There was a time, approximately a billion years ago, (or you know, at least twenty, which often feels like the same thing) when I used to write SO MANY letters. Not surprisingly, I had dozens of admirers and received truck loads of love letters each week. It was hard to have to break so many hearts with polite and poetic little epistles detailing why we couldn't be together, but I had to do it.
I loved making up stuff, you see. Like most of the above paragraph. Ahem. No, sadly, there were no admirers. Not one. Hmph. I still don't get it. I mean, I was clearly such a fetching teenager. Observe.
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| How did all the boys resist such mulleted loveliness? |
Needless to say, I then blossomed into a smoking hawt twenty something. My hawtness was just totally OFF THE SCALE. No wonder the boys stayed away in droves. It was just too overwhelming. Clearly. Behold the photographic evidence:
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| Hawt, Hawt HAWT. Erm..NOT. |
So, in order to keep myself busy while hordes of males secretly lusted after me, but were too intimidated to approach me, I had to have a hobby. Naturally, I chose an exceptionally cool one. Pen-pals. I've always been cutting edge.
Remember those days? Snail mail. Now the only snail mail I receive is bills and junk mail. Which I find considerably rude. However, if I wish for any alternative correspondence I shall have to think about how I operated in the past. Scribbling away with an actual pen on paper and putting it in an envelope and posting it. Except I won't. Because I've become shockingly lazy. I'll just blog about it instead. Because it's fascinating, obviously, like everything about me.
Last week my parents called in and my Mum had brought with her a bag full to the brim of old letters, cards and an old school report that had belonged to me. I was able to spend the afternoon having a lovely little trip down memory lane sorting through it all. After this heart warming foray into the past, I came to following conclusions:
Some things change. Such as, 'friends' who promised to be so FOREVER. Turns out they weren't even a friend's arsehole. Just the arsehole bit. Period. Good riddance.
Some things NEVER change. This was confirmed by a comment on the old school report which said:
Vanessa displays no interest in craft.
At least I am consistent in some things. I have consistently maintained a stunning lack of interest in craft for the past 30 years. Which is, quite clearly, something to be proud of.
I also had at least three international pen-pals. Two from Germany and one from Italy. I wrote to these girls for quite a number of years because they were NICE. Unlike that horrible bitch I wrote to once out of the pen-pals section of Smash Hits magazine, who, for some inexplicable reason, must not have been impressed with my heartfelt confession that in addition to Madonna and INXS I also loved The Carpenters and Barbra Streisand. What is wrong with these people who can't handle my hawtness and exquisite taste?
Anyway, I wrote to my German pen-pals, Steffi and Gudrun, and my Italian one Anna Maria for years. One by one, we all eventually got married and slowly stopped writing to each other. In short, I became a slack arsed bitch and lost contact with them. Oops.
In addition to my pen-pals, I also wrote to a couple of the above arseholian 'friends' and several relatives. I loved writing letters. Eventually I met Micky Blue Eyes and I may have even written him a soppy letter or two. He never replied. But he didn't run away shrieking either, which, when I think about it now, could have been a distinct possibility.
He did, however, manage to bestow upon me the odd post card or jokey card, with a 'Take it easy, Love Mick' scrawled on the bottom of it. No wonder I was swept away with such romantic gestures. Makes you all warm and fuzzy, doesn't it? Or nauseous and queasy? Or something.
I also finally discovered where I get my genius for poetry from, after coming across a
Among the cards was this one, pictured below, for my 21st birthday, from some old colleagues I worked with at the time. It cracked me up. I do love a good lobster meal.
Incidentally, I also came across an old pay slip from those heady old days when I was temping for Library Locums. Apparently I was earning an astronomical $12.98 per hour! This kind of explains why I am now living a life of luxury in Boganville. I was always destined for great things.
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| Here I am living it up in luxury with a lovely lobster dinner. And a bad bowel hair cut... |
Fast forward to today and here I am still being AWESOME. I now don't write any letters. I write this brilliant
Linking up with Cathy from The Camera Chronicles for Flashback Friday.
Did you ever have any pen-pals? Do you ever use snail mail these days?
