a bouquet of words—with a stamp: an open letter to jon stewart

Dear Jon Stewart,

Mock all you want, but Senator Claire McCaskill is right.

While, as the Jewish mother of a 13-year-old girl, I applaud McCaskill's public calling out of her daughters, I defend her today as an advocate for good English and the preservation of delight. Yes, both at the same time.

You can chuckle at that, like you chuckled at McCaskill's idea of a marketing campaign. But sometimes the positive result of money spent is not merely money gained.

When I stopped teaching college English in 2007 to write a book (published by Simon & Schuster in 2009—shameless plug), students were already losing their memories to Google and their spelling and punctuation skills to texting and emailing. I considered it my job, especially as an instructor of "ideas in writing," my course title, to teach students how to get noticed by writing fucking brilliant letters—letters of introduction, of complaint, of thanks, and, most important, of compliment.

People—strangers, even—tell you they love you every day. (By the way, Jon, I love you.) But imagine how wonderful it is for a customer service representative to open a letter—even an email—that says, "You are doing a great job! I love my [Page Nibs from Levenger]! And they were delivered the next day! I don't know how I lived without these little metal miracles. And you. Thank you."

The rep who received a letter similar to that one sent me a reply, saying that the CSRs passed it around the office as a reminder that they do things right sometimes, because all they ever hear are complaints. It made them happy! The owner of the company sent me a copy of his book, signed, as thanks for my thanks!

With well-written letters, I've gotten free Ray Bans and coupons for favorite foods. I've gotten replies from rock stars. Imagine being a fifteen-year-old girl (yeah, go ahead and imagine that!) and exchanging letters with Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen! Or getting a letter in the mail from Patti Smith's bassist, Ivan Kral, or from actress Melissa Leo, or from Jane Siberry—or anyone you admire.

Perhaps even better: imagine getting a card for every holiday, occasion, or mental breakdown you celebrate. (My friend Derek does that.) My friend Lysandra sends me chocolates from Hawaii when I'm feeling down, and Monica sends thoughtful goodies to say she's thinking of me. When I had back surgery, I received cards, letters, and packages from all over the world. I might have died without those letters. They meant more to me than blog replies and emails because people had to make extra effort to get in touch.

Last year, my husband went camping by himself and wrote me and our daughter several letters from Utah. Those letters were bouquets of words, jewels. We anticipated them and went to the mailbox, hopefully¹, every day. I wrote about it on my blog, and it inspired others to send letters.

A marketing campaign to encourage people to write more letters is like a marketing campaign to keep people from smoking. It's a public service. Letters—writing them, receiving them—make you healthy. They improve your vocabulary, your attention to detail, your memory, and your appreciation. They slow you down. They teach you how important your words can be and how to choose them wisely. And, unlike an essay you write in high school or college, the outcome is personal. (And you can get free stuff.)

Even if you send the letter as an email, without buying a stamp from the post office, the very act of writing a letter, as opposed to emailing someone, has improved our current state of grammatical affairs.

Letters of thanks and appreciation, annual New Years catch-up letters sent to the whole slue of family and friends, love letters—those are worth the wait. It's too easy when you're angry to pop off a nasty email; Send is commanding and irreversible. But an angry letter? By the time you print it, reread it, address an envelope, and stamp it, you've cooled down. That letter on the counter, waiting to be mailed, could be insignificant by morning. In the end, you get to keep your friend.

That's just a little of what a marketing campaign could do. It can teach us that letters are more than IDK, OMG, and WTF. It can help us regain our thoughtfulness and our intelligence and our beauty. Forget about saving the job of the nasty pink-haired biddy at your neighborhood post office. The mail is not about her. It is in spite of her.

One week after September 11, the anthrax attacks began. People took potholders and oven mitts with them to retrieve the mail. Companies stopped accepting letters, and employees in mail rooms and post offices had to wear protective gear before opening letters. Our refusal to send or receive mail is partially responsible for the post office's collapse; it's another way the terrorists win—and the government continues to erode our freedoms.

Our mailboxes should be shrines—full of thanks and love letters and beautiful magazines and the occasional flyer from the local Chinese joint, all misspelled for laughs. I'd say that bills, jury duty notices, work, and things that require immediate attention should come by email, but what about those who don't have computers or email access? These things are still a luxury for so many Americans. But mail comes to everyone.

So, while this letter, which took nearly an hour to compose on a Sunday morning (even longer to proofread and edit), will appear on my blog (with pictures and links), it will also get a 44-cent stamp and come to you in the mail.

It will also say: Thank you, Jon Stewart, for your common sense and decency and wicked humor and honesty.

With admiration and affection,

Leslie

¹ Note the correct use of hopefully.

beer, luxurious beer: what aleth thee?

The other day, my friend Bruce posted this funny-but-true joke on my wall:

Leslie was drinking a glass of beer while outside with her husband, Marty.
Leslie said, “I love you so much! I don’t know how I could ever live without you.”
Marty asked, “Is that you or the beer talking?”
Leslie replied, “It’s me—talking to the beer, of course.”

So when The Daily Post asked for the one luxury I refuse to live without, the hops that spring eternal sprang to mind.

But my whole life is luxurious. I have not just one computer, but three—a big Mac and two Macbook Pros (one is a work issue). I have an iPhone, a bunch of TVs, appliances. I have window air conditioners, a green-emissions SUV, and don’t get me started on the guitars. Guitars for backpacking and sitting in the kitchen and plugging in and turning up loud.

Gabi thinks our technologies aren’t luxuries—to us. She says we all have those, so we should keep that in perspective. After all, she doesn’t indulge in other luxuries: cars, dinners in restaurants, meat.

But where I live, technology is still a luxury. The buses are crowded with people who don’t drive because they can’t afford cars, and people are robbed for their cell phones. In fact, being a vegetarian—getting to eschew readily available foods in preference for others—is one of the greatest luxuries of all.

When my husband worked as a GED teacher at a school for at-risk youth (a misnomer; they’d already lost), we both saw a good deal of poverty. We lived in a raggedy rowhouse then and were pretty poor ourselves. But not by comparison.

I recognize that now. My whole life is luxurious. A nightly bath in a tub of clean water in a semi-clean bathroom is decadent. A piece of chocolate is heavenly. My job, my paprika-orange ride. But the one thing, the only thing (not person, not animal family) that makes coping with the other shit of life worthwhile, to me, is some bitter, sharp, tasty, hoppy, hopeful ale—preferably Resurrection or Dead Guy or Flying Dog variety. It’s my coping mechanism. It’s my go-to gulp, my heart mender, my mind bender. Even when I was making nothing, I was drinking something amazing.

And while I recognize that nearly everything in my life—from my cracked tile floor and leaking toilets to my pot of chili on the stove and two well-fed dogs—is luxurious, I don’t apologize for having any of it.

Instead, I share.

A Challenging June

On June 2, I had nine biopsies of some enlarged lymph nodes in my mesentery (that's the "double layer of peritoneum that suspends the jejunum and ileum from the posterior wall of the abdomen," which, I'm certain, gives you a clear picture). I don't think my jejunum and ileum are in danger, but my peritoneum was less lucky. I have lymphoma.

I have lymphoma. I have lymphoma. Lymphoma. Lymmmmm-phoooooo-muhhhhhhh. I say that over and over again. It's low-grade, B-cell lymphoma, which means that it originates in the bone and will grow slowly, and I'll go into remission, but it won't die. It probably won't kill me, either. Yet when I say lymphoma, it still sounds like cancer.

Cancer should be a beautiful thing. It rhymes with Dancer and Prancer—happy reindeer. It rhymes with romancer. My dog, Chancer. And though it also rhymes with answer, I have nothing but questions.

When I was first diagnosed, I did not look on the Internet for information except for the one time I saw that the median survival was ten to fifteen years. I've spoken about it on Facebook. I mention it in conversation. I use it, sometimes, to explain my tears over simple things like getting an IV stick before a colonoscopy. And everywhere I say it, someone tells me his uncle or her grandmother—or, as in the case of the nurse nervously spilling my blood in her second attempt at an IV stick, her daughter—has lymphoma, and he/she has never been treated or is ninety-five or is in remission or is under the care of my own doctor.

Today, I am awaiting the results of my endoscopy/colonoscopy biopsies. Next week, I will have my bone marrow tested. Because I have a stomachache, I will need some sort of treatment, most likely with an antigen—a four-hour weekly infusion. It is not supposed to have side effects, according to my doctor, but it does. (He also says the bone marrow test doesn't hurt, but having Novocaine injected on either side of your spine, then more into your bones, then having the marrow extracted is likely more unpleasant than most things I can think of. So I try not to think of it.)

I am grateful to have had some good care at Good Samaritan Hospital, where I went not for the primary symptom of a stomachache but for a prescription for Nitroglycerine, in case I ever get another episode of the family curse: a spastic esophagus. Before I was to leave the hospital that day in March, the doctor examined me and feared I had appendicitis. I was in tears because I was just about to take my daughter to see Bob Schneider in concert for her first time. The results—nothing wrong in my organs but enlarged lymph nodes that would need to be rescanned in six weeks—weren't particularly scary. Food poisoning or a virus seemed reasonable; lymphoma did not. Nearly all of these discoveries of lymphoma (lymmmm-phooooo-muhhhhhh, lymphoma, cancer) are accidental.

I am also grateful to Dr. Marc Gertner for taking such excellent care of me, for leading me to believe I have a good attitude, for treating me like he would a person he cares about. And to my family for their kindness and patience and money (insurance is denying everything, naturally). And a special thank you to my friends for thinking of me, checking up on me, for letting me cry and vent and be selfish. Thanks for all the cards and messages and homemade foods and offers of financial aid in the form of rock benefits and all the other niceties that somehow seem to rain down on me when I need them most.

But I am uncomfortable needing them. That has made this month even more of a challenge—as have a new car payment and job interviews. Still, I'm plugging away, getting my work done, writing for Baltimore Fishbowl, watching my daughter's musical talent explode. Songs, new and old, are still being sung. Photographs are still being taken. The beer is still being drunk. This life is still being lived.





*That's my girl on drums!

I brake for crying.

Last time I wrote, I'd taken Jett to the vet. I took her today, too, to get her second Lyme vaccination and meet Dr. Andrew. (He adopted one of Cleo's pups, so we are a favorite family.) He was pretty pleased with everything about her. You could feel all the instant, genuine love for our new dog, and that's why I've never changed vets in all these years.

On the drive over, I feel a little down. I'm in a brand new car I can't afford, I have a job interview tomorrow, and I am scheduled for a possible biopsy on Thursday. So much potential change in life, so much unknown, and a big extra expense. I'm sulking a bit, listing the things I have to do today and the amount of money it will cost—tag return ($4), duplicate title ($50), groceries ($70), vet $44).

A pickup truck is stopped at a light in front of me, and I notice a whole lot of white type on the back window. It reminds me of the sticker with the boy peeing; I see that on lots of trucks like this. So I assume it's humor. The first line is kind of touching: "I'm looking for someone special." The last line, I see, is a phone number, and I think: this is an odd way to find a wife!

The light changes, and we move, and I find myself trying to read the funny sticker. It's long—about seven lines—and I think I'm seeing words like "lonely" and "love" and "life." In fact, I'm sure this person is asking for someone to "save his life." Now it's a preoccupation. I have to read that sticker. Finally, we stop again, and I see one of the lower lines, which says something like, "I know it's a lot to ask, but it's my husband."

The driver wasn't looking for love in all the strange places. She was looking for a kidney to save her husband's life.

No matter how bad it sometimes is, it's hardly ever that bad.

flotsam and jett-some

It's probably normal for people to give their pets nicknames in ways they wouldn't think to name their friends¹—unless they're the guy making the copies. Marty's and my first dog, Beowulf King o' the Geats Miller, became The Wulfman; Wulf McMannus, Attorney at Dog; Woof; and Dogfaceboy. Cleopatra was Queen of Denial, Cleo-yo, Cleedle Dee, and Ledo, after Serena's baby name for her. Their baby, Buddha, was Boo-Boo and Boo Didley. And Chance has a few of his own: Chancey Gardener, Chancery Cursive, and, especially at Christmas, Chancer Dancer Prancer Vixen. (Yes, he answers to each of them, and so did our other dogs.)

Enter Jett. In her month with us, she's become Jetty, Jettster, Jett Ski, Jettison (the Medicine), Jetty Spaghetti, and, sadly, Jettitals. And, sadly, she answers to none of her names and to no one.

After she backed out of her collar at the park two weeks ago, I've been cautious on our walks. I've had a recurring dream that Jett runs out the front door and into traffic, that a neighbor refuses to grab her when he can and instead reprimands me for not having trained my dog. "She's new! She's new!" I yell to him, crying. "She's just new!" It stresses me out to know that if she leaves, she might be gone forever.

I've always been a conscientious pet owner, especially when it comes to training. I don't like my dogs to bark outside, so I make them stop after they've gotten me the message that the neighbor is tending her garden. I don't allow jumping on people, so I make them stop a little louder. We're all consistent—and on the same page in the dog-training manual. We don't hit, we sometimes treat, and we use the dog's name for commands but not for reprimands.

Jett's education has been slow. She came to us from three months in a crate and had the kind of energy that said she worried she'd be put back in one at any moment. She was trained to do nothing (except pee and poop outside—an important thing, yes). Within a week of my care, she could sit and give a paw (even give the "other paw" when asked). Last week, she still wouldn't come inside when we opened the door and would often run away when we reached for her. It sometimes took twenty minutes to catch her! But she's learning to trust us, so she comes in half the time.

Lady Jetterly's Lover, as I sometimes call her, has not yet stolen my heart; it took a while to get used to Chance and Cleo, too, as they were not babies with us. I can tell, with every full night of sleep and every Frisbee she catches, that she's going to be one hell of a dog.

This morning, the vet gave Jett two thumbs up and a Lyme disease shot. He was much happier to see her than she was to see him. She started shaking on the drive over and continued to shiver during the visit, like most of my dogs, despite how much fun we try to make it. Yea! A ride! Woo hoo! While we were in the office, she refused to exhibit any kind of wild behavior. So of course the vet was incredulous when I told him of her mad romping in pine tar and mud and dirt, her noisy play growling and mouthiness, the maniacal facial expressions when taunting us with our own shoes and socks, the nipping and yipping and jumping. When they commended me on how well I'd trained her, I was incredulous!

I paid my bill (a whopping forty dollars) and overheard an older woman who had come in. She told the receptionist that she was bringing a dog to be put to sleep and wanted to pay in advance. My heart sank. It was like someone was picking at the fresh scab of grief. I took Jett to the car and opened the hatch. A man my age was in the parking lot waiting, near the grass, for his dog; that's the usual pre-visit pit stop area. We stepped back, and Jett took a running leap into the truck, where I gave her a kiss and closed the door.

I looked back and saw the man's beautiful big dog on a leash. I am the dog yeller, so I called, "Hi, pretty doggy! What a sweetie pie!" and then I saw the woman from inside. They were together. She took the leash from the man and walked the dog slowly toward the door. "She's old," the lady said. "I know," I replied. And then I was full-on sobbing. "I'm sorry," I said to her, choking on tears. She thanked me, and it was ten minutes before I could see clearly enough to drive away.

It never gets easier to lose a loved one. In spite of that, it never gets any harder to love.


- - - - - - - - - -

¹With one exception: I have ten friends named Kim on my Facebook. I see or speak with five of them several times a week and have taken to combining their first name and last syllable. E.G. Kim Carlin is Kimlin; Kim Stanbro is Kimbro; Kim Webster is Kimster; Kim Hosey is Kimsey; and Kim Myslinski is Kimski.

letter to my daughter

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on. " Carl Sandburg

On weekend mornings, I make coffee and sit at my desk for a leisurely perusal of news and facebook.  Inevitably, a post will catch my eye, and I'll write some long-winded-but-well-thought-out response to someone's throwaway comment that I might not have noticed later in the day.  This morning, the post I took on belonged to my daughter.  She'd listed ten things she thought would make the world end in 2012:

1. Rebecca Black
2. Walmart
3. Lady Gaga
4. Country Singers
5. Autotune
6. Desperate Housewives
7. The iPad
8. Ugg Boots
9. Nicki Minaj
10. Vin Diesel

We could argue with the merits of the list, but I'm sure my daughter doesn't believe the world will end or that Vin Diesel will be the cause of it.  Frankly, if it does end, all those things will have contributed, just like taking one's first breath contributes to the taking of the last.  But a facebook post doesn't call for that sort of existential philosophy. 

As you can imagine, a provocative opinion (especially on a place like facebook, especially when one's friends are users of the items in said opinion) causes some to take umbrage.  Is it necessary to hate on Gaga?  Whoa, Watch the Nicki Minaj stuff!  Come on—what's wrong with Walmart?

My kid has a good mind, and I'm sure she can articulate why these items and people could contribute to the end of the world—or at least the downfall of Western Civilization.  But something she said struck me because it's something I expect from other facebook users, not my daughter.  "I copied these things from my best friend's status—that doesn't necessarily mean I believe they're all bad."

Whoa.

So I'm copying my letter to her right here.  It's my letter to you, too, and to your kids.  The funny thing is that I don't feel unqualified to give the advice, even though I don't exactly fit the measure of success in this world.  My house is so small that when the six band members come upstairs from the basement, I feel like I will explode.  Yesterday, I spent $60 I didn't have on dinner and a museum admission, and I'm feeling panicky this morning.  I have two inches of roots that I can't afford to make match to the rest of my hair.  My weight loss breaks for Berger's cookies.  And my eleven-year-old SUV is rust held together with bird shit.

Still, I make things with my hands, my heart, and my brain.  I am fulfilled by my experiences.  I try new things, eat delicious foods, go interesting places.  I don't have the added stress of a job I loathe and a boss I hate or clients who treat me like a slave.  I'm surrounded by beauty and by friends who make me laugh and animals that lick my face.  And I suppose this is why.

- - - - - - - -

Here are some worthwhile tips about life.
 

1. Never JUST copy anything. Always make it your own. Look at Ted Brodysseus Merrill.  He can play like the record, but he plays the song with his hair, too, and in pink clothing. Or like Brett Diamond, who plays leads by deadening notes on the neck.
    
2. If you don't like something, be open to changing your mind. I'm open to changing my mind about Nikki Minaj and Lady Gaga. Hasn't happened yet, but I'm open to it.
    
3. Don't let anyone bully you into changing your mind. See their point that yes, Gaga sings and plays well, but no, she's not your (or my) cup of tea. (Or, thankfully, soy latte. Blech.)
    
4. Spend your dollars at the places you think best represent your interests (i.e. not Walmart). Spend more to buy in your neighborhood, so stores stay open, and your house stays valuable. Doing so amounts to more dollars in your pocket eventually, when store owners tell others what a good person you are and help you get gigs and work, not where you are just an invisible nit not worthy of a clean restroom.
    
5. Never wear Ugg boots. You'll find plenty of cool boots that don't look like anyone else's hideous (Ugg--short for uggggggly) footwear. (See my beautiful turquoise cowboy boots with Frida Kahlo hearts on them, for example.)
    
6. The iPad is stupid, but it won't make the world end. Windows-based programs will do that.
    
7. Finally, while it's cool to dis Justin Bieber and Rebecca Black (and Ke$ha and Taylor $wift and all those mediocre-to-lousy YouTube stars), fight the genre by being the best you can be, practicing regularly, being prepared, and enjoying the hell out of all you do—whether it's saxophone, drums, guitar, vocals, writing, drawing, reading, school.

Stop the world from ending by being the reason for it to go on. I know you are mine.

Love,

The Crazy-Ass Bitch Who Buys You Shit and Cooks You Stuff and Drives Your Ass All Over Town

P.S. Country singers are STILL writing the best songs. Ignoring that fact will be of no help where numbers 1 and 7 are concerned. 


- - - - -

photos of a few things I love, top to bottom: new puppy, Jett; three of my Kims; Ted Merrill's awesome guitarring; Serena, the reason.

the new no?

I have applied for jobs randomly over the past few years, but a few months ago, I answered an ad for a position that seemed a perfect fit for me.  Within a day, I’d scheduled a telephone interview. 

This job was different from any other I’d seen in that I actually wanted it.  The talk went well: I’d read up on the company, so I was able to ask some good questions.  When I hung up the phone, I was actually excited and thought I had a pretty good shot at doing communications—writing, video, photography—for a rabble-rousing organization. (Perfect, right?)

I followed up with a thank-you email to the interviewer and reiterated that the position sounded perfect.  After two weeks, I sent another note letting him know that I was still excited and was hoping to hear from him about setting up an in-person interview.  Still nothing.  Another two weeks passed, and I wrote again, this time just to ask if he would please reply regardless of whether I was still being considered.

Nothing.

“Silence,” says my friend Ira Kessler, “is the new no.”

Why replace it?  No is delightful closure, as final as the last period in a book!  It doesn’t dash hopes but instead extinguishes the burning fires of desire.  No can be appropriately terse or delightfully polite.  It can be firm and direct.  It can be nope or nah or nuh-uh, for the ultra hip and casual. 

No can come with excuses to soothe the sting: it’s not you, it’s me.  No can acknowledge the pain of loss without implying fault: I’m sorry to inform you…. 

Best of all, no is fast.  No.  One point two-five seconds.  Add a sorry; there’s still time.  But how about this: Dear Ms. Miller, I have filled the position.  Thank you for your interest.  Thirteen seconds, including a typing correction.  Press reply, and Bob’s yer uncle.

My third email to that guy was going to be a bridge burner, asking him whether silence was, indeed, the new no, admonishing him for not being considerate.  But my mother, my regular proofreader and compass of right and wrong, told me to reconsider.  What if the person he went with doesn’t work out? 

Like the two people who had already held this position before he began his search again?   I bet he told them no. 

It might sound as though I haven’t let this go.  I have, but it's a fine example of how advances in communication technologies lead to lapses of etiquette.  I need the no—or, at the very least, the acknowledgment that my paragraphs have reached their intended target.  How do I know that my emails to him—or the people at the stained glass store, to whom I have sent four unanswered emails since March 10; or the several people to whom I’ve submitted résumés; or the countless others from whom I’ve requested information, quotes, prices, etc.—were not caught in some virtual ethereal web of tangled ethereal virtualness?  They are not the kind of messages that one would expect to remain unanswered. 

It’s not like I’m asking someone to make a poster for my missing cat.  And if I did, nothing is not better than no.  No is still perfect.