(Here's another letter I wrote to you in Seattle)

 

12:32

Supposed to have an interview today, but something got screwed up, so I sit waiting for the phone to ring. Hey Doveboy, just finished your letter and to be quite honest, I found myself getting a bit defensive regarding your monologue on the meek and mile. Though I don’t in any sense of the moral paradigm feel that anything you said was - shall we say WRONG, I must admit that today I have no energy to give out. Oh, poor me, for today there is no joy - although the walk home was pleasant, oh bah.

Let me explain how I’ve been feeling: SELF PITY - I realize it’s disgusting, but damn it - it’s not planned. I’ll just be sitting and then someone will say something or do something or do nothing and my eyes suddenly fill up with the old sea water and all I want to do is bawl like a baby.

I just need to be reassured that there’s meaning and joy and love hiding in the alley, breaking up through the cracks in the blacktop, sliming through the city streams - and today I’m an emotional cripple in some bad Camus novel. The longer I look for a job in MY FIELD the more I begin to realize I don’t want one. God damn my stepmother would love to see me in debt up to my hairline with car and house mortgages, my brother wonders why I fall in love with men with no FUTURE and my aunt...she just does laundry and worries about everyone.

Yeah, maybe sandwiches with no crusts are in the near future. Do me a favor if you ever receive the letter that I sent to Paraguay: Please let me know. I like what I wrote then - I was still new to everything, still excited about the future, still hoping to get a letter from Seamus - need I go on...

Geez, I don’t like to be a downer. I suppose that is my greatest downfall - when I get in a slump I hopeless.

 

"It" was one of those nights when there was no one to call, connect or console. The idea of taking a mind-altering drug was out of the question for no particular reason. The only thing left to do was listen to all of Beethoven’s sympathys in numerical order, smoke fiendishly, and compost trashy prose on the personal computer.

Found this lovely paragraph in the backfiles of the computer and decided to use it as the opening of this letter since it is so characteristic of the computer generation.

House-sitting at Mary Jane’s for the weekend, ergo this letter.

Realizing now that moving out of Maise’s is crucial to my sanity and my writing which, as of lately, has been reduced to shopping lists, phone messages, cover letters, resumes, and feeble attempts at foreign correspondence.

Please excuse any impersonality that might be connected with sending out a letter through way of a printer. Can’t say as it would be a complaint of mine but we must account for all possible feelings of inadequacy.

 

Lawn mowing today for 4 hours - weeding tomorrow at the church. And from here today out to get stamps and send this letter and then off to Maise’s to bake rhubarb custard pie.

So, in the past 2 hours I managed to bake two pies, clean the kitchen, take a shower, make the bed, and have a quick chat with the Pope about the abortion issue. Not bad for a buxom Betty from Spokane.

Oh, by the way, about the pen name - FORGET IT!! Cruised the cemetery the other day and found nothing as poetically perfect as J. Dove Dixon!! But if you decide to become a blues singer, I did see Arthur J. Stretch and thought of you.

As you can tell by the different letters in here my life has been a bit scattered. I’d start a letter, then throw it in my bag, forget about it and start a new one. SO much for structure. But, then, what did you expect from an easy chick to scam on like me? Until next time, keep on loving life for you do it so well, my dear. Stay tall, dark and handsome - oh, my what a disgusting cliché - Mr. Diamond would never tolerate that!

Don’t forget to say your prayers.

Kisses Hugs and Drugs

Estrelica