Antique Christmas cards from people whose names I recognize but whose faces and personalities are long gone. Jeanne Hentschel. Neal Buckaloo. What a great name on Neal. I should use him as a character. The next novel I write, I will go back into these files again and dredge up character names. Real names. Fantastic names. Names from long, long ago. Like the deer, tiny as rabbits, gamboling on a snowy card, and the holly, still bright after all these years.

Okay, a letter from Dorothy. This is the girl I wrote a "letter of concern" about wen we were freshmen - well, my roommate and I did - and she did not return the following year. I may have mentioned before that she did attend nursing school in Springfield, and she writes me just before a lab class. She loves nursing, "beds, baths, temp, etc., bedpans (fun!), watching treatments & all - really love it!" I hope she did. She mentions Camp Alpine, which rings a bell. A Lutheran camp?? Did I go there???

A card from somebody I don't remember about an event I don't remember, and it's only worth mentioning because (a) it's in the damned folder and (b) apparently it shows that I was involved in some sort of political study group, as the guy tells me that "we are going to be a non-partisan, political interest and discussion group." I probably didn't stick with it. I don't remember it at all, and it would have been the sort of thing to interest me initially but which I would have found somewhat boring in reality.

A Christmas card from....Jud??? Judy??? Which Judy? There is no envelope attached. It's a spangly card, with a snow scene, trees, river, arched bridge, a chapel Makes me want to go back to church. That church. Whoever she is, she's in school, studying for either English Lit or Psychology, and she's "not pinned yet." Is anyone pinned anymore? I wonder. She does "like living with the Kappas much better than I thought I would..." And perhaps she will see me at Christie's wedding. I have a picture in my head of Christie. From the high school yearbook. But which Judy????

When I first came to Seattle, I thought for awhile that I would get a real job. I was, after all, a college graduate, with a magna cum laude degree, and had not as yet totally fucked up my life. My resume' read pretty well, if you ignored the large blank areas. There was an advertisement in the paper for a public relations director (or assistant????) for the Seattle Art Museum. I decided I would do well in that job and sent them a resume'. They thought I sounded good as well, and I got a first interview. I had to borrow a dress and try to do something with my scraggly hair, since I couldn't afford a haircut. I felt half put-together, but more half not. Nervous. It was not a good beginning. And then, on meeting the interview team, I had a shock. One of the Judy's - my old best friend from early high school before she moved away. She was the preacher's daughter, and her family had eventually relocated to Seattle. She had a way about her that always reminded me of a mad chicken - the proverbial wet hen look - and we had drifted apart after the move. Here she was, deciding, she said, to surprise me. I was surprised all right. I totally blew the interview. I couldn't answer any questions. My brain was on the blink. All I could think of, seeing her sitting at the end of the table, sort of glittering at me, was "did my mother write her mother? Does she know I left a perfectly good husband and ran off with a biker and started going to Dead shows?" I can't remember what she said her last name was now, and I haven't seen her since. I didn't get the job. Oh. You already knew that.