Some Entities Call Me Friend

My plan for the evening: go through the mail I have not opened IN FOUR MONTHS (Hurray for online bill pay, where you only have to click and send without looking at your stupidity!), figure out what is coming in and what is going out, and include those bills when, in a moment of ecological concern, I foolishly clicked paperless billing. Idiot! Hopefully I will not fail. But know because you are reading this blog, I have failed, and failed miserably. On the up side, my distraction was illusionarily productive (read: time consuming).

So this is only half the mountain; (that's puffs facial tissue in the background for anyone wondering) I didn’t have the brilliant idea to take pictures until half way through shredding. I would have taken picture of me too, but drowning in a mountain of mail and debt is somehow easier in your underwear. Too much information? (Clearly my efforts to become a more responsible adult are thwarted by my personality at every turn.) In this pile are multiple bills for the same thing. I have shredded the same bill 4 times, keeping the most recently due, because seriously people, I have not opened my mail for FOUR MONTHS!

And because I keep loosing my white letter opener on my white mail, and white pencil box, and white paper, and next to or near anything with a hint of white, I ask for and receive help. Thank you oh great sharpie for making things unseen now seen. And slightly snarky.

To the junk mail!

Jonathan H Price!! You donate to one, ONE, stupid public radio station and suddenly you are on the national registry to be hit up to donate to everything. Incidentally nature preserve in Arizona people, my name is not Friend. You can print my name on the guilt-tainted-address labels you think I will send you money for (Ha! I will shred them, because if I don’t use them I don’t owe you for anything!), but not on your “we’re so poor, please give us money for our birds” letter, telling me how the migration of a half-the-size-of-a-dollar humming bird across the world twice, backwards, in the snow, up hill both ways, amazes you?! On the other hand the humming bird labels are nice. You did say they were free, and I think I have a can of guilt repellent around here someplace, though probably expired like my allergy medicine. Curse you guilt repellent resistant address labels! I have so much mail too. *Sob* I will set aside the address labels and let the do-not-waste part of my weirdly wired brain pit against the guilt-for-labels-they-totally-want-me-to-donate-for part of my rainbay. (An epic and necessary battle since I shredded the donation everything.)

Judy Blume? THE Judy Blume has sent me mail?! :D No. :< Not THE Judy Blume. Holy BANANAS! It is THE Judy Blume! And she also thinks my name is Friend. Curses! Ooo look in the bottom right hand corner of the letter, it says "over please", and wouldn’t you know, there are words and sentences and stuff on the back of this piece of paper. I wonder if that is how I get to the rest of Fudge’s crazy antics with those booky thingies too.

Oh the Smithsonian sent stickers and address labels to Friend with my name and address. Now I can send get well wishes to my credit card company when I send the bill, and happy birthday on the envelope of my love note to my wireless carrier; well, you know, if I didn’t pay EVERYTHING online. There is always the dentist.

Good news, I don’t have to save complimentary tickets to the “give us your money” episode of The Commonwealth Club of California I normally forget about, because the tease tickets were for 7 weeks ago. Did I mention me no open mail, four months? Oh and the Commonwealth Club – they also think my name is Friend. Really people, you put my ACTUAL name on the envelope!

This one is new. Walk MS of Northern California thinks my first name is Walker. I must have a brother somewhere called Texas Ranger, and no, I am not a sissy.

KQED knows my name! No, that is not enough to send them money I don’t have. But I will enter the raffle I waste at least 3 stamps on every year for the past 4 years. My wants are usually humble, the first year it was the grand prize or the binoculars (yes the binoculars, which are uber cool by the way). This year I want the grand prize. Let’s face it, I can stop wallowing in underwear clad self pity and also get binoculars. Though I think I may be over the binoculars; now for distance seeing I want things like contacts and prescription sunglasses, because my eyes don’t like contacts every day (read: too lazy to put in contacts because glasses are faster).

And thus we come to the end of the junk mail. Left only with bills and memories. Ah good times, good times.

So today I have run the gambit of names assigned to me by junk mail. No imagination. Made a pile of pay me nows, and have started a blog, and only one of these is half a goal. I have yet to decide if shred the guilt or save the waste wins out on the address labels. All in all a pretty good night of avoidance, I achieved half a goal and made a blog. Which totally negates the fact that I failed at my goal and now have a blog. A blog, really? Huh. That sounds almost like a responsibility.