Hello Connor

Hello Conor

I let my sister read your letter; only because I was trying to explain to her about something you said, and I don’t remember what now, and I found that at least one of us was completely unequal to the task at hand.

She took a great deal of offence at your calling me a liar. Well, not so much that, but .. she said to tell you that I may be a liar, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m a poet. Which is a high compliment coming from her especially, so I think I shall take it!

So, I am told you are adamantly single. Something like that. Also that you follow a gluten free diet. Are they related issues?

Sorry if that’s too nosy. Just wondering, because I must say that my not being with anyone and the way I should be eating are directly related, at least in part. Or, many parts, depending on how sideways you wish to look at things.

I liked your poem. Very much so in a “Please never inflict that on me again.” , sort of way. It made me feel much better about writing to you.

I only write to people, initially, in leui of suicide. How do you spell leui anyway? Which is also why I got married.

Oh, don’t do that again, please. That country music and me being brought up just as if I wouldn’t stab someone in the heart for assuming I have anything to do with it. Which I wouldn’t and only mention as a way of emphasizing how much I would like it not to happen again or I will cry. Really I couldn’t deal with the hairspray. I haven’t worn enough makeup, in my life, to support one night as a country and western singer.

I am what could be called adamantly single too. It’s not exactly adamant. I mean, I am perfectly willing to be with someone, if and when the right someone comes along, but not so willing that I am throwing myself at all the wrong ones.

Oh no. A good deal of the wrong ones throw themselves at me, when I bother to dress for the occasion which is why I so seldom do. Come to think of it, if I bother to go out, not dressed for the occasion, they still get too frisky weird, too often. I keep telling them that I am an unmade up, badly coiffed, ill bred, flannel clad hobbitess and so I will remain, but they keep following me about demanding that I be Marilyn Mansfield, blondly coifed, premeditated sex goddess. Which I have done, and I was quite good at it, but that kind of sustained effort leaves me cold. Come to think of it, it left those two ladies cold too, so …

I would send you a piccie of me, but that would be bordering on reasonableness, which I don’t feel up to, and besides Paul saw it and now thinks I am a Scandinavian folk singer. Or, that the piccie is of one, anyway. Which is better than country and western, I’m guessing, but still.. ..

Do you like art? Are you going to the exhibition with Paul? Do you know about the exhibition? Hopefully Mark finally remembered to send the invite to Paul and his wife, as I kept reminding him too. Mark is an artist, not a diplomat.

Anyway, if he did send it, Paul should have the vitals as to where and when it is. All I remember right off hand is that it’s on Ashdown road, art exhibition and concert to benefit Crumlin’s children’s hospital. Oh, and the people involved are Matt Doyle, Mark Sinnot, and Don Baker. Mark has a painting that should be there, I believe, which is named after me. Arletta’s Lake of Shadows. Pretty it is, too, with nary a country singer or private dick in sight.

I’ll tell you something funny, then My family is getting ready to move (not funny yet) and we are planning on driving, so we have to go through Canada (still not funny yet). Since we have to go through the border (getting warmer but still no titters), we have to all make sure we have our birth certificates. (ooh, you are hot .. but no exploding cigar!) My mom didn’t have a certified copy of hers, so she ordered one. (Get ready … ) She waits for a couple of weeks, when it should have taken a day or two (get set) and then she gets a notice that they can’t find her birth certificate, that it, in fact, doesn’t exist .. very official, no nonsense, we are sure this is false information sort of letter .. but, they went ahead and accepted her check, under that name, and cashed it, calling it a searching fee. (okay, laugh already.). How’s that for crazy? We think you are lying about who you are, but we’ll cash the check all the same. Weirdness, that.

And yes, rolling is fun. I suspect that those of less than beer keggish physique could still do it, if they were so inclined, though I must admit it is easier when you are more height weight proportionate, so to speak. When I was a kid, though, I was quite a bit smaller than I am now. Don’t be alarmed .. I am assured this is the case with many adults who used to be children. Anyway, we used to go to the University Centre, which later became the University Center. I am assuming it had been born during a past life transgresson .. .err.. regression and spent it’s first decade of life under the impression that it was a 14trh Century Neo Catholic prosecutionatory handmaiden to the Bishop of Upper Turlington Heights Bridge Road, somewhere to the left of Sussex and had then woken from it’s reveries to find that, no, it was, after all, only a small mall in a big pen of capitalist swine; thereby choosing to alter it’s name to reflect what it found, after all, to be it’s origins.

This mall had a hill in it. Not something so tame as an incline, or so politically correct as a ramp. It was a hill, and a rather steep one too. The sort of hill you wouldn’t want to find yourself on in a Honda Civic, with a gravel truck coming up behind you. Or even a truck hauling gravel, or with anything coming up your behind. At least, I would like to assume this about you.

At any rate, at the bottom of this hill, there was a grocery store. Oh, it was a glorious thing, full of light and pastrami, pre ground. Post Mortem, too. So, we, the children of the United State of Alaska, in order to perform a more perfect .. uhm . we would run like the mad weasels we were, only having transformed into children later as a collaborative effort between us and the school system to enhance our musical skills, and throw ourselves to the ground. Then, after we had finished with slipping on the ice, we would run inside and do it all over again, nearer the hill .. then roll all the way down it, and sometimes into the grocery store. It was a beautiful thing! One time we even talked Dad into doing it too, because mom said something like “Hey, you kids behave yourself and don’t go rolling down that hill .. wait for an adult.” Which just goes to show you how silly a distracted mother can be, if she really thought that was going to prevent us from having our roll.

Our Father, whose art is heaven Give us this day our daily roll and .. uhm .. no, doesn’t quite work.

You can’t steal my poems because they suck and also they are copyrighted, but here is one for your perusal anyway:
Blank Page
Here is a blank page and I wonder what upon it shall I write
Something to send my loved ones good dreams tonight?
Flights of fancy in which unfettered thoughts of merriment soar?
Words to inspire generations to come, forevermore?
Time passes and I sit in silence, no scratching of pen
The paper is here but no words the ink do befriend
The voices of muses fail to ring in my ears and so
I sit with this page off which my feelings aptly glow
Now, if you are nice about that one, I shall give you a blow job. Or at least, put a crimp in your style. That’s right. I am also a hairdresser, as a hobby.

Thanks for writing to me. Thanks for not sending your address. Really, I was going to make a special effort to scrape up the money for a stamp, but that saves me all the heartache I might have otherwise undergone as a result.

Bye, for now

Lucia
(I am afraid to use my own name now, for fear of what you may decide it all means next!)