The Dead Letter Department #1

(did you miss dead letter department #0? catch up here!)

interior: day

Here is where I’ve been for the past [however many months since this started].

It’s a good place to work, I’m extraordinarily lucky to have it, but some days it definitely feels like I closed the door on the holodeck & every place else in the world vanished, leaving me stranded here. Other people are starting to seem like maybe I made them up in some feverish moment of pandemic-related loneliness (congratulations, you’re all my imaginary friends now!), and the phone calls & text messages & video-chatting are just the product of a brain forced to keep itself company for way too long.

I miss places. If I could go anywhere else right this second it would obviously be my sister’s front room, to be sat upon by their extraordinarily charismatic cat, & then we would go get dim sum & then we would go see the Green Knight starring Dev Patel at the theater with the huge reclining seats, & then we would go for a walk in their neighborhood, or maybe that cool old graveyard we always drive past and say “We should take a walk there sometime!”

My favorite neighborhood bar closed right before the pandemic (I think, time is a slippery bastard these days) & has been replaced by the shell of a Mexican restaurant that never actually opened. This bar had three main things going for it: first, it was walking distance from my house; second, it used to be a Japanese restaurant & was still owned by the same guy so the fried fish & chips were this almost tempura-y thing that was insanely good; third it had a huge outdoor patio and garden where dogs were allowed. I haven’t had a dog in a couple years but this meant my friend could bring her enormous poodle, or her clients’ dogs that need socialization, & we could sit and drink beer and sometimes give the dogs french fries and watch the cottonwood puffs float by.

I miss the hipster coffee shop, too. Most of my work is solitary & requires a sometimes impractical depth of optimism, & it was easier to keep that tank full when I could occasionally go & sit on an uncomfortable chair of modern design & drink coffee with fancy little foam creations on the top. It was pleasant to work side by side with a friend, and hear other people’s work around me, key-clacking and page-flipping and quiet conversations. I’ve tried the ambient noise thing, but it’s just not the same as eavesdropping on someone’s ill-advised business start-up or weird first date. There was a place I used to go to with super good mochas but I finally had to abandon it because EVERY time I went there was this Christian men’s group guy having intense networking meetings. It always seemed like the same meeting, too, even though he was having it with different people. He probably had to switch to Zoom along with everybody else.

(try to) have a feeling

I’ve been reading memoirs & biographies rather than fiction the past few weeks, half because I can’t quite get the loft of belief that I need to engage with fiction right now & half because I am absolutely frantic to jump into someone else’s mind. I read a book about Georgia O’Keeffe that mainly made me think very depressing things about the immeasurable toll that older male artists have so often taken as their due, directly out of the minds and work of younger female artists, and then I read a very satisfying recollection of a marriage, but the thing currently sitting on my desk is Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr.

A writer on tumblr posted this quote from it, which made me click immediately over to request the book from the library:

“Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us. We’d pass out every time we saw—actually saw—a flower. Imagine if we only got to see a cumulonimbus cloud or Cassiopeia or a snowfall once a century: there’d be pandemonium in the streets. People would like by the thousands in the fields on their backs.”

I am still, despite everything, trying to see. I hope you are too.

do better

Flamingo Rampant is an amazing micropress that makes some of my favorite kids books. They’re running a kickstarter right now to raise money for six more books celebrating LGBT2Q kids, families, and communities, & this time it includes three middle grade titles! If you haven’t supported them already, please click here to check it out.

the only good thing

The only good thing is a croissant egg sandwich. It can’t be too fancy, & it can’t be a homemade croissant (although if you can make croissants I am ready to propose immediately, please send me your ring size). I’m talking about a bulk-bought costco croissant slapped together with a slice of american cheese, a fried egg, & a piece of sausage the same circumference as a hockey puck. Ideally a barista shoves it out of a sliding window at you with your coffee. It ought to be wrapped in tin foil and tucked into a little paper packet. If that’s as far as you get with these instructions you’re doing very well, but for the full experience you have to shove it into your hoodie pocket and walk out to your favorite sitting log on the beach. Winter beaches are better for this: fewer people, plus it’s nice to have a hot sandwich handwarmer in your pocket when the wind is kicking up off the cold water. The croissant layers will be all smashed together with the cheese for maximum flavor by the time you get to the log and you can eat it while you watch the waves push sand around.

write back

You can click through to squish that little heart button/leave a comment, or email me at departmentofdeadletters@gmail.com. Send me a picture of where you’ve been working! Maybe I’ll put it in the newsletter (with your permission) and we can imagine we’re touring each other’s jobs.

If you like the Dead Letter Department, please share it with a friend. I hope to see you here again.