Here's an example of an email I would write many times in my life, desperately trying to charm a woman into dating me. This is the last such example - I wrote this to the woman I've been with since then. I read this to her today - I wrote this email on this day in 2001 - & she said, "I didn't understand it then & I don't understand it now."
This is not the entire email, but you'll get the gist of how ridiculous I could be when I was attempting to woo a woman.
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Maestro,
The rain, it falls on the just & the just-so alike. My 450 year old umbrella is difficult to handle with a cigarette in the right hand. It is work that I am at & lunch that I am dreaming of. Work in fact is what I am avoiding doing & a nonsense email seems just the ticket. So I present to you, for your edification, a History Of Tickets.
I mean, A History Of Nonsense.
Nonsense was unheard of in early evolutionary times although some now-extinct species very often did ridiculous things. It's not really nonsense, you know, as the great philosopher Rene Descartes-McGillicutty said, unless one is trying to be nonsensical.
Which brings us to Lewis Carroll. We get a little too close to Lewis Carroll all of a sudden so we need to pull back a little. All right. This is just fine.
Lewis Carroll was a mathematician who liked to photograph little girls. Sometimes naked. Sometimes in a panda suit. Sometimes in color, which is extremely silly, as the world wasn't even in color then. Anyway, Lew (as he liked to be called, even though his real name was Charles) once said something very nonsensical about a John Lennon song:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes & and ships & and sealing-wax
Of cabbages & and kings
& why the sea is boiling hot
& whether pigs have wings."
Which takes us back 400,000 years, on the rolling tundra of the Arctic Wastes. Here, every year for as long as I can remember, huge throbbing masses of walruses (or walrusi for Latin students) gather to mate, get drunk, start fights, check their credit ratings, & otherwise play boring blues riffs till the police come & shut them down. Darwin noted it, & Lamarck, too, although he wasn't so much nonsensical as mildly amusing. I bring up the walrus not necessarily because they have funny faces; I, too, can play boring blues riffs till the neighbors come. The difference between me & walruses is that I don't necessarily like to.
Flash forward again to a very personal moment in my life: my first kiss. It was barely a few months ago, but it feels almost like last week. To this day I'm not entirely sure it wasn't Ray Davies in drag, but he/she did serenade me with the Best Kinks Song In The World, "Waterloo Sunset." Then, as the night wore on, & his/her make-up gradually covered my face, neck, shoulders, upper arms, lower arms, wrists, the backs of my hands, & four of my ten fingers, I knew things were going too fast. I had only recently left the seminary & the only thing I had unpacked in my house was my Bible. So I quickly turned to Ray (he/she called him/herself "Dave" but I like to think it really was Ray Davies in drag) & I quoted from scripture.
Well, that ruined the night, let me tell you. I learned that very night my First Valuable Lesson: Quoting Scripture will not get you into someone's pants. I say I learned it, but I can't stop quoting Scripture. It's so scriptural, you know?
I think my first single off my first record will be "Can't Stop Quoting Scripture."
People keep interrupting me whilst I am trying to be scholarly. I don't believe we have talked about Nonsense In The Time Of Christ, so I believe I can crucify two birds with one nail here. Bear with me.
Christ was a big flashy freak who loved the ladies, baby. Oh yeah. He wore crazy colors & said things like, "Blessed are the meek because they are so GROOVY Y'ALL!" while the disco ball spun & the apostles snorted coke in the men's room. Meanwhile on the Throne, God The Father was worried.
"Am I like that dad in 'American Beauty'?" he wondered to himself. He bit his Holy Nails & wished he had married like His dad had told him to. He was lonely & worried & so he went to the stream to do some fishing. It was a long stream, & cold, & the fish danced around his hook but did not bite. He turned to his companion & said, "The fish are not biting. Something about this stream has changed." He companion offered him a drink & he drunk deeply. It was good gin. He stared into the stream at the fish that would not bite & he had another drink.
Holy shit! This email turned into an Ernest Hemingway story! I'm so sorry about that. Let's get back to the business of being colloquial before it becomes too much for me.
How are you? Did you totally have fun last night? I got drunk & watched a movie. Then I listened to records & played with my cats. Yeah, it didn't rain. It's raining now, which is a bummer because I'm hungry & I wanna walk somewhere to find food. Gosh, I hope this email finds you well. I hope the weather's better when we go drink beer tomorrow. I mean, when I drink beer & you drink whatever. Ha ha. Well, I have to go back to work now. I hope you have a good day with your monkeys. Ha ha. Write back!
xo g
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