Hi Illi,

How are you this morning?  I'm feeling tired again.  My head was bobbing on the train this morning.  But what does it matter?  Talk of tiredness is only worthy of more yawns.

I'm glad that you have become a valued patron of Tea and Sympathy.  I vow to become one too.  Perhaps this Friday, while I am on hold for hours with Wachovia, which is now Citibank, I can have afternoon tea for one.  I think I will need a three tier tray of scones and cakes to placate myself as I figure out my own personal financial crisis.

It's funny - I always thought of the government as a giant roll of saran wrap, something I could not see that was holding the country together.  I held onto that belief for so long, even after I moved from Colorado Springs to New York City and heard my fellows preaching that there was "something very wrong going on in Washington."  I suppose I knew it but I never felt it.  And now, for the first time in my life, I actually feel the impact of what's gone wrong and see what might continue to go wrong and it's rather terrifying because I'm in no position to bear even a tiny portion of the brunt.  I guess neither of us are.

So as the proverbial saran wrap shrivels under the heat, I am glad that you are still finding inspiration to continue to better yourself and your art.  You don't need $100,000 worth of FDIC insurance to feel secure in that.

Janet

Dear Illi,

The more I read The Time Traveler's Wife, the more I find myself picking up flaws.  Well, maybe not flaws, but discord with my literary preferences.  Nuances of writing style and amateurish plot direction catch me off guard while I read it sometimes and make me wish that the same story had been written by a different person.  Someone with more sophistication.  Someone who doesn't remind me of Nicholas Sparks (though I've never read his books, but saw The Notebook and it made me gag).  I feel the plot building towards something and I have a strange feeling that it is going exactly where I think it will.  I may be a sap but I'm not a sucker.  Yet I'm still completely desirous of finishing the book because the premise is so interesting.  I just think it will be one of those occasions when a story has so much potential and the end product doesn't live up to it.  Can books be remade like movies can?  I may want to assign this book to another author and then read it again.  Maybe Andre Aciman?  His words are truth and poetry.  This book has neither.  But it is a damn good beach read.

Janet

Illi,

I had such a lovely weekend at Niagara Falls.  Admittedly, I was pretty unimpressed by the falls at first.  They aren't nearly as high or wide as the photos make them look.  But once we (my friend Abbie and I) found a quiet spot in Canada to watch them and listen to the constantly crashing water, I found them very beautiful indeed.  We took the boat ride to get nearer to the falls and the mist rains down on you and would soak you if it were not for the free ponchos they hand out before you depart.  I took pictures of what a mess it made of us.  They should be amusing.

Janet

Dear Janet,

Being in solitude drives me crazy.  I can hear myself.  I can hear mostly everything and mostly I can hear how lonely I am.  But that is not the case.  I feel the need to be by myself lately to figure something out.  I have to keep figuring something out.  I am by myself and too proud and stubborn to ask help from friends.  But I am the only one who can figure out what to do for the rest of my life.  And this is what I found out:  I must fulfill a sketchbook/diary to fulfill my obsession that I can't seem to rid myself of.  Everyday I will write down what I have to say about BK.  I will have to take photographs that remind me of BK.  The bottom line for this is to rid myself of this obsession.  I won't stop until I am done creating.  So the sketchbook/diary will be the next installment.

I just need to keep doing what I need to do.  That's all that matters to me.

illi

Good Morning Illi!

I was so cold on the train this morning!  Stepping out of the train into the warmth of the W4th street station was delightful but before I could warm up properly I was on the train again, walking the chilly block to Chelsea Market, and then sitting, shivering at my desk.  I ate the stale roll I bought for my lunch yesterday with a smear of blueberry jam and quickly drank a cup of English Breakfast tea while constantly refreshing my email page hoping that someone would have written me something exciting.  But alas, no.  So I decided it was time to write to you in hopes that you would respond with some interesting reflections on the day, yesterday, or any day.  What have you been thinking about lately?

I was reading the Paris issue of Gourmet on the way to work and the romantic words and pictures made me want to travel there again, even though my memories of the city are mostly unpleasant.  I found their list of affordable hotels to be slightly disappointing since my definition of affordable differs greatly from the average Gourmet reader.  $160 a night was the cheapest hotel they had listed.  I hate having expensive taste and no money to work with.

When you live in Paris I want to visit you.  You'll wear one of those black and white striped shirts and I'll wear a simple european dress and we'll spend an afternoon in a cafe drinking tea and eating millefeuille while we catch up on all the years we've spent apart.  How does that sound?

Janet