THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... (I HOPE...) THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE... 

Letters to Friends
 A Preface of Sorts...

a preface of sorts J ... this is probably read best printed out, but then I wouldn't know for sure as I don't have a printer at the moment... how does email print out anyway... the same fonts sometimes look different in word processing programs... and does it print out at the width of the page or at the width of the window... or is it left up to the printer settings... or is it maybe all controlled by Windows settings... or some other settings... so many settings... geeze I've still got a lot to learn... personally I prefer sun settings myself... for the computer geeks among us, that's the real sun, you know, the one in the sky... not sun microsystems... we'll leave mac out of this for now... I mean macintosh, by the way... not macdonalds... and if I've somehow offended the ms gods, I hope not to get ms... and I don't mean an unmarried liberated female nor even a magazine either... words are such potentially deceptive little buggers... anyway, the next best way to read this is probably in a maximized window, basically cause it's kinda long, though long is relative... it's really very short compared to letters I used to write regularly... but then, it is a preface... what's a preface anyway... and is there a postface... words... but I digress again... I do that a lot... sometimes... I suppose you should decide how you want to read it if you want to read it (I sure do hope you want to read it J ... and I suppose I should just get on with writing what I sat down to write... part of me (some say the best part... hey, everybody's entitled to their opinion... and I'm entitled to repeat the opinions I like ) lives in a paper garden where I create flowers and trees and yes, shrubbery too (I and Monty Python fans are slightly amused) and lakes and streams and clouds and stars and sunshine and dreams and magical stuff only fully understood in my mind (and not always there either)... at least I used to... live here, that is... I've been away from my gardens for some time... and this is an attempt to start getting back... the more babble, the more a sign that I'm coming out of silent hibernation (of course I'll just have to trust you trust me when I say I will be serious and make sense down the line and until then, I'll just count on you to read between the lines and be very very patient... in other words, don't disturb a patient in therapy LAM J ) in case you missed the first explanation of LAM, in a previous letter that you may not have received (what comes before a preface? J, LAM is my way of differentiating from LOL, among other things... LOL is laughing (out loud, to be a bit more precise) and LAM is laughing at myself... I suppose my babble should come with a clickable help file... especially since I laugh a lot and giggle and grin {g} and {gr} and wink {w} and ROFL (roll on the floor laughing) and LMAO (laugh my ass off) and sometimes laugh so much I get TIME (tears in my eyes)... sometimes the TIME are not from laughing, but the constext of the use of the anagrams should help you figure that out... once, I get my smiley-face fonts back from where they ran off to, I'll use a whole slew of emoticons (these things -->J with different expressions for different moods and meanings and then I'll refer you to the index of anagrams and emoticons I've yet to write... until then, you can find some other indexes around these pages if you look around)... where were we?... oh, well I'm not that advanced or organized or comprehensive (and most of the previously planted gardens are in cold storage for the moment) so here again, I'll just trust you to ask me questions when you don't know what I mean... hopefully, you'll want to know J there are some keystroke emoticons I use a lot but I don't know if I'm gonna use them much on web pages... :} (as opposed to :) is how I put on a Charlie Brown type smile of acceptance that is sometimes more a smile and sometimes more a frown depending on context... :] is a more hopeful kinda "smiling with me?" kinda smile... and the rest will just have to be explained if they pop up (or you can just guess ;) {w} not all the words are worth the time it takes to print them (heck, many may not be worth the time it takes to read them (oh really? {w}, but sometimes there's no other way to let whatever is inside of me out - well at least no safe way {smirk} - or to communicate it with others... so I write (all that to say "so I write"? LOL LAM... have I just proven my last parentheses? {groaning g} J ok, so why the preface?... why not just write?... well, the preface is writing, after all... but... it's (the preface) also trying to explain something... ok, what? :) ... something like... well... I guess I'm sorta explaining by doing it... I don't restrict the flow of words too often... and when I let the words flow unrestricted, much babble appears... some people enjoy the babble... some people don't... I usually do, but then, these words are not to me, so the question is... do you?... if you, at any time, find the words that appear in your mail from me to be unwanted, I'll stop sending them (with a smile J) - if you let me know (if you don't let me know, how could I know?... I tried reading minds, but I found myself confusing what others believe is reality with what I believe is reality with what's really real (whatever that is LAM J and so I decided to do my best to wait for people to tell me what they call real and who they are and what they want before reacting to what I might already think I know since I know what I know but not what they know and what's real for me might not be real for you or them or anyone for that matter... I had to ask (or is it I had to answer?), huh?... LOL)... now some may call this madness (I'll accept "madness" as my way... there may even be a method to my madness, but I may not always tell {g})... to believe that creating a world (well, a garden, but the garden's in a world and the world's in a universe and so on :) on paper made of words and the thoughts and feelings and images they (the words) represent (which is purely subjective to the reader's perspective) when there's so little time in life to enjoy the wondrous world outside of this paper garden of words... of course some might not see all the wonder out there and consider a paper garden some sort of sanctuary (people have been putting words to paper for a long long time, after all... and people have been reading a long time and treasuring books and even building monuments to authors and structures to house nothing but books and... well... some worth must be given to written words by some... some times, at least {w} J... for me, it is this and much more... oh, much much more... and still, in the end, it is but a reflection of the life "off paper"... it (writing, the process and written words, the or thing or "place") is creative release and therapy and fun and a challenge and a journey and a message and a home... one of my favorite homes in this universe... I suppose to truly have any hope of finding any understanding in any of what you are reading, you'll just have to continue reading and judge for yourself... if you've already judged (or, let's say, if you judge before communicating - {that's exchanging open minds, you know? {w} - a little while}), then may you enjoy your life and find your happiness and actualize your dreams within your chosen perspective... if you choose to continue along this garden path with me, then welcome =) <---that is a happier more energized smile J hoping you're smiling and continuing... onward along this path... LETTER INDEX        GO BACK        GO ON        RUN AWAY! EMAIL EMAIL Candor Communications    ©1998, 2001