Awash in the stream of consciousness

You know, a very long time ago, before you were born, I used to be an apa hack. Do any of you know what an apa was? (Or actually, still is. There are a few of them still left around.) An apa was sort of like a bricks and mortar collection of blogs, which is to say that a group of like-minded people -- most often members of the large, amorphous group of semi-detached souls known casually as "science fiction fandom." Someday, if you eat your rice pudding, I promise not to explain science fiction fandom to you -- would club together and produce, monthly or bi-monthly or whatever, a compendium of essays, conversations, fiction, really, whatever each writer liked. Each member was responsible for his or her own contribution, called a zine, and would write it and have it photocopied, enough copies for all the members. Then everyone in the area would get together and have a party called a collation, at which M&Ms were eaten and all the zines were, well, collated into what was called a mailing. Each member received a copy of the mailing, and copies were mailed to out-of-town members. In addition to the main body of the zine, most members made what were known as mailing comments, remarks to the writers of the zines in the previous mailing, kind of like blog responses, which I notice none of you are still making. Anyway, this was considered lots of fun by people who had spent a great deal of their youths being shoved into lockers by football players, and I was one.

Blogs, as far as I know them, which of course isn't very far, really do remind me of apas, except that with apas, you had time to think; you had a month or two to write your zine and your comments, so there was time for contemplation and reflection. This in no way meant that there weren't sometimes awful fights, known as flame wars (a lot of computer terminology comes from apas), between members, but you weren't so rushed, so pushed. If you missed four days, okay, you missed four days. IT WASN'T LIKE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO UPDATE YOUR ZINE EVERY DAMNED DAY OR RISK GETTING STALE AND IGNORED OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT. Ahem. Anyway, I'm just fine. Really. No pressure or anything, and I certainly don't intend to let four days go by in between posts on a regular basis. Perish the thought. It's just that I'm not yet used to this mad, breakneck pace, during which you make a post, then turn around and suddenly the Yankees have won the ALCS and will face the Phillies in a World Series in which I don't know how to root (it's just no fun if you don't root, even if you only root for one team because you heard the other team's shortstop's brother-in-law was a liberal) and it's several days later and people are anxiously awaiting your next remarks, even if they don't respond. It's a perilous straight.

But I have been plugging away like a little woodchuck on the project, producing an average of one letter a day so far (yes, I know, I know) and my efforts are starting to bear fruit. I today received my first letter back, in an envelope and with a postage stamp and everything, from ace buddy Vince in Allentown, who shares good wishes and ruminates on cats. I'm thinking of having it bronzed. So much nicer than email, and he wrote it on a typewriter, which would warm the cockles of my heart if I had any cockles. Or a heart.

Some days, it's fun to be a master-blogger.

CC Sabathia (I know that's not spelled correctly) against Cliff Lee tomorrow evening. This is pretty much a wash, as are the starting line-ups -- look for a plethora of home runs in this series -- but I'll go with Lee, if only because he's easier to spell. I don't know if my nerves can stand this.

I mean, really.

Oops

When I first decided that I was going to become a master-blogger, I swore I would post diligently every single day without a miss. So, of course, in the face of this hubris, the first thing the Goddess of All Blogs caused me to do was to fall asleep yesterday evening without posting. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

It wasn't entirely my fault, though -- I was a Very Tired Girl, after a full day of celebration and frivolity in honour of the day of my birth, culminating in a host of phone calls from various well-wishers, acolytes, and general disciples, that went on till way after 11:00 p.m. That doesn't sound very late to you Bright Young People, I know, but to a creaking middle-aged woman who had stayed up past her bedtime the night before, listening to the sainted Philadelphia Phillies put away the Los Angeles Dodgers and tidily win the NLCS for the second year in a row, it was pushing the envelope, and I dozed off over a copy of Karen Armstrong's The Battle For God, only to awake with a sinking feeling of dread at 5:00 a.m. -- I defy anyone not to awaken with a sinking feeling of dread at 5:00 a.m. -- to the realization that I Had Not Posted. Mea cul...no, wait, I said that. Well, you get the point.

Just because I did not Post, however, does not mean that I enitely shirked my responsibility to this project. I am not the Incredible Dr. Postage for nothing. (Quite the contrary, I seem to be the Incredible Dr. Postage for everything. How did things get to such a pass so quickly?) As a matter of fact, on Thursday the 22nd -- yesterday -- I created the first letter in my set of 1,000, a rather long missive to my friend, Carolyn, who by the way, posts an excellent blog at www.goddessinateapot.wordpress.com (check it out) -- it was only fitting that this project begin with Carolyn, as we have been friends, and corresponding in one way and another, since before you were born -- and yesterday saw me hard at work at two letters, to good buddies Jane and Vince. The arithmetically inclined among you will notice that this output does not actually constitute slightly less than three letters a day, but the arithmetically inclined among you can just keep their opinions to themselves. It takes me awhile to build up a head of steam, that's all. Really.

And as far as that goes, it has come to my attention that, so far, I am posting into the thin air, for all the response I'm getting. Come along, boys and girls, step up -- all comments welcome and all responses guaranteed dire.

If a master-blogger posts and nobody reads it, does the sound of the petard on which she is hoisting make noise?

Raison d'etre

Well, here's the thing. I am an anachronism in an electronic world. The shameful truth is that, while I love to communicate with people, I purely hate e-mail. So cold. So impersonal. So rushed and hurried and fast and efficient -- why on earth would anyone want to use this thing? It puzzles me deeply though, to be perfectly fair, so do road maps, the infield fly rule, and how it is that the cat manages to vomit on precisely the same spot on my pillow every time she gets the urge.

What I love is mail. Post. Letters. Long, elegiac communications written with thought and consideration, in longhand, and signed with a real signature. They are especially nice when they contain little nonsenses like clippings, photos, and small sums of money. A full mailbox is like someone throwing a party in your honour -- a party during which no one spills red wine on your white sofa -- and I haven't had a full mailbox, except for things that start out "Dear Sir or Madam, It has come to our attention...", since they invented e-mail. I miss it terribly.

And so, I have decided to rectify matters, to the best of my ability, which probably is best only in terms of a man being the best hitter on the Washington Nationals, but never mind. I'm going to be 56 tomorrow, the Series looks like it's going to come down to the Yankees, my ancestral team, and the Phillies, my adopted team, and I am going to write letters. Lots and lots of letters. Starting tomorrow, over the course of the next year, I will write 1,000 letters. 1,000 personal, chatty, comfortable letters in longhand, with a signature. I will mail each one and I will see what happens. 1,000 letters in a year is slightly less than three letters a day. Ought to be a piece of cake -- it's not as if I have that scintillating a social life, God knows, and, thanks to a severe case of arthritis, I no longer work for other people, so my time is basically my own. Sadly, I really have nothing better to do than write slightly less than three handwritten, personal, signed letters a day over the course of a year. Well, that and have fantasies about making torrid, steamy love to Hugh Laurie and, at my age, that really doesn't take that long.

Because I am not a complete anachronism, whatever I might think, and because I've always figured that there was no point to doing anything unless a fair amount of people were immediately informed of your actions, I have decided to report on the daily results of my project in this blog. I have never kept a blog before but I figure that, given the number of people who do so and also seem to be functionally illiterate, it can't be that difficult. So far it's been relatively easy, if only I could remember what password I chose, but surely that will come back to me eventually. And if it doesn't, you'll never know, because this blog will just quietly slip away into the night, no doubt to the vast relief of all concerned. Works out rather neatly, I think.

Therefore, I will see you sometime tomorrow, after my nice, celebratory sushi lunch with my pals, Jane and Susan. I love sushi as I love few things beyond cats, baseball, and, well, cats and baseball, so this should serve nicely to ease me into this great transition, going from ordinary middle aged person into a letter writer supreme and master-blogger.

And it's a damned good thing I managed to spell that last word correctly.