Motivation

Dear Self,

It’s been a while since you posted. I know you were busy moving, and that is a terrible and stressful accomplishment, especially when it’s over 90 degrees out, but you told yourself you would post at least once a week, and that just hasn’t been happening.

I often find that the promises I make myself are the hardest ones to keep. I promise I’ll stop snacking after 10pm, throw away my worn out socks, watch less TV, and remember to call my friends more. Yet here I am eating Cheez-Its at midnight, watching True Blood in socks I’ve owned since high school. I’ve collapsed under the weight of all these promises, stuck in a land of not unpacking my dishes or even going outside for that matter.

I’m going to try and change, though. I know that just one more promise to myself thrown on to the small mountain of them I keep in my room, right beside my dirty clothes hamper. I just need a little motivation.

Motivation is a hard thing to come by. Life’s so much easier, if much emptier, without it. And once I get going, I find myself enjoying the task I’ve put off for so long. I just have to start.

So this is it.

I’m going to buy new socks, and throw away the old ones.

Turn off the TV.

Get up off my ass.

And write.

Love,

Gena

p.s. I make no guarantees about the snacking. Cheez-Its are delicious.

Words

Dear Becky,

 

words are a hard. they’re so important, but so easy and so complicated and so everything that we ever mean or want. I suppose that’s why there are so many theories. It’s all so semantic structuralism, positivism, deconstructivism, structuralism i’m not a big fan of the deconstructive. when I think about it too much my head hurts.

all that business about something begin defined by what its not, french derrida,

everything is contradictory, it just all seems like pretentious bullshit. in my weaker moments, though, the theory makes more sense than i would like it too.

words are just symbols for things, and the words, no matter how good they are,

even if they sound like a hyperbole of perfection, are never as good as the real thing.

maybe if i write the word line in a line it will somehow jump the distance between the word and the thing itself. i’m not even sure that would work very well.

line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line line

no, that didn’t really help. i suppose my problem is the difference between the word

on the page and the spoken word, even the word in my mouth and the word the pen writes

are different. the poem in my head is above love, the warm just got out of the bath feeling but writing it down somehow turns it into cheap lust and hot tubs. just close enough

to sort of relate, but only in the neurons between my brain and my hand. reading it out loud turns lust into hate and revenge, boiling kettles screeching steam into the midnight air. i don’t seem to like reading my own poetry out loud, i sound too much like

a broadcaster on national public radio. not enough emotion, just the news and weather

at five, followed by schubert’s piano sonata in b flat. then i’m all nervous because most

people fear public speaker more than anything else in the world. my hands tend to shake which makes it difficult to read the words on the paper, so i can’t be worried

about what words are going to come out of mouth. if I somehow managed to

write a poem about what was in my head, i want to make sure I say the right thing

(this never happens). reading is damn frustrating but it all makes sense somehow.

it makes it hard to talk write think about life if you’re not sure what you will actually say.

Love,

 Gena

Hello Internet,

You may be wondering what a blog about letters is doing here in the virtual world. It's simple, really. I love writing letters, love the sending and receiving of a piece of writing that was created just for me. Most people I know share these feelings. However, in this digital age, it has become increasingly more difficult to actually sit down with pen and paper to express myself to friend. Also, my handwriting is atrocious.

That's where this blog comes in. I want to write letters to people. My friends, my family, my acquaintances, co-workers, the people I see on the street, perfect strangers. I want to write them letters about things that interest them and are important to them.

But I can't know what those things are, unless you, the people on the internet reading this, tell me. So send me an email, and I will write you a (virtual) letter. Let me tell you what I think. It might be an anecdote from my life, something cool I heard on NPR, or something completely made up. It will all be true in some way, though.

I look forward to hearing from you.

With anticipation,

Gena