Out of Habit

My mother has started inspecting my mail. Everyday when she comes home, she sifts through the mail one piece at a time, and when she finds a letter addressed to me she says "Carla you got mail." She then glances at the return address and announces "It's from the student loan people," or whoever the hell is sending me junk mail that day. And she does this with every single letter addressed to me. I've often said to her "Mom, ya know you don't have to announce who each letter is from, you could just HAND them to me." But she seems to find that unacceptable. For whatever reason she has developed a new found interest in my correspondences, most of which consist of grad school mailings and credit card offers.

And yesterday was just like every other, mom came home, leafed through the mail, "Hey Carla here's another plea for you to consolidate your student loans." I just kinda rolled my eyes, thoroughly annoyed but not enough to make an issue of it. Suddenly miss chatter box went quiet. I turned and saw her examining a beige envolope. When she turned it over to read the return address I saw it was addressed to me. And I kid you not she stood there for a good minute simply scowling at the return address! Then she said "Carla, you've got mail from...." her voice tapered off as she continued to stare. "You know you can just give it to me mom!" She hesitantly handed it over, obviously not wanting to let go of a letter whose writer she wasn't familiar with. It's so strange since up until this year she has never been nosy about my mail, never cared about who sent me what. And it's not as though I've been receiving any strange packages lately. In fact I hardly get ANY snail mail. I've become so bad about answering letters most people who aren't Heather Frankland have stopped writing me all together.

So anyway, I take the letter from her and immediately recognize the handwriting on the envolope. "Oh, it's from Gemma!" I announce with glee. I tear it open and inside is a pretty note card that simply reads:

...Do I really need a reason other than "I love to see you smile?"

Gemma

And enclosed was a Barnes and Noble giftcard :-)

I was so delighted!!! Oh man, it has been....YEARS since anyone has given me a gift for no reason. I was all smiley. I showed my mom. She was mildly befuddled. "She just sent it? For no reason?" The idea of giving without reason is totally lost on most of my family.

Thank you so much Gemma bemma :-D You absolutely made my day! I still have your birthday present sitting on my dining room table, though at this point it's so overdue it may morph into a bizarre Christmas present. I wuv you. You are such a good roomate, (even though you're not my roomate anymore. Hell, you'll ALWAYS be my roomate! All my old roomates will.)

In addition to that lovely surprise, I did some shopping of my own yesterday. Went down to the Bag House and bought myself a new bookbag. We all know how I feel about Jansport bags. I hate 'em. Everyone's got a Jansport, so for the past ten years I've been an Eastpak devotee. The last one I bought three years ago finally had to be put to rest when the zipper busted. Of course I fully intended to buy another Eastpak. But when i got down to the Bag House...I didn't see any I liked. They didn't have any regular school appropriate Eastpaks, just ones designed to wear while exploring the Adirondacks. So I had no choice but to cross over into the dreaded Jansport section. And there I found the UGLIEST bookbag in all creation. It was made of blue, brown, and beige striped courderoy, very 70's. And I, being a lover of all things grotesque fell in love with it. It is a good bag. I am petting it right now. It looks small, but it actually holds alotta shit. And if feels good on my back. I think I'll cover up the giant Jansport logo with the "I will not obey" pin gender_euphoric gave me years and years ago, and that I've worn on every book bag I've owned since.

After that I walked up to the Old Navy on 18th St. Was hunting for new work clothes, mostly slacks and long sleeved shirts. No luck on either front, but I did find three new skirts, much like the ones I bought last fall. Ya know, the ankle length draw string ones? This year they had them in brown, black, and grey so I bought one of each, and a pair of jeans.

Now I need some new shoes and a winter coat. Next weekend perhaps.

Speaking of next weekend, Michael and I will prolly go see Team America.

I've started reading "House of Leaves." It's interesting. A little weird, but interesting. I've already decided that the entire thing is most likely the psychotic ramblings of Johnny Truant as oppose to the psychotic ramblings of Zampano. And if that's the case then...I'm not to sure what the point of the book is but...I can't really talk, I'm only 70 pages in. I'll see what happens.

Time to jet. Gotta see if the bitch who was using all the washers downstairs is done yet. The sooner I can get my laundry done the sooner I can go to sleep. I don't even care if her clothing isn't done washing, it's fucking rude to monopolize all the laundry facilities. I'm gonna "accidentally" drop her skivvies on the dirt encrusted floor while taking her shit out of the washer.