Snail Mail Rides Again!

As people become numb to targeted digital ads that follow them across social media and into their email inboxes, some high-tech marketers are turning to a surprisingly old-school approach to cut through the noise: snail mail.
(Heather Kelly. Washington Post.)

Litter letters in your box

flourish like a clump of phlox.

Growing ever more urbane,

they will drive you quite insane

with prodigious insight, cuz

they now know what makes you buzz.

From your tweets and texts and posts

they invade your mind like ghosts;

making absolutely sure

you will get the right brochure --

then start on a buying spree

that will lead to bankruptcy.

Curse you, USPS staff,

For delivering such chaff!

Poets are more changeable than the wind.

Poets are more changeable than the wind.

And less dependable.

And always broke.

And always complaining about it.

And always secretly envious of those who

Manage to live wisely and prudently and 

So can be comfortably well off, even if

Their house is falling down around their 

Ears.

Never trust a rich artist -- they have sold out.

Except for Norman Rockwell.

And the Beatles.

Being poor is interesting and fun,

Until it becomes a habit.

So get to know people who are just 

Starting to experience poverty.

Then dump them when they can’t 

Get back on top again.

The heavens are open

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught from his experience in the Sacred Grove how we can receive personal revelation as a part of our daily lives.
Henry B. Eyring.

The heavens are open to you and to me,

and real revelations can come handsomely.

A heart that is humble, a mind that is clear,

will bring us glad tidings with nothing to fear.

So open your eyes to the wonders in store

to you as the angels bear you up to soar!

Photo Essay: Postcards to my President.

Cursed by a witch.

I was cursed at birth by the witch Sycorax.

My parents told me this on my 19th birthday.

Because she had cursed me to die before the age of 18.

Why did she curse me, I asked them.

Because she wanted to buy our house

and we wouldn't sell to her, they said.

We had a whimsical house,

built out of sandalwood

and painted with saffron.

The second story was larger 

than the first story.

But from the outside

there was no second story.

Flying carpets covered the ceilings.

The ghost of Sargon of Akkad

haunted my toy box --

sending all my wooden soldiers

to conquer the birdbath in the backyard.

Our icebox led directly

to the North Pole.

Kris Kringle came to dinner

frequently -- he hated cooked beets.

When my parents grew old and ridiculous

they sold the house without telling me.

By then I was far away,

sailing stones in the Gobi.

They sold our beautiful whimsical house

to another witch, named Nannie Dee.

She, in turn, made it into a tavern filled with pine trees.

I never forgave my old and ridiculous parents

for selling the house from under me like that.

I could have bought it from them;

for I had become a potent thaumaturge by then.

I could spin gold from pottery shards,

and bred Finkies for their dewclaws.

When I learned my old home was gone

I began to lose interest in magic.

I gave away my onyx signet ring, 

broke my ivory baton in two,

and neglected my red squill plants 

until they dried up and blew away.

I sold my Finkies to Ahasver.

Today I make and sell sandglasses

in a small shop by the seashore.

I weave dried kelp into bags and purses.

I've married a stout widow

who cooks good bean soup.

She and I grow more ridiculous and 
happy each day. 

Regrets.

I'm spoiling to do laundry.
The laundry room is right outside my apartment door.
So it should be a piece of cake, a walk in the park.
Right?
Except for my blonde neighbor next door.
On Tuesdays she's in the laundry room from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., which is when I want to do my laundry. 
In fact, that's the day, Tuesday, when the curled up sheet of yellow paper on the wall in the laundry room says it's my turn to do laundry.
Monday is too early. Wednesday I've already run out of clean shirts.
I'm not a morning laundry person, or an evening laundry person.
It's midday Tuesday or never.

I can look and smell like a slob. No problem.
I've done it before.
Once I went to church back in Minnesota without shaving all week and wearing a long sleeve white shirt with black ridges on the cuffs and the collar filled with dozens of black pills, like fleas.
An old guy who knew me for ten years came up and asked if I was new in the Ward. He was sniffing for tobacco or alcohol or something. The old fart.

But I wanna go out tonight to a coffee shop for hot chocolate and to meet a brainy girl who carries a big heavy book. So I can tell her I've outgrown P.G. Wodehouse.
Darn that blonde, anyways.
She leans way over the machines when she puts things in and takes things out, so I'm gonna have pale blonde hairs all over my clothes.
Gag a maggot!
All she washes are jeans and black t-shirts.
I should say something to her.
But she's a heavy sigher. Sighs like she's ready to pass a bowling ball.
So I'll wait until she's done, if I don't fall asleep first.
Gotta stay mad. Angry is good, when you need to stay awake.
Hope I've got enough quarters. 
There better not be any Canadian quarters . . . 
Why the hell did I ever sell our house on Como Avenue?
It had a bright white washer and dryer in the basement.

Closure.

They locked the bathroom doors at Fresh Market.
I noticed the sign on the Men's Room door last week:
"Bathroom for employees and customers only."
"Ask at Customer Service for key."
Now what do I do for my early morning walk?
I used to be able to walk over to Fresh Market
for a jalapeno/cheddar bagel right at six.
Soon as I got in the door I'd ask myself:
"Is it time yet?"
But my body is sneaky; it would let me shop a while
and then scream:
"Now! Now it's time!"
And I'd have to move fast.
But now, if my body bushwhacks me at Fresh Market,
I may not have time to go all the way to the Customer Service
counter and then all the way to the Men's Room.
So now I shop at night, like a fugitive.
After the day's business is done for certain.
Maybe if I think about it hard enough
and get mad enough
I won't need to take a walk at all.

The Spirit of Christ

For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil . . . 
Moroni 7:16

I know and act and understand

by light of Christ each great command;

no ignorance can I e'er plead

to mitigate a sinful deed.

O Lord, today give me the strength

to serve thee as I go the length! 

How excellent is thy lovingkindness.

How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
Psalm 36:7

Under thy wings I will gladly trod,

and trust in thee my steadfast God!

And lovingkindness reap from thee

today and for eternity.

Let my delight in thee increase,

that I and mine may live in peace!

The Leaf Counter.

(Dedicated to John Schwartz)

So I took a job with the Census Bureau. They wanted me to count all the leaves on the trees in the city. When they first gave me the job description, I wasn't sure about it.
"Is this a made up job or something?" I asked my boss, a young woman with deep brown eyes, shiny black hair, and a nose ring. "Some kind of sinecure cuz I'm related to some big shot or my demographics or what?"
"We need to know how many leaves, on average, our trees are producing" she replied crisply. "It's all about climate change and global warming -- we'll compare your count with the next count in ten years to see if the leaves have increased or decreased, and that information will help us formulate new environmental policy at the federal level."
You can't argue with young people -- they think the world makes sense. So I gave her a massive shrug, which almost made my ratty old sweater slide off my slopping shoulders, and took the census forms over to the park. At least it was outdoor work, and the weather was pretty decent so far. The first tree I looked at was a red maple. There were a couple of squirrels in it.
"Now that would make more sense" I said to myself; "a squirrel count might mean something -- and there's a heckuva lot less of 'em to count!"
It took me all afternoon, but eventually I got the tally -- that red maple had 3,335 leaves on it -- give or take a few that blew off while I was adding 'em up. I took the little copper hatchet my boss had given me and made a hack mark on the tree trunk -- so they'd know that tree had been done.
Then I went home to continue my experiments with kombucha-flavored potato chips. 
The next day I went back to the park and started in on a pine tree -- but before I was halfway through I thought I'd better check in with my boss, just in case pine needles didn't count as leaves. I'd left my Tracfone at home, so I just walked over to the little makeshift office the Census Bureau had set up in an old abandoned cider press. It was actually on the National Register of Historic Places.
My boss gave me a great big smile when she saw me. Gosh, young people sure have pretty smiles nowadays! It made me wish I had smiled more when I was young, instead of always pulling at my lower lip when I greeted people. 
She now had a bright red dot right between her eyebrows. I couldn't tell if it was a bindi or a pimple, so pretended not to notice it.
"Hey boss" I said. "Should I be counting pine needles, too?"
"Sit down a minute, will you?" she said to me. I sat, and she went and got me a cup of very hot ginger tea. I hate ginger tea, but if the boss gives you a cobra to put down your pants leg you'd better do it and say 'thanks.' That's what my old man always said, the unlettered buffoon. 
I set the tea cup down on her desk and tried smiling back at her. That's when I noticed how badly my lips were chapped.
"You remind me so much of my grandfather" she told me. "He had a white moustache just like yours, and he pulled on his lower lip just the way you're doing right now!"
"Whoops!" I said. "Sorry."
"No, don't be sorry" she said sadly. "I miss my grandfather so much -- he would tell me funny made up stories in the afternoons, when the sun was too hot to go outside."
She took out her smartphone and turned it off. Then put it in a drawer of her desk.
"Please" she entreated me. "Tell my some grandfather stories . . . "
"Welp . . . "I began, "I'm gonna invent the first kombucha-flavored potato chips here pretty soon. Should make a killing with 'em . . . "
We spent the rest of the day together. I told her about how babies were found under cabbage leaves and that the moon was made out of green cheese. She sent out for lunch for the two of us..
In Thailand, I told her, the people think the moon is a giant rabbit. And down in Mexico they have a peanut flavored ice cream that is incredibly bad -- mothers make their children eat it for punishment. Out in Utah, I told her, all the Mormons are born with horns on their heads -- but they get 'em filed down before the age of eight. If you swallow chewing gum it stays in your gut until the day you die. Out in Africa more people are killed by exploding elephants than by lions, y'see, cuz when an elephant dies its body swells up in the intense heat so fast that if they don't let the gas out quick it expands to twice its size and then ker-blooey! The carcass explodes like a stinky land mine. That's a well known fact.
When she locked up the office late that afternoon her mascara was running a little, and I felt that being a foolish old windbag wasn't such a bad thing after all. I knew she wanted to hug me before I left, but I kept my distance and ignored her body language. Young people should hug young people, and old people should just hug themselves. 
The next day I went back in early, to see if she wanted some more grandpa stories. But at her desk was a burly bald white guy; Ed Asner's doppelganger. 
"What the hell do you want?" he growled at me.  
"Uh, I'm the leaf counter" I began.
"What!" he barked at me. "Not another one . . . you're the third one today to hand me that line. Now get this -- I don't know what the previous tenant of this desk told you, but the Census Bureau don't count leaves -- we only count people! Now get out of here."
And that night I finally perfected my formula for kombucha-flavored potato chips. And I used some of the money I made to track down that brown-eyed, black-haired young women with the ring in her nose, and adopted her as my legal grand daughter so I could tell her more stories , , ,
Like how when I was a kid the summers were so hot that the street asphalt would liquefy and I once saw a whole city bus sink right into the asphalt and people were jumping out the windows while yelling to beat the band . . .