Cue The Balloons 🎈

Issue 52 marks one year

Greetings, Earthlings. Today is Tuesday—always a pleasure when she arrives. Let’s get on with it, shall we…

Reflecting, as one does, on one year of poignant rambles delivered to your inbox each Tuesday at the final hour, I have one overarching takeaway–yes, only one: just keep going.

Let me add contect… I have pushed my bedtime limits more than I care to count so I could place this baby before your eyes on Wednesday. Yes, I send her on Tuesday, but by the time I finish my final spell check (whoops, those have fallen through the cracks lately) and hit publish, it’s just shy of Wednesday.

I know you’d never judge.

More context… I can and will go to bed at the first sign of nightfall. I’ll have you know that only once this past year was that at 7:30 pm. I was not sick nor deeply depressed. I was simply enjoying a liberty available to you and me at any time—an opportunity to lay horiztonal. Exercise it. If I were not typing these letters right this very second, I would. I won’t blame you if you stop reading and begin laying. I would if I were you.

To be clear, I don’t go to sleep at 7:30 pm. often. But by 8:30 pm., my bed begins whining. And, because whining is nobody’s cup of tea, I must crawl closer to her (my bed), and sometimes lay next to her (my bed), and shush her cries until we both drift off to sleep.

Believe it or not, I’m still making my point. Many a Tuesday night, I pull an all-nighter (read: 11:30 pm.) so I keep a promise to myself—just keep going.

Today, marks 52 consecutive newsletter publishes. Cue the balloons.🎈

The only way to fail is to quit, stop, or simply never start. However, if you begin something and continue, you’ll crawl over mountains of doubt and sunbathe in fields of joy.

In doing so, you grow. It grows. Neither you, nor the thing know what’s next, but a promise is kept, and another week is checked. And, that’s a beautiful gift.

To mark our second year together, I borrowed the USPS motto and made it my own:

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays Simone from continuing the swift completion of her appointed rounds.”

It really does have a nice ring.

---

Thank You x52

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Your support means the world to me. Truly. Thank you for being on the receiving end of The Letter.

Shhh… I also do it for you.

---

Private Screening

The raves I hear about Supergoop! sunscreen are askin, er, akin to something far more exciting than sunscreen. (For who in their right mind gets excited about this dreadfully snoring product we’re forced to wear?)*

As usual, I have not tried it myself. But the oos and ahhs I hear from others tell me I can confidently pass along the recommendation, and by doing so, my reputation will remain intact.

Not so fast… I must also include a link to EWG, a website with health and safety information about the projects we buy.

Supergoop! has the chemical Octocrylene, an endocrine disruptor in women (eek).

Thank you to my friend, Wonder Serra, for the wonder-ful info. I do not pay near enough attention to things like this, yet our skin, our largest organ, is eating and drinking from our surroundings continuously.

With the information, you do you (people really do rave about it). The Letter is a cancer- and judgement-free zone.☀️

* I’m a child of the 80s. The sunscreen phenomenon is still new to us.

** Did I kind of kill the mood when I mentioned chemicals, cancer, and endocrine disruptors?

---

B Is for Brace Face

Four teeth, four different colored rubber bands. In my day, it was all grey, all the time.

Also, I walked a mile to school in the snow.

---

Announcing…

I stumbled upon a piece of Internet-Rabbit-hole literature that made me smile.

Guidelines For School Sports Announcers:

The announcer should remember at all times that the sole justification for his function is conveying simple, straightforward, unemotional information. When there is nothing significant to announce, silence is golden.

Minus the word should, which I loathe, the carpet matches the drapes. The literature is, at once, simple, straightforward, and unemotional which is a fine tone for conveying simple, straightforward, and unemotional information.

I like it when that happens.

* a deep thought, and the 15 seconds you’ll never get back for consuming it.

** I did not bold silence is golden, they did. Which, ironically, is a bit bold for a statement of silence.

---

Mother and Sun

To be read to the tune of Katy Perry’s, Firework:

“Do you ever feel like a platic bag is ruining a picture, and you want to start again?

Mother and Son

‘Cause baby, you’re a firework. Come on show 'em what you're worth. Make 'em go, "Awe, awe, awe," as you shoot across the sky-y-y.”

(Stop signing)

I love you Owen Baily Earnhardt. What a challenging few weeks we’ve had. I can confidently say, you’re brighter for it (and I’ve aged ten years).

---

Balls To The Walls

Around Issue 25 I told you about a favorite toy of mine, my kids, and almost everyone alive (dead people may like it, too). Today, we revisit the magic of Speks.

caption...

I know, it’s hard to spend $35 on 512 magnetic balls, but you won’t be sorry.

They make up a respectable fidget toy—words rarely seen together.

Buy several as gifts. Even stash some away for yourself. The play-sibilities are truly endless. If you hate them, send them to me. It’s a risk-free buy.

---

An UpDate

I’m not dating.

---

Boys & Sex

No clever title here. Just the book I’m reading, of which, you ought to, as well. Even if you’re a boy, or a man, and you know what it’s like to be one, this book is helpful.

As its subtitle states—Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity—we could all take a page from this book.

---

Issue 52 is now closed. Your prescription: Just. Keep. Going. Until next year…