Now, I hear the USPS might shut down Saturday service … I’m okay with that — as long as they continue five days a week.

But what I lament is the idea that people just don’t write old-fashioned letters anymore. We’re losing something — an archive of loves, loves lost, travels, penmanship, the ability to coherently write down our thoughts without the benefit of the backspace button or cut and paste rearranging of our thoughts.

How can you express real longing in an email?

I’ve written letters where tears plopped down from my eyes and blotched the ink on the page below, rendering a word or two or maybe several scattered over two or three lines — unreadable. But yet, so readable, right? Pretty hard to misread the emotion behind a tear-stained letter.

And, I’ve been known to literally seal (some of) my letters with a bright red lipsticked kiss, even spritz them with Chanel No. 5.

I doodle cat drawings and smiley faces and send my letters addressed to people I love with big bold color addresses on the front and call men things like “Joe–Master of the Universe-Smith” and “Simon-chef extraordinaire Jarault” — stuff like that. Women, obviously, get less flirtation in my envelope-addressing, but I write them all the same. Just don’t girlify their envelopes up like I do the guys’.

But I write to women friends as much as I do to men. And I still write to three college professors — one of whom maddens me (and I mean that affectionately!) by only corresponding via email and not giving me his home mailing address so I can stalk him in an appropriately literary fashion. I can’t write him at the university any longer because he’s long since retired. He’s the one who taught me about Shakespeare and yet I can’t write to him because he’s an email kinda guy now.

Ah, the vagaries of corresponding.

Didn’t Kevin Costner do a movie about delivering the mail in some future world — The Postman or something like that? Guess I’ll have to watch that.

In the meantime, I’ll continue my love affair with letters … and with the people who deliver them … and oh, yeah, particularly with the people who write me back!

Have you read The Road? — Cormac McCarthy’s unblinking view of a not-so-brave, post-apocalyptic United States? If you haven’t read it … or couldn’t read it (for reasons you’d know if you even tried to read it) … you can always see the film of the same name. Or maybe you’ve heard of The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington?

Even documentaries like Food Inc., are like big neon flashing posters of what our world is coming to and who’s going to come out on top and who’s going to be down in the gutter along with the pig entrails and chicken beaks … if we don’t change our ways about how we seed, grow, feed, and consume the stuff that keeps us alive.

And, have you seen those television shows — the ones like Jericho or even, to a lesser extent, Flash Forward and Lost, and even The Good Wife (with its entire raison d’etre based around the initial story of a political figure going down for the count because he was caught nearly in flagrante with a hooker … um, and the “good wife” who, so far, at least, is standing by her man) … doesn’t the world seem awfully pessimistic about the future of our collective, and individual, humanity? Read more »

I just watched Tiger’s press/public statement. Whatever his truth — whatever his past or future — he seemed very genuine, straight, humble(d), and believable. Guess we’ll see.

My biggest interest was when he spoke about his upbringing as a Buddhist. That didn’t surprise me in terms of how focused he’s been on the golf course, but of course, it’s hard to see any traces of his study of Buddhism in his behavior toward women, sexuality, and marriage.

I’ve studied Buddhism and been attracted to its tenets for a long time. I’ve always felt very strongly about its philosophy that it is our craving that is our undoing — whatever it is that we crave. I do try to create a life — day to day — where I have no attachment that would result in a desire to control outcomes or people.

Buddha at the door

It’s extremely hard to do and I’m equally successful and unsuccessful, and accordingly, I try to have no attachment to that success or failure either. If you’re interested, pick up a copy of The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha. I’m somewhere along the Eightfold Path — but where exactly, I can’t say.

I’ve been harsh about Tiger … and right now, all I’m feeling is compassion. So, if his talk did nothing else than that — I think that’s worth it.

As long as that wasn’t his goal …

Sheesh. Last night after I posted my “woe is me, I don’t got no fun” blog, I realized what a whiner I’ve turned into about this whole “365 days of fun” thing I got myself into for my New Year’s Resolution.

So, I’m going to quit whining about how I’ve frickin’ lost my mojo, or juju, or ya-ya, or whatever the hell it is and JUST DO IT. Read more »

I’m a sucker for the handwritten letter. For me, there’s nearly nothing better than walking to the mailbox in front of my house, pulling open the little metal door, and finding an envelope with my name scrawled across it. Read more »

… right this moment … or at least the minute you get done reading this blog …

What if we all got up exactly this moment and Read more »

Yesterday, all day, I looked forward to the fun I had planned for last night. It’s something that had been on my calendar for quite some time … something I don’t do nearly often enough: I met up with some girlfriends and just talked and listened … and talked some more.

Was very fun to bring in the first week of the New Year with two of the smartest women I know south (and maybe even north) of the Mason-Dixon Line. These are the kind of women who know politics, know Sarasota, and know how to toss off the words “deus ex machina” in casual conversation.

We swapped stories about dating, marriage, careers, the economy, Alex Sink, New Year ambitions, and when the topic of ambition came up, I mentioned a quote from my newly acquired fun 2010 calendar — “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.” (Hey, I didn’t write it, I just report it! — and you won’t believe who said that, by the way, Timothy Leary! … of course he was the same guy who infamously said “Turn on, tune in, drop out” or something to that effect.)

Anyway, it was two hours of fun — even though the topics were often serious — it’s hard not to have fun when you’re with two women you like and admire so much. Which brings me to another quote from my new, obviously highly quotable 2010 fun calendar: “In my friend, I find a second self.”

After I said goodnight to my friends, I drove home (don’t worry, I hadn’t had even one martini!) and when I went to bed, I dreamt of dancing. Dancing on a big floor crowded with people. Dancing a bit clumsily, with no partner, and feeling a bit self-conscious, but still with an admirable portion of abandon.

Dancing! Having fun! Even in my sleep!

Now that’s the kind of fun I’m talking about.

The Sarasota Herald Tribune is running an essay of mine in today’s (New Year’s Day, 2010) paper — page 17A for the printaphiliacs among you. (Yes, I think I made that word up!). Or, online at This Year, Let’s Get Happy.

Here’s a snippet:

Do I really want another year of struggling to lose 20 pounds and scrambling to replenish my decimated savings? Isn’t re-caulking the bathtub, reading “Remembrance of Things Past” and clearing out that mess of who-knows-what from under the bed aiming awfully low?

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night, felt a knot in my stomach and recognized the worry: about family, deadlines, bills, clients who haven’t paid me for work I did last summer, and a retirement account that equals zilch.

It was pitch black; I couldn’t see a thing, but still I climbed out of bed and made my way down the hall to the fridge for some cold water. I took a long drink and leaned against the kitchen counter, looking out the window, wondering, “How did I get here? – to this point in my life where so many worries had piled up so high, and “How will I find my way out of this mess?”

I’m not alone. 2009 has been a year to rock the faith of even the most earnest believers. Read more »

“Bouncing is what Tiggers do best.” (A.A. Milne)

Ah, and Tiger Woods is bouncing right now. Bouncing in a slightly different way from when he bounced from his mistress(es?) bed to wife’s, but bouncing nevertheless.

Bouncing is what tiggers do — that’s all they know how to do. Because a real tiger knows when he’s got steak at home versus hamburger from the fast food joint down the street (a la Paul Newman) and apparently Tiger Woods is really just a Tigger after all — all bounce and no bite.

But he's still awfully cute huh? And I hear he's loaded!

Because, ergo, it takes bite, not to mention balls, to not f*ck around. That’s the easiest trick in the world, cheating. C’mon, it’s so passe as to be, um, passe. Show me a man who can keep it in his pants — not because he has to, but because he wants to — and I’ll show you a real tiger in bed. Non-cheaters, and yes, I think I’ve known at least one in my life, are better in bed because they know how to partner for the long haul, not for the tigger-conundrum of “Oh, I like everything I see and everything I taste!”

That’s what happens when you have no character. Everything looks good when you haven’t an ounce of discrimination in your bones. You go from tiger to tigger in the folding back of the bedsheets.

You bounce, and you tippety-toe through likes and dislikes and fancies and non-fancies, and the wives you wed but no longer want to bed and the women you wouldn’t consider marrying but don’t mind bedding.

But let me say this: I could give a rat’s arse about Tigger’s alleged infidelities. It’s all in a nation’s work, that, and we’re a nation of cheaters — whether actual fornication occurs or not, very few are loyal — to our wives, to our jobs, to our collective “values”, to the people who elect us to high office, to our communities, to say nothing of our disloyalty to our own selves. Day in and day out. We deceive ourselves into believing something about ourselves that our actions say, blaringly loud, is categorically untrue.

Here’s the only person I feel sorry for in this case: The Woods baby. That kid will grow up thinking “Sheesh, my Dad couldn’t even wait for me to be out of the womb before he hit it with someone not my mother.” Well, he or she will have plenty of money for therapy visits, at least.

And a word of advice to Tigger’s wife, though I know she won’t take it: Leave him, sweetie. Leave him and never look back and don’t take a dime. Take the kid and work at Mickey D’s if you have to. The schmuck’s not worth the two seconds it would take to cash his check.