Catchup

Dear Millicent,
1.) Why haven’t we written about Michael Jackson’s death? His body is going to be on public display at Neverland tomorrow.  His upcoming tour was to be called This Is It.  Fans are apparently suicidal with grief.  It all seems so wrought that overwrought feels like a synonym rather than a further degree.
2.) Why [...]

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Fables and Nests

Dear M.,
Your thoughts about names and the responsibility of labeling things correctly were quite lovely.  I wonder if pen names can be considered honest at all, when they offer such a supreme cloak of distance.  Somebody said, but I didn’t say.  I could have said, but instead, Somebody said.  And yet, anonymity also allows for [...]

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Noms de Plume

Dear Carla Fran,
I hope Leticia writes you or sends you some classy pumps. While you are being plagued by mail for a potentially whole new You who vacuums and complains about noise, I’m deliberating on whether or not to befriend an old Me.
It’s funny you should mention this, as just this morning I was thinking [...]

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The Leticia in Me

Dear Millicent,
I have not received a drop of mail in days, but somebody named Leticia has.  Every day, we get mail for Leticia.  This just started two weeks ago, so I am starting to wonder if Leticia moved in without us knowing? Every day, I write “Please Forward” and have noticed that my handwriting is [...]

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Podiums.

Brought to you courtesy of The Way International, in answer to your imponderable about why different groups dance the way they do:

Fondly,
M

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Respect the Cock

Dear CF,
I learned yesterday that in my city one can legally own no more than 12 chickens. This puzzled me. Why 12? At first I thought it might have to do with egg packaging—grocery stores do tend to sell chicken thighs and breasts in packages of six or twelve. Maybe we’ve just internalized the base-12 [...]

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The Little Emperor, The Complete Animal

Dear Millicent,
I write today with sad news.  My cat died yesterday morning.  She passed away, she went to the next plane.  She suffered.  She left.  She was exquisitely polite about the whole thing.
We knew she was sick, and had been watching her lose weight and strength every day, but the vet told us that tell [...]

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Migraine Nights

Carlita querida,
I hate trying to sleep. It would be nicer to be outside or by the ocean with a gas stove and a dog. Or the dunes, although there are wind-storms at night. Or a festival playground.
Are short stories always sad? Why are Latin American poems, even the good ones, so often entitled things like [...]

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Cabins

Dear Carla,
We all get homesick for a home that isn’t. But: there’s a cabin. We’ll bring pencils. Let’s go. Catch!

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A Very Great Company of Radiating Pencils

Dear CF,
It has always been a great fantasy of mine to draw well.  It has also been a great fantasy of mine to work in a messy and unhygienic laboratory where Kimwipes and agar have not yet been invented, where there aren’t Biohazard containers or sharps disposal boxes, and where one could (not that one [...]

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