I’d like to introuduce you to The Missive Maven. We met on Twitter yesterday. We both love letter writing and alliteration!

. . .written in both English & Gaelic. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

May your glass be ever full.
May the roof over your head
be always strong.
And may you be in heaven
for a half hour before
the devil knows you’re dead.

Go raibh do ghloine lán go deo.
Go raibh láidir go breá
an dion thar do cheann.
Go raibh tú í Neamh,
leathúair os comhair
a bhfuil a fhíos ag an diabhal
atá tú bás.

Here’s a charming interview the Times magazine did with Nora Ephron in which she admits she saves letters, and she has a number of letters from playwright Lillian Hellman. I hope someday I’m telling the Times about the letters I have from Nora Ephron!

And I came across THIS yesterday. A man renovates an old social club that has been abandoned for forty years. If nothing else, scroll through the photos!

Look! Same commercial (as below) with much better graphics. I still have a nostalgic soft spot in my heart for the old one though:

I meant to post this on Halloween, but it slipped my mind. All the Tootsie Pops I saw reminded me of this classic commercial. I love YouTube—through it I can access my childhood on a regular basis.

The first sign of fall 2010 was not a tree boasting its new foliage or a brusque breeze. No, no—the first sign of autumn came on an insanely humid day as I ran into Starbucks for air-conditioned cover. Cue the Halleluiah Chorus:

It doesn’t look like autumn, but it sure tastes like it! The idea of artificial pumpkin flavor, cinnamon, whole milk, and whipped cream mixed together into one tastily overpriced drink brought my longing for the season change to a whole new level. I refrained from indulging because I want to delight in my first PSL on a genuinely autumnal day.

Here’s the plan: I am going to savor summer for the next 96 hours: beaches, bathing suits, BBQ. All of it. Then at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday September 7th, my heart belongs to the harvest. Happy Labor Day weekend everyone!

During my great computer clean up of this past weekend, I came across some photos of myself as a blonde. Between the ages of 18 and 26, I changed my hair color pretty much every year. When I was 25 I went platinum blonde, and it destroyed my hair. My once soft tresses felt like overcooked angel-hair pasta. I left my hair Harlow blonde for a while, since the damage had already been done. At the age of 27 I went brunette and have been that way ever since.

What’s my natural color? I was born with a full head of dark brown hair. Then it all fell out and turned blonde—naturally platinum. As I got older it got darker. I suppose these days brunette is my natural color, but if feels strange to say that.

If I’m up for changing to a crazy color again, it’ll be red. Blonde is fun, but no funner than any other color. (I find the fun is in the willingness to whimsically change colors). Plus Blonde is too hard on the hair—unless you can afford top-notch care, like Gwen Stefani and Lady Gaga.

In any case, this was a nice trip down goldie-locks lane.

I can stomach the platinum pics of myself in black and white. In color, all I see is super light hair contrasted with super dark eyebrows.

I love this photo and am so glad I found it. I’m small and Central Park is big and majestic.

This is an especially embarrassing piece of ephemera. It’s my comp card from my attempt to be a model at the age of 19. These were the golden-hair days. The top two photos are hideous and make me cringe at the thought of my trying to be a model. The bottom left isn’t bad, and the bottom right is good. Once again, black and white works its magic. I’m realizing now that three of these photos (not including the top right) were also taken in Central Park—a lifetime before the one above it.