Let's get started, shall we?

Ahem.

Far be it from me...yikes...that's one of those things that you say out loud or in your head countless times, but, when you write it, you realize, in a tangible way, the ocean that swirls between the continents of spoken and written language. Which leads me to:


The Left-Handed Letter


My best friend--who I have not, at the time of this typing, asked if she's a.) OK with me blurting out her real name, or b.) what her preference of blogalias would be--was from whom I learned that good writing can be the same as good conversation (although a bit one-sided).


Also, if you survived the above sentence, I should warn you that I have a snow fort full of well-packed and perfectly-sculpted commas, and I'm not shy about throwing them. At your head. Seriously. You should duck.


Well, don't say I didn't warn you.


Also? I'm easily distracted. Try to contain your shock.


O.K., where was I...right--the Left-Handed Letter.


When my best friend, who shall be Cleverly-Named-Later, and I were freshmen (freshwomen? really?) in college--she at Boston University and I at Cornell--we wrote each other letters regularly. Yes, Internet. Letters. On paper. With pens and envelopes and stamps and ZIP CODES. I know, I know. You need a moment to gather yourselves. I'll wait...


I was majoring in Landscape Architecture and had a wonderful drawing teacher who taught me a frillion things about view and space and myself, and one day encouraged our class to try to do several things, including drawing, left-handed (or opposite-handed--please, Internet, don't start sending me hate-email after my first post). I thought this was a brilliant idea, since a.) I brush my teeth and shoot pool left-handed, thusly, can use my random-handed tendencies for positive gain, and b.) anything this guy said was brilliant and I was totally on board with working my brain in any way he told me was beneficial.


Oh, like you've never been an impressionable college student before. Shut up.


So, I thought it would be brilliant to write Cleverly-Named-Later a letter using my left hand. I struggled through a page or two, alternating between rubbing the cramps out of my left hand and giggling at my right-brain-building comic genius. I folded it up, wrote a bunch of dire warnings all over the envelope, and mailed it.


Now, for those of you who are befuddled by the postal actions outlined above, it usually took 3-4 days (DAYS) for a letter to be transported from Ithaca, NY to Boston, MA back in 1987. But Cleverly-Named-Later and I wrote to each other frequently, so I was not surprised when I saw her familiar handwriting covering an envelope in my mailbox 2 days later. What did give me pause was what I saw on the back of the envelope. There was a shout out to my dad (Hairball) in her regular, distinctive print. Then I noticed what I had thought was just random scribbling, like someone's child had gotten hold of a pen and the envelope and swirled a few hieroglyphics. But, after a moment of disbelief, I made out what it said--"warning g'luck"--in Cleverly-Named-Later's left-handed scrawl.


I know, right? Surely, you just got a shiver down your spine.