. I will do this even if the stamps cost a little more then 1950?? JK! I was reading old letters to Dad and they delivered mail twice a day back in the 40’s….and if you were mailing a letter to a solider, it was FREE!!!
March 30th, 2006 5:20 pm
LOL my mothers doctor was called Dr Butcher, a rather unfortunate name for a Dr I thought.
My tt is up 🙂
March 30th, 2006 6:14 pm
That was a great list. I too have invested more into my blogging. I really enjoy it. Now I need to learn to write better.
My Thirteen are here.
March 30th, 2006 6:18 pm
I like e-mail, but there’s just nothing like finding a first class letter from a friend.
#4 describes me. I have so much in my notebooks. Fun sometimes to go back and reread the old ones.
My TT is up.
March 30th, 2006 7:08 pm
Wow – I thought I linked yours because I went to go back and read it again and it looks like I skipped right over you. Must have had something to do at work after I commented and when I got back forgot ya – LOL – Sorry!
Can’t wait for the Barbie shots!
Around the same time you add my link, I would imagine, 😉
March 30th, 2006 7:09 pm
Oh and how long did it take for my Blog to load on your computer? I thought about you….
March 30th, 2006 8:28 pm
No Colleen, don’t leave me! You are the only other person I know with dial up.
I am going to have to start carrying my computer over to the Honduras Coffee Shop to work!
March 30th, 2006 8:51 pm
i love the shot of that mailbox!
i miss getting real letter, in someone’s hand writing. e-mails are great for what they are, fast, but sometimes you need to see hand written notes.
i’m doing the tt too.
March 30th, 2006 10:14 pm
I always thought Rumi should meet Erma Bombeck…and vice versa.
March 30th, 2006 11:17 pm
I am going to look for Amish chicken! Congrats on the upgrade; it is nice to be able to use the phone and the computer at the same time…LOL
March 30th, 2006 11:27 pm
too true on snail mail. the art of writing is going the way of the dodo. sad isn’t it?
congrats on DSL. its lovely. lol!!
have a great day! 🙂
March 31st, 2006 4:05 am
Good to stop by Colleen…I always so enjoy your writing. Including your Thursday Thirteen. You get so much into these 13 things…it is always a very rich experience to visit you but on a Thursday, it’s particularly rich! Thanks my dear.
March 31st, 2006 9:07 pm
Well. At least with the DSL you can talk on the phone and still surf the net. Unless you are someone like me who can’t walk and chew gum at the time.
I’ve known a Dr. Clapp. Thank goodness he wasn’t an OB/GYN.
April 1st, 2006 6:44 am
Welcome to the world of high speed. $40 this year and I am sure more in the future. Start saving those ‘cents.’ Your blog always has an ‘Oh-Oh’ moment for me and remembering the cents on a typewriter was one of those. I think it was there…wasn’t it?
April 2nd, 2006 12:20 pm
I loved your nr. 4 analogy! and congrats on getting DSL. I still write letters to my parents, they sometimes e-mail from my sister’s pc but they don’t have one at home. A letter is so special!