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August 11, 2008 |
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A Neat Life
FOUND by Elizabeth
in Portland, Oregon
This was found while I waited for the streetcar on a typical rain drenched afternoon. It was balled up sitting very close to the garbage can, but it looked very clean, crisp and white, so I picked it up and was very intrigued.
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Thursday April 27, 2003 |
Set a Boundary For June 30, 2002 |
Better Off Cooking July 17, 2006 |
Tattletale May 13, 2006 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
cathy wanted me to wish you a totally groovy, far-out existence, you no-call-returning one-night-stand-having overly-sentimental weirdo.
That afternoon was so special, that he can't even say what they did...which kind of tells you exactly what it was they did, since they had to find a place to be alone...The title indicates a composition for a creative writing class, the closing looks like the "short story" is doubling for the lesson on "friendly letters." Since no one writes letters anymore, do you suppose they teach you to write business/friendly/thank-you emails in school now? I can hear Mrs Loven now: "Emoticons are not acceptable in a formal business letter--write it again!"
"There we were at the same place." Uh, yeah. Obviously. However, the rest of this screed could be his fantasy on what he wished would happen--except for fantasy lit he would probably have gone into more detail.
a place we could be alone also known as a stinky no-tell motel that charges by the 1/2 hour..looooove is a splendid thing
"Thanks Cathy - hope you have had a neat life."
This is in the past tense, she's dead?
Is my computer going weird or has this been written over?Maybe in pencil then gone over in biro?
It's untidy the way he refers to her in the third person throughout and then uses her name and says "you".
I took Cathy as the writer's name (Thanks, [from] Cathy)? I fear she is living in a fantasy world (she had to get the fantasy clear in her head, then write it out in pencil, then go over it with a smudgy ballpoint pen (Effie -- I haven't heard it called a 'biro' for a while! thanks).
I couldn't read the last line -- thought it said 'Hope you've had a meat loaf'?
Actually 'neat' is a really feeble cholce of word in the circumstances. Of all the kinds of life one might have had, 'neat' would hardly be very rich or satsifying.
What's the blobby thing after 'Cathy'? Bunch of flowers? Clump of trees? Olympic rings? Badly written date?
OK, here we go (espiecially if the writer is a man)...
CREEPY!!
*missing bracket* )
*especially*
-- sorry
i'm assuming a 'biro' is a ball point pen or something. This is a weird little note. Why is Cathy thanking someone else for a little afternoon delight?
What were they missing? It could be romantic. "I was missing something, and didn't know it till i saw you, and you completed me". Or, mundane "I was missing my pen, and she had one". man, would i love to know more about this.
yes Effie, this note was definitely traced over with a second pen.(and not very well)
for some reason the part of this that stood out most for me was the "headed to the place where we could be alone".
not "A place" but "THE place", so distinct as if it was referring to some specific place everyone knows about.
way to over romanticize a quickie in the back seat of your car with a complete stranger.
@Mona:
The ballpoint pen was invented by a Hungarian refugee, Lazslo Biro, in 1938, and at once proved popular with WW2 fighter pilots because it worked at high altitudes without drying up or exploding.
When I was growing up they were manufactured under his name, before the advent of the ubiquitous Bic.
see http://tinyurl.com/6l57o7
WYLSNED...
Sounds like a bad greeting card message to me.
And what's that after "Cathy"? Someone else's name? A doodle of flowers?
soon to be featured on craigslist's missed connections.
that's too cool, Jonathan. thanks for the link.
"We didn't know each other but we left together, we were missing something..." WTF?
This is so very strange. Yea, it does look like it has been written or traced over in ink or a sharpie.
Disappointing ending. After reading the first four sentences, I expected something more like Penthouse Letters.
I think the thing next to "Cathy" is a mailbox towing a giant four leaf clover, being stalked by a stealthy bunny rabbit.
I'll never forget you!
Love,
Clark Kent
Her 'm's look like 'n's, giving the first sentence a whole new meaning.
WYLSNED
i've never been in the sane place.
man, what's with all you cynics... is everyone just so focused on negatives that they can't possibly imagine this being an innocent afternoon with a fascinating stranger? Sometimes, you do meet strangers who are missing exactly what you are missing, and it's not something physical.
OK, I give. What is WYLSNED?
Drake, just wait a bit, the cynics are usually earlier to post. Clover will be along soon, and say something sweet and lovely about it. Holly will say something that isnt so cynical, as well. There's usually a good mix of cynics and hopeful thinkers. It's just early in the day, is all.
Love,
Wally Cleaver
@mlm: Well, you learn something new everyday.
WYLSNED
Cynical? Hopeful?
How about a third option?
MORBID!
This note could be a sort of memorial. Talking about Cathy in third person because she's dead and then saying thanks to her because she is missed. That would explain the "Hope you have HAD a neat life." Maybe the weirness of the note can be explained by acute sadness?
A healthy dose of cynicism is part of what keeps me interested in the comments on any given day.
Hey, everybody, not to take away from today's found (which I find weird and strangely fascinating) But GO BACK to yesterday's find, with the man on the bike. We missed something. There's something WEIRD on the top of the bike, right above where it says "Indian". I thought it was a mysterious picture before, but now it's taken on a whole new strangeness. what IS that thing. Is it some kind of fur?
Where, where is this SANE place? I'd like to spend a long weekend there.
Cathy is probably reminiscing about her one time go with a girl. She fell for her, but to her she was just a little something she was missing that her inapt boyfriend was unable to give. They run into to each other years later Cathy still smitten by her onetime female love...her unable or unwilling to acknowledge that it ever happened. Cathy wishes she had the nerve to drop her the note as she daydreams and traces the words over and over...
OMG I miss Portland so much! Rain drenched waits for the MAX....I wanna go hoooome!
Julse, at first I thought Man on Bike was holding some sort of brush (with which he had just cleaned and or dusted off the ole bike) but then I decided that it must be an optical illusion, and what I was seeing was just a mound of dirt in the background.
In response...I think you are absolutely right. As soon as I posted, I looked at it again and felt like a total idiot. I think I spent too much time staring at today's find, trying to figure out what that thing is after the word Cathy...My eyes got crossed and my brain started to hurt...Then I made the mistake of going back to yesterday's find...*sigh*
@Jesme: I was thinking the same, especially since the handwriting looks very feminine.
I wonder where that sane place is..I want to go there.
I like this find. There is something very sweet and wistful about it.
However, I would like to know where that 'sane place' is, myself. Is there such a place?
see Drake? there's Lolita. hardly cynical.
the picture after Cathy looks like something I would do to make sure no one could read what I had written underneath. Could it be Cathy's surname?
.."we left together because we were [each] missing something.."
I wonder if, in that one afternoon, each of them found what they'd been missing (in each other?), or perhaps realized that they'd had it all along... (I said, I never knew.. that you like Pina Coladaaas... that sort of thing?)
Anyway, that we left together line is my fave part of this strange little missive, and at this moment in time, I can totally relate.