Happy Rainy Memorial Day

We were going to picnic by the lake and drink Sangria, but alas, I'll stay inside and work on finals. FINE, weather, FINE. Force me to be responsible!
sorry, I don't remember the picture credits

Josh Ritter is the greatest

Last weekend I went to go see Josh Ritter for the first time in concert! After having two good friends totally obsessed/in love with him, and listening to Animal Years on repeat for weeks, I was still blown away by how great he is in concert. It was one of those rare moments that takes your emotions and melds them with those of a crowd and makes you forget your discomfort and all the petty stuff you were worrying about, transcendent in an experience.

Long-distance Love

On Wednesday, my boyfriend is leaving for 4 months for a far-away African country. He doesn't read my blog (I don't think? are you out there?), so I'm not going to say anything about him, because my main concern is, what about me? Barring taking out a student loan for a plane ticket, I'm going to have to start seriously cultivating more solitary pleasures. I spend a lot of my time with this young man, so having him gone always requires a bit of a lifestyle adjustment. On the good side, more time for friends, no one else's schedule to coordinate around, plenty of space to do whatever I feel like doing. On the downside, well, most of everything else.

So, two questions:
1. What are the forgotten joys of being pseudo-single, or of long-distance relationships?
2. Since he might not have the world's best internet connection, which means potentially no Skype, no phone calls, and no long internet time for chatting and long emails, are there creative ideas for communication? My friend thinks getting letters from Africa sounds awfully romantic, I think it also sounds awfully infrequent. I do, though, absolutely love the letters I got from him last time he went. There's something so much better about having a letter to hold and touch. As great as stumbling over a long-forgotten email can be (thanks gmail for saving everything ever!), nothing beats touching the letter that your far-away friend (and a dozen postal workers the world over) touched.
Image 1 via Naturally Nina, by Alexis Mire.
Image 2 via Design*Sponge, by Lauren Gallagher as a window installation for the San Francisco bookstore The Booksmith.

Here's some more posts from blog-land about letters that I enjoyed:

• from Design is Mine, which I had forgotten had such good stuff!
• cute french envelope tray via design*sponge, and also, circularly, from design is mine (blogs are so incestuous!)
• a GREAT one by Hollister Hovey on the lost art of letters. I was totally over her and her taxidermy and NYT article, but this resurrects my love.
• And, not letter-related, but, pretty pictures of girls by water from (oh, hello friend.) This is gonna be me, swimming in the lake all summer!
• I've forgotten 2 more: one of old letters found on ebay or something, and one from a blogger who spent the first year of marriage long-distance, yikes!
  

Memries...

I was reading on academichic about memento clothes: items that belonged to relatives and/or have special personal significance.

I tend to really hold on to stuff, so I have a lot of these items. The shirt in the picture above gets lots of compliments. My dad bought it for my mom when he was a graduate student back in the mid-80s. I loved my mom's old clothes so much that I was convinced that if I had children, they would like my stuff and so I should hold on to them. To that effect I have been wearing down my favorite cross-country t-shirt since I got in 7th grade. I think my brother has it (along with most of my t-shirts) now. I gave them to him with the express command that he not lose them, and I think for awhile he wore almost exclusively Chapin girls cross-country shirts. Sometimes I feel emotionally attached to things that went on long epic trips with me, or that I've had for a really long time. My mom gave me this shoulder bag in high school, and I carried my school books in it into college. I had to sew it up time and again, but even now, when I carry its ratty goodness around, I feel close to my mom and my high school self: simple, happy, low-maintenance, a bit of a hippie. This is a terrible picture of it, I took it in my room in college when I was playing around with the features on my camera (which is now lost to an encounter with honey inside the very same bag and lots of dust in Wyoming). And, the blanket was my mother's in high school. It's on my couch right now.
This is more playing with my camera settings. I love these orange shoes! They were a 17th birthday present from my mom. I picked them out. They were $20 which seemed like a really big deal to me at the time. I really was a low-maintenance kid! (wow, I don't have half of the stuff I can see in this closet: the "stripper boots," the cleats from frisbee days, the not-waterproof boots, some polyester dresses, ew! and oh look, the sweater I got at Gap in 8th grade and STILL HAVE! I thought I was a big deal for getting something at Gap in season.)