Life in the Slow Lane

Addresses come in all shapes and sizes, and frequently I am driven to the internet to try and decipher where on earth I am sending a letter. While I am on the general topic of addresses, I want to point out that addresses from the United Kingdom nearly always confuse me. The times that I have taken someone's scrawl to Royal Mail to have them help me, the address that eventually turns up is only two lines where as the address I put in was six lines. If anyone can help me understand this phenomenon, please let me know. In the process of using White Pages and Google Maps and Zabasearch I typically come across the names of neighbors and near-by businesses and interstate routes and even "street views". This gives me ample opportunity to speculate on the names of streets and burgs and whether the weather is pleasant this time of year. Eventually I begin to wonder whether this person who wrote today knows the person who wrote three days ago since they live in the same ...

More than a decade ago, while a guest at someone's home, I was privileged to watch a TV interview with an expert in car fashion who showcased the new paint colors that would eventually grace car exteriors. At that time, I thought it a rather bold statement, as he said with utmost certainty "In ten years, our cars will be these colors." A year or two ago I first caught sight of a car in one of the hues I remembered and I was amazed. Since then I have seen a steady increase of others. I bring this up because I really want to rant about a different trend and it seems gauche to leap right into a rant without some sort of lead in. Why on earth must everyone assume that jokes about chocolate are the way to the attention of an audience of women? Now, I like chocolate just as much as the next person (I am drinking a cup of hot cocoa as I type), but I don't understand why chocolate is such a laughing matter. Okay, so that is the end of my rant for right now. Thanks for st...

For the first time in my life, I walked in the falling snow this morning. I can now affirm that falling snow is not a myth that only exists in Christmas specials and foreign, frigid lands. And I can tell you, the sight of falling snow in a mountain clearing or the boughs of branches beginning to sway with the weight of the snow... it brings out the poet in even the coldest of observers. That is, provided she is allowed to finish her sleep.

The exclamation point and I have had a tumultuous relationship. When I was young, it seemed that this particular punctuation mark spoke of immaturity and " i's " dotted with little hearts. So I never used them. Never. And when I read something that contained this avoided object, it would mess up the sound of the sentence because the whole point of the exclamation point is to emphasize the last word beyond all normal speech pattern. And then I started making my living by writing letters. And I built my letters on the bones of other letters that had exclamation point after exclamation point. I struggled so hard to leave those exclamation points without touching them. Time after time, I would try to reword the sentence so that I could get rid of the little mark above the period and just leave the much more demure looking period. But personal growth is a goal of mine, and I thought, after a time, that perhaps my revulsion of the exclamation point was overstated. And so I...

My homework this past week included interpreting this piece of artwork (by Lon Kauffman ) as if it were making a statement about social justice. Just for the record, I am much better at deciding what a piece of artwork says and then showing how it says it than to try and figure out the authorial intent. I mean, isn't it obvious that this is about social justice?

I have been tagged for a meme from Emily . I'm not sure that I've ever responded to a meme before, if I did, it was probably to this same prompt... except, that this one was tailored just for me! Of course I have to oblige. THE (Original) RULES: Look up from the computer, look around the room where you're sitting and pick up the closest book . Open the book, turn to page 123, count down to the fifth sentence on that page, and then post the next three sentences . The Tailored rules: SlowLane (who I hope will complete this at work - and for you - change the rules a bit and use the most interesting request letter you have lying around.) Probably the most interesting letter I handled today was a letter from Bill. Or Sandra. It is the same person, but he/she never could decide whether he was Bill or she was Sandra. I think he/she is generally genderly confused. He/She addressed his/her lengthy letter to “preacher man [name of female]”. I wonder how much shorter the l...

A little over a week ago, I had a brilliant idea to post about how people are always asking for an extra day to get more things done because they have way too much to do and this year we got an extra day! But I've been so busy, I am only just now getting around to post about it. And ironically, I found the time to do so on the day when we lose an hour. Sometimes time doesn't march on... I think it skips and jumps and drags its heels and then takes great big leaps.

Today I was reminded of the days when we first moved into our new building. Construction men were once again in our restrooms, and the drilling and cutting through tile had me humming "I've been working on the railroad ". It was so noisy, I had trouble hearing myself think. But thankfully, their assignment was accomplished by the time I left for lunch. And when I returned, everything was super quiet. Footsteps were heard across the cement floor and someone called out "Who is that walking? Take off your shoes!" and later "We can hear the sound of typing!" Yes, filming was in progress. If we weren't careful, television viewers of over 3,000 stations around the globe would be able to hear us think. But if I average the decibel level of the morning and afternoon, it turns out to be a normal day.