I opened my letterbox today and there was a brown envelope in there. And of course there was one little snail on the corner. The stupid snails have come back. I have accepted a compromise with them, where I leave junk mail in there as food, and they usually dont touch fresh letters. Deal. No Deal, this immature young snail obviously didnt get the memo from the older wiser snails, dont touch day old mail. Silly loser.

So yes, the envelope. I didn't recognise the handwriting and it had the same stamp my mum had placed on the postcard I also received today. The post card was from some tree top world where she climbed a tall tree. Good on her! NO idea where this place was but hey, my Mum sends me random postcards and that is special in itself. I brought both the items inside and dumped my backpack on the airbed that is currently in my living room. My mate Jon (the one who had been volunteering as a nudist farm in Byron Bay) is crashing at mine until he moves into his new home in a week. One of my lounges was upside down on part of the airbed, I had placed it there, it seemed a great place to dump it so I could dry my washing with it. I just reread that sentence, yeah don't ask.

BACK to the envelope, stop distracting me. I opened it up and instantly knew who it was from. Cal. I met Cal in July when I was in Sydney visiting family and it ended up being a pretty dreary visit, wet weather and a lot of cancellations with friends, on top of me getting the flu. One of the final days, I had been in touch with this fella and he asked me to meet him. My gut said I shouldn't, as he lives in Sydney and I live in Melbourne. What if I liked him, that would be bad, no? Then the other part of my gut won. What if I liked him, that would be good, yes? Caught a cab and our brunch meeting began with me standing next to a roast chicken store, watching a little girl attack her dog with her pink PVC umbrella, and him walking up the street towards me. Hello Cal.

It was a good brunch and I walked away thinking it was a sweet little chapter to have met a nice person. I also felt proud of myself, I was so mature about it, at peace and just content to recognise a connection. But to focus on what life is currently presenting to myself, back in reality in my new home of Melbourne.

So I slid the letter out and unfolded it. Double-sided and in flowing old style cursive writing. The paper was the same colour as the envelope, classic and smooth brown paper. It was him to a C (C being C for.. Cal. People usually say "it is them to a T" but C rhymes with T, clever. On same page?). I saw the back page first and saw him signing off. I grinned. Letters are amazing, they will always beat emails hands down. They are something physical that has traveled to your hands through a postal system, your eyes scanning real paper and ink. You can see the small imperfections (or if its my handwriting, my beautiful illegible doctor handwriting) of the person who wrote it, yet those imperfections become the personality of the letter. The thought flowing from mind to pen and paper, to finally flowing from paper to processing of that thought in the receiver. Ok ok, you get it. Letters=equal amazing in my eyes.

It was a beautiful letter and so well expressed, leaving me standing there just smiling. Smiling felt like such a limitation of how I felt inside.

Somehow I was convinced to dress up at work. And be the only person at work, who was dressed up for the day. Howard Carter was the fellow who discovered the tomb. It was to be 89 years tot he day that he had discovered it in 1922, so I was asked to dress up in 1920's aristocratic clothing for the day. I gotta admit though, I love wearing a suit. And wearing one with tails was bloody awesome. In the end I enjoyed it, more because of the two types of reactions from guests/staff. Either they looked at me and smiled and had curiosity about them as to what on earth I was doing. Then there were many who looked at me, didnt bat an eyelid and continued on their way. Melbourne indoctrinates people to expect crazy dressed up people.

Marissa and I went to Phillip Island. ONLY ever go to Phillip Island if you really really need to see the penguins. There is nothing else on that island that is worth seeing. I repeat, only if you want to be stuck in a tourist trap with thousands of other tourists watching little penguins come up from the beach. Marissa and I didnt even see this, but we DID get to see the Phillip Island Chocolate Factory and also Pirate Putt Putt Golf. We also saw an animal sanctuary through a cafe. One enclosure had a fake goanna in it. We sat and ate "home made pizza" while we took delight in watching tourists walk up, look at the goanna for about a minute and wondering if this goanna was just really sleepy, dead, or fake. Our day was made.

We had a day of hot weather yesterday. A day. Thanks Melbourne.

I was going to put up a video about Doctor Who I was introduced to by my friend Joseph but then thought, no, I wont.

Edwin Jones

Brown Paper