writing letters

[lauradi7dw]

I get a lot of unsolicited cards from charities. I usually put them either in one of the slots in the storage desk (a secretary style desk that I don't use for anything else) or in a box in the attic. I probably should just recycle them, but many of them are pretty. I decided today that I should use them. If I write a letter a day, could I burn through them faster than new ones arrive? I am mostly out of practice at writing letters. For most purposes, I like email better, and for stray thoughts or travelogues I like this format because I can type it (not useful for cards) and because I can include links. I was trying to come up with enough friends and relatives to be recipients for all the cards. Today is the 30th anniversary of an anti-nuke march on the UN in which we participated. I could write to the friend we met there (in the "jugglers for a friendly planet" contingent, marching just before the US out of El Salvador group, which I felt was in the wrong protest - I don't think the US ever considered dropping atomic bombs on El Salvador, however sleazy our treatment of the country was otherwise). Maybe the internet can tell me his address.
I have no idea whether we're in this photo or not (I found it more than one place after a quick web search). See any juggling clubs?

Apparently there is a 30th anniversary commemoration this evening at Tompkins Square Park. I could sprint out and get a bus in time to be there, but I think I won't.

Comments

[nosrednayduj]

I use them instead of birthday cards and the like. We actually don't have that many anymore, not after I gave the kids all the ones with animals on them to make art with.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

There have been a couple of times in my life when I wrote letters regularly -- the first when my sister-equivalent and her family moved to Poland for a year when we were in 7th grade. We wrote to each other several times a week for pretty much the entire year, and I still have all the letters she sent (and, I believe she still has all the letters I sent). We did both have shiny new email addresses, but letters were much better because they could be written during math class (a large percentage of letters on both our parts were written on graph paper during math class... this may have had some bearing on our subsequent abilities to do math...). Phone calls were clearly out because it was about $2/minute, so letters were our only way of staying in touch. The second time was when I was in Europe for three weeks and wrote to James daily (not on graph paper). I found that at first, with both sets of letters, it felt awkward at first, but I soon got into the swing of it, and found it quite a lot of fun. My mother does still give me grief though about being so busy writing postcards to Sarah on our vacation to California that I didn't actually see any of the neat views on our hikes/things in museums/etc :)

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

When I was in college the first time, I corresponded for much of the academic year of 1974-75 with a friend at Oxford. We wrote a couple of times a week, and once it gets going, you can just reply to the previous letter. His were long and daily life chatty (what happened at his Aikido class, what he ate at the vegetarian restaurant near New College, stuff like that, nothing deep or philosophical). The mail boxes in the dorm had combination locks on them but were partly transparent, so I could see when walking past whether there was a pale blue letter within. We mostly wrote on aerograms. Do they still exist? I re-read the letters at some point later (I presume they're still in the attic somewhere) and noticed a mention of bells ringing in the background. It meant nothing to me at the time, but it was fun to see later.