Dear Nature and Nurture,

I'm not sure which one of you is responsible for the conversation below that certifies I am indisputably my mother's daughter, but either way, thanks. And, for the record, the blender has been washed and is drying in the drying rack even as I type.

Me, 10:44 a.m.

Even when I buy all the ingredients for smoothies, I still don't make them because I hate cleaning the blender so much. That's truly dumb. So today while I was waiting for my tea to steep, I made two blenderfuls of smoothie and poured them into jars and now I have like 6 smoothies and only have to wash the blender once. Not that I've actually washed the blender. I left it soaking in the sink before running far away and trying to pretend it won't be waiting for me when I go back to the kitchen.

Mom, 12:01 p.m.

So funny!!!  Right now I have the smoothie ingredients sitting in my blender waiting for the strawberries to soften a bit.  And the only reason I'm making one is because all the yogurts I got to make them are getting old and I need to use them.  Because, I too, hate washing the blender!  And yogurt is so hard to get off.  I wonder if they use yogurt to build houses with in Greece.  

Hugs & kisses,

B

Dear BFF,

I'm still laughing. Thanks for watching out for my future.

Hugs & kisses,

B

Dear My Favorite Local Ice Cream Shop,

You're seriously opening a new location this spring? Two blocks from my house?? When I'm trying not to succumb to the imminent 30s weight gain???

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Ridiculously Attractive Guy Who Sold Me My New Car on Saturday,

When I walked up to the group of salespeople and you were the one who stepped out to show me around the lot, I nearly turned around and left right then and there. Seriously? I thought. Send the cute guy my age out to sweet talk me into buying a car? I've been studying advertising techniques since the fourth grade; I see exactly what you're doing here. Well, I did buy a car, but you had very little to do with it.

That's not to say I wasn't aware of the fact you kept changing the radio in every car I drove to a good station and started telling me all about your creative pursuits when you found out I'm a writer. Got super excited when you found out we practically share a birthday. Kept asking if I live alone.

And then today I got my mail. Is it normal for salesmen to send thank you notes to their customers? I figure yes, probably. It's good business to follow up with customers and keep the lines of communication open. But is it normal to fill the card with compliments about my being the kind of "intelligent, positive, and fun" person that "makes [your] job fun"?

Not sure about my next steps here, so I'm asking my readers. Am I supposed to drop by the dealership sometime or let it all drop?

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Birds in My Neighborhood Who Spend All Day and Night in the Trees That Grow Along the Edge of the Street,

Until I acquired a dark blue car, I never realized how much you poop.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Inbox,

First, I compared your emails to pounds and was delighted you were losing weight. Then, I said maybe I'd just run away from you, you were getting so out of hand. But today, dear inbox, today I got you down to ZERO.

ZE. RO.

Yes, I did a lot of deleting and archiving instead of responding, but I did do some responding, and I did a lot of reading, watching, and listening to things people had sent me over the past year+. And I did some reorganizing around my clear failings as a correspondent, so hopefully (although it obviously remains to be tested) I can be sure to respond to emails henceforth in a timely (although it's me, so obviously timely ≠ prompt) fashion.

Think we can do it, inbox? I certainly do.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear 29 Candles on a Raspberry Trifle,

You looked like you were about to burn the house down. "There's a lot more than 29 on there, right?" I asked my friends as they carried you out of the kitchen.

"Nope!" one said gleefully. (He's 24. Just wait a few years, buddy.)

It was like a scene out of a chick flick. You know the one. Where the single woman with a high-stress job and a cat stares her years in the face while Stevie Nicks sings Landslide soulfully in the background.

And yet, as I blew out your flames reflected like a conflagration in my eyes (no bifocals yet, thankyouverymuch), I couldn't think of anything to wish for. Surrounded by dear friends and fully aware of tons more friends all around the world wishing me well, with a hand-made trifle made with raspberries from my friend's own garden, on a front porch in autumn-like weather without the imminent threat of winter, I could only hope the next 29 years are full of such comfort and contentment as I've heretofore experienced.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Boy,

I'm truly sorry. Forgive the cliché, but I honestly believe you'll find someone better.

Hugs & kisses,

B

Dear Trailblazing,

If you can say one thing about me, it's that I like to do things right. If I'm learning something new, I don't just jump in with both feet; I wade in, slowly, analyzing each step and mentally projecting the future consequences of stepping in this spot instead of that one with each progressive footfall. Once I blaze the trail one time, I'm pretty good at following that same path fearlessly when I come to the same place again, and after a lifetime of blazing well-marked trails, I can appear to outsides to take life pretty confidently.

Until I get to a place that's unfamiliar. Then I have no idea how to proceed, and I'm forced to blaze a new trail. It takes time. It's an agonizing process. I step, I pause, I map out potential next steps, decide how well the previous steps went, how I could or should change or keep going, stop and think, stop and think, step back and reassess. I want to do it right, and without ever seeing this path before, I have no points of reference to get me going. As Sarah Bareilles sang:

I'm already out of foolproof ideas
so don't ask me how to get started.
It's all uncharted.

Uncharted, yes, but not unchartable. And although in this situation there are other people depending on my blazing a fair trail, I think they're patient enough to see where I take it.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

An era is over.

Hugs & kisses & bubbles & rainbows & puppies,
B

Dear Friends,

I don't deserve you. Each day, I wonder what I could have possibly done to earn your friendship, and I can never reach a satisfactory answer. You are supportive, attentive, and in every way wonderful. And you seem to think I deserve your friendship, despite my doubts on that score.

Maybe this is a slight hint of the love we have from Christ. I don't deserve his love, but he really, really wants to give it to me. To all of us. Deep, true love isn't our love for God, but his love for us, sacrificial love with no reason to expect an equal return. He meets us halfway and, when we aren't there, he keeps going the whole way until he reaches us where we are.

Thanks for loving me so much I can start to understand, however slightly, the love of Christ.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Feminine Wiles,

You've been entirely absent most of my life, and I got kind of used to it. Yes, I wanted to think there would be a day I might be attractive, but in reality, never able to imagine a time you'd ever be on, I built up no strategy for turning you off. But it seems I need to learn.

First, it was my one true love on State Street. Last week, it was the man (Bingo, he called himself) on the bus who offered me a seat. On his lap.

And today, it was on my way out of the library. I got a (and I quote), "Damn, girl, you are fine," complete with some kind of wolf whistle. Thank the Lord it's day light in the evenings now.

The thing is, now that you apparently exist, suddenly, after the awkwardness of my teenage years and beyond, I don't know how to handle this type of thing. From behind my eyes, I'm still the acne-speckled, overweight, unstylish girl with split ends, and it's hard to believe that these forthright displays of attraction aren't some kind of joke.

And really, even if that wasn't the case, I'm pretty sure it's uncomfortable for everyone to be wolf-whistled and lap-offered. So while I appreciate the fact you finally decided to exist, you need to chill out when I'm around creepers, okay? Because that's not cool.

Feel free to crank it up, however, around non creepers. That I don't object to.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Vienna,

Slow down, you crazy child
you're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart, tell me
Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?
You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do and
Only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize?
Vienna waits for you.

Slow down, you're doing fine
You can't be everything you want to be before your time
Although it's so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight

Too bad but it's the life you lead
you're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong, you know
You can't always see when you're right
You're right.

You've got your passion, you've got your pride
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true
When will you realize?
Vienna waits for you.

Slow down, you crazy child
and take the phone off the hook and disappear for awhile
it's all right, you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize?
Vienna waits for you.

And you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize?
Vienna waits for you.

Hugs & kisses,
B

P.S. Thanks, Billy Joel, for getting it so right.

Dear Inbox,

Remember the days when I used to actually respond to email messages? Remember when I compared emails to pounds and helped you lose weight? I was proud of myself then, but things have changed.

As I type, you have 349 messages, with more certain to come. Now, I'm not of the type who leaves all messages ever in the inbox. No, I leave them there because there's something I need to do about them. Like respond. Or put something on my calendar.

I think maybe your state is indicative of a deeper problem.

Lately, I've felt myself ... I'll say getting lazy, although I don't think that's quite it. I'm tired, my dear inbox, tired especially of being on top of things. I've been on top of things all my life, keeping organized homework lists as early as elementary school and writing down all of my extracurricular activities on a calendar so I knew where I had to be when. I remembered things and did everything right and never let the ball drop. I was reliable. It's how I succeeded and looked good and got accepted to every school I applied to.

But now I'm tired of it. I'm tired of fitting myself into others' schedules: public buses, work hours, work projects, and so on. I'm tired of structuring everything so perfectly that even my unstructured time is structured. I'm tired of fitting my life into boxes and slots of calendar pages, email responses, timetables, résumés, and spreadsheets.

I'll get over it. I'll get back on top of things someday. But I have a feeling that as long as you're around, my inbox, I'll always have the pressure of responsibility, of tasks left undone, of falling short of expectations and letting people down.

Maybe it's that I'm playing the part of the career woman I was never meant to be, and the confusion between should and is has muddled other areas of my life as well. But whatever it is, dear inbox, if I abandon you for good someday, know it's not your fault, nor the fault of the people whose kind, loving, and often encouraging words fill you up. It's just that, by then, maybe I'll have grown up enough to accept that it's finally time to run away.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Mr. President,

Okay, so it wasn't all your fault.

Yesterday was the last day of an 8-day workweek. The first two days of that week, I went to my job without a voice and with a moderate-to-severe sinus infection that I'd had for 2 1/2 weeks. The fifth day of that week, I flew to Michigan, and the last three days of that week, I had worked 13-hour shifts, on my feet most of the time, the antibiotic for my sinus infection and the air conditioning in the hospital cracking my lips and drying out my eyes as I stared at computer screens and tried to help nurses understand their new software.

When I finally got into the Detroit airport and found my flight home to Madison listed on the monitors, you can imagine my distress to see that it would take off more than an hour late. Knowing, as I did, that you were in Madison yesterday as part of your last-minute whistle-stop tour to drum up political support in swing states, I immediately blamed you for the delay. "Surely it's the president's fault," I thought, "for shutting down the Madison airport to all flights but Air Force One, and delaying my arrival home."

I was even composing an open letter to you on the subject, something along the lines of disrupting people's lives in order to garner support for your own cause.

But then when I got on the plane, they said there had been mechanical problems back in Providence this morning, and that the flight had been off schedule all day. Nothing to do with you, Mr. President.

So I apologize for blaming you for something that wasn't actually your fault. I'm sure that, as a public figure, you're used to it, but on this day, when 130 million people or so decide whether or not you still have your job next year, I just wanted to say oops.

Dear That Sense of Rightness and Justice in This World,

Just want to say thanks. Overall, the world does not meet any of our standards for perfection, to the point that many of us give up on the hope that there must be something better out there. But sometimes, you show your face again, just for a moment, just a small glimpse, and remind those of us still watching and waiting for Better that it really does exist and is worth living for.

When two puzzle pieces finally admit they fit together perfectly, when after months of prayer I get to see two of my favorite people come together, it's nothing short of a relief. The Hebrew word shalom means peace, perfection, unity, and completion, the resolving major chord at the end of a cacophonous symphony. If such a small-scale event can bring such relief, I can only imagine what it will be like when you finally reclaim all of creation. No more pain, no more hurricanes, no more loneliness or barriers to love. May we all live and work and hope for the Better that lies beneath the surface.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear BFF,

That was the best visit in the history of BFFness. When I left for work yesterday, I was already missing you and your adorable daughter. When I got home last night, my apartment seemed so wide-open and empty without you two there. Five days were way too short, but I'm so glad we got them.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Logic,

I appreciate your efforts, I really do. But sometimes, no matter how much you present the reasonable side of things, it just won't make my emotions budge. I'll stay angry, depressed, bored, or ecstatic whether it's at all logical or not. The past week has been logically awesome, but my emotions can't seem to keep up. Don't stop trying to reason me back over to normal, but please don't expect me to always make sense. Sometimes I just only have it in me to be a Marianne Dashwood, rather than her sensible sister Elinor.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Toes,

I get it. We're happy. And I know that you've wiggled whenever I'm happy since the summer I was born. Still. Today's joyful toe-wiggling is getting a little fidgety.

Okay, fine, you're right. I don't mind at all. When the first news I have in the morning is about a dear friend's engagement (and subsequent welcome request to be in her wedding too!), and the sun is shining and the air cool, and the sewing machine I bought second-hand over the weekend works, and I reach the half-way point in the project I'm writing, and ... well ... this day happens ... the most appropriate thing in the world is for my toes to wiggle out of control.

So wiggle away, dear ones. Wiggle away.

Hugs & kisses,
B

Dear Monona,

Thank you for being located so close to my laundromat. With a bike, I can zip over to your gently lapping shores while my clothes wash and dry, and I can enjoy the relaxing undulation of the floating dock, rising and falling like some large (stiff) creature breathing. What could be more pleasant than an hour of hard working laundry so pleasantly passed gazing over the water's surface, changing with each breeze like a fickle child. This is life: the smell of lake slime on the distant rack of canoes, the sound of ducks honking as they pass the time of day, the feel of sun on my neck and weathered dock wood on my legs.

And then a great blue heron glides across my vision, its overlong legs and neck so awkward, but its wings so graceful as it just skims the lake surface on the downbeat, crossing to land on the opposite shore.

It has been four months since I arrived here with a moving truck full of hope, and yet I remain in daily disbelief that this place is really my home.

Hugs & kisses,
B