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!