 |
Truly, receiving just a smidgen of an idea of what my old friends and acquaintances are up to gives me great pleasure. And I'm tired of the gripers-some who complain that they never hear from anyone and then when they do, they still aren't satisfied! "They're boring, they're shallow, they only brag about their kids or their Rolls Royce" (chances are if your friends drive one of those, you do too-or could afford to), "or send stupid pet and vacation photos." Boring: What do you want? Pearl Buck? James Michener? Nora Roberts? Not everybody's a NYT bestselling author or comic writer for Leno or Saturday Night Live, ya know. Fergawdsake. Go to your independent bookseller and give them some business. Stop whining and keep that economy going. And take your newsletter as it's meant: for keeping you up to date. Jeez. Shallow: Oh. Of course, we are all-easily!-as deep thinking as Kafka and Kant. You know, it would be a Wonderful Thing if we could all write out our thoughts in soaring Marcus Aurelius journal style epistles. They would be full of all kinds of thoughtful wisdoms and insights regarding our lives and happenings, to each and every friend-individually!-and these missives would be sent out more often than once a year. But many people aren't "good at" writing letters; doing so requires a major expenditure of energy to merely begin to think of what to say, no matter how many first place trophies adorn their shelves. I have actually seen this at work in a college friend and my own kid. It's painful to watch; I can only imagine what the stress does to their brains. Even for those who are "good at" letter writing, when time and energy come together all at once to facilitate such a pursuit, they're so taken aback that finding just the right words becomes an obsessive treasure hunt. Shame on those who slight these efforts by gretzing about the content. Especially if the gretzers did not take the time and effort to do the same for the gretzees. Bragging: Why is it universally accepted (by those who I can only assume feel defensive about their own lack of writing annual communiqués) that those who are audacious enough to carry out this effort are bragging? Okay. Let's do this instead: "My kid's rodeo bull riding team sucked; those stupid coaches had their heads up their asses and the judges were all blind. And the bull had no b-uh, horns. That's because little Butchy took Daddy's chain saw and…" Yeah right. And admit it, if you had a Rolls, you, too would drop its name in the annual family newsletter. Stupid pet and vacation photos: hey, that's my cat and Gateway to the West St. Louis Arch pictures you're mocking. Wassamattayou, you can't afford to print out a few of your family, pets, or vacation (to a place I'm not likely to ever see for myself) to send to me? So I can see how your kids have changed from sweet faced angels to multi-tatted hoodlums or how cute Fi-fi looks when he's sleeping (compared to how cute he looked last year)? I'm not kidding, these are the things I love! Human beings, generally, like to reach out and share their life experiences. As a holiday gift to yourself, let them. So… did I tell you about my trip to
Moberly, Missouri last month? Wanna see the pictures? ©Copyright 2008 Nan Jacobs lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and son, a menagerie of pets and a herd of tow trucks. When not "thinkin' out loud", she's vying with the cats for the nearest sunbeam, trying to ignore the call of the wild dust bunnies. (Sloths are her heroes.) Nan's essay, "Word Games", is published in "A Cup of Comfort for Parents of Children with Autism" (Adams Media, 2007) and a short story, "Twilight Whispers", will be available for download from http://thewildrosepress.com in time for the Christmas holidays in 2008. Please drop in and visit Nan at http://nanjacobs.com Send Nan a message either directly or using the Word Catalyst feedback form. For more from Nan visit the Word Catalyst archives.
|
|
|||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||
  |
Let me be clear: This is not your usual cliché
grumble about the annual holiday sending of family newsletters.
This is a grumble about the gretzing about those letters. Long
live the holiday mass mailed family newsletter. I read them.
I pounce on them with glee. I enjoy hearing about the fifteen
million first place trophies my old high school friends' kids'
kids won in soccer/baseball/volleyball/drama/Pokemon Tournaments/Summer
Olympics. (It always gives me pause, though, wondering about
the great coincidence that all my friends' kids and their kids'
kids should win first place trophies in everything they do…every
year…)
From The Attic
Truly Calhoun
Cheshire Cat
Songs of