Dear Penelope,

Even though blogland fails us sometimes, and the commenters have long since gone, we still stand, 9 years knowing, 5 years of typing to the void and some 1800 blog posts later. Happy Anniversary.

Those still reading won't begrudge our continual letters to one another. In our last vestige of narcissism and our tender affection for the written word, we don't mind opinionated witnesses, and cohorts in the continuation of a friendship that should usher us into that good old woman age. We hope. Even if we've long outgrown our quirky impulse at nicknames, I find that overtime we've quite become them and I'll always think of us as Penelope and Mendacious. Even if our birthcertificates say something else and no one knows why.

I'm watching x-files right now and its raining. The first rain in at least 7 or 8 months. To me, after its absence, its like reminding me how much i needed it, residing over me like an ache all over. And I keep wanting to wander out into it but don't really have a reason to. So i've lit a candle in lieu of a fire in a fireplace, and don't resent the heat its giving off, looking at my nails, realizing i need to wash my hair and pondering why my 2 right fingernails keep chipping and breaking- which you know probably has something to do with dietary imbalances but i'll never know as my holistic person flew the coop. I can only guess now and chastise myself for not cutting out enough starch or something? Being allergic to dairy or chocolate which according to the energy points hand chart i found can cause excema on the tips of fingers and other such things... i'm still going to eat chocolate until i guess i dont. Or I find another person to cause ripples thru the body and purple lights to appear.

I was going to close the letter with a "today i..." but i thought i'd tell you about my spiritual landscape. I'd been on this technical climb in the dark craggy mist of some far off and mythical rock place- grey and treacherous, and very high up, and a perilous drop to the left, and it started raining. I didn't seem to mind it most times but there was no getting out of it, being soaked through and just dangling there, waiting, occasionally trying to advance up a rung on the rock face, and just last tuesday, while in yoga, i reached a top of a crag and the sun was out and pink and cream colored rose petals swirled past me and off the cliff as i sat and watched them float out into the dawn.

m.