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mamagotcha: please point Linker here after he opens the package I'm going to mail in the morning. I'll ping you to make sure you've seen this if you don't comment.)
Dear Lincoln,
Happy birthday! Sorry I'm a little late with this. I hope you had a good day, and that age 8 is treating you well so far. I hear there was mini-golf--sounds like a good time.
Mom says you've been really into Pokemon lately. That's awesome. The Pokemon card game came out when I was 8, and for a while Cord and Clay and I spent almost all of our time playing Pokemon, talking about Pokemon, trading Pokemon cards, hanging out at the store where they sold Pokemon cards, and saving up to buy more Pokemon cards. I think it was probably my first social fandom, which means it was the first time I got really excited about something that a lot of other people were excited about too, so we could talk about it and be excited together. Being excited about something with other people who are excited about the same thing is really, really fun.
I stopped being so excited about Pokemon after a few years and found other things to be excited about instead, like Harry Potter and motorcycles and learning about how brains work. Right now, I'm really excited about hockey. But even though I wasn't playing Pokemon anymore, I kept all my cards. I'm not even sure why I took them to college with me, since I didn't have very much space to put things. But I'm glad I did, because at my graduation party Cordell and I took them out and played Pokemon. I beat his pants off. It was fun.
I haven't played the game since then. I don't think I even looked at the cards again until today, when I found out that you've started collecting them, so I pulled them out and went through them. Remember I told you I had 418 cards? It turns out I was wrong, and I actually had 470! But now I have less than that, because I made two decks and sent them to you. I made you one deck with all Plant cards and one deck with Water and Fighting cards. There's a nifty Trainer in that deck called Mysterious Fossil that evolves into a couple different Pokemon. If it's hard to figure out, ask Cordell for help. (If he won't play with you, ask him if he remembers how patient the big kids at The End Zone were with him, and I bet he'll do it.)
I had a really good time sitting on my living room floor going through all my cards and building those decks, talking to Clayton on the phone about Pokemon. Did you know Clay was a Pokemon for Halloween one year? He was Sandshrew. That was about 13 years ago. We talked about how these cards are older than you are, and we talked about the neighbor kids we used to trade Pokemon cards with, and talking to Clayton about Pokemon made me remember how excited we used to be. It was cool to remember that, so thank you for making me think about it.
Maybe in a while I'll send you some of my holographic rares, too. It's kind of silly that I'm worried about bad things happening to them, because they're not really worth all that much money. Sometimes people are silly about things that are important to them, though, and my cards used to be really, really important to me. But they're supposed to be played with, they're not supposed to be kept hidden on a bookshelf. So if you keep being excited about Pokemon, and you promise to take good care of them, I'll try to stop being silly and let you have them.
For now, I hope these will keep you busy. Have fun!
Love,
Julia
mamagotcha: please point Linker here after he opens the package I'm going to mail in the morning. I'll ping you to make sure you've seen this if you don't comment.)Dear Lincoln,
Happy birthday! Sorry I'm a little late with this. I hope you had a good day, and that age 8 is treating you well so far. I hear there was mini-golf--sounds like a good time.
Mom says you've been really into Pokemon lately. That's awesome. The Pokemon card game came out when I was 8, and for a while Cord and Clay and I spent almost all of our time playing Pokemon, talking about Pokemon, trading Pokemon cards, hanging out at the store where they sold Pokemon cards, and saving up to buy more Pokemon cards. I think it was probably my first social fandom, which means it was the first time I got really excited about something that a lot of other people were excited about too, so we could talk about it and be excited together. Being excited about something with other people who are excited about the same thing is really, really fun.
I stopped being so excited about Pokemon after a few years and found other things to be excited about instead, like Harry Potter and motorcycles and learning about how brains work. Right now, I'm really excited about hockey. But even though I wasn't playing Pokemon anymore, I kept all my cards. I'm not even sure why I took them to college with me, since I didn't have very much space to put things. But I'm glad I did, because at my graduation party Cordell and I took them out and played Pokemon. I beat his pants off. It was fun.
I haven't played the game since then. I don't think I even looked at the cards again until today, when I found out that you've started collecting them, so I pulled them out and went through them. Remember I told you I had 418 cards? It turns out I was wrong, and I actually had 470! But now I have less than that, because I made two decks and sent them to you. I made you one deck with all Plant cards and one deck with Water and Fighting cards. There's a nifty Trainer in that deck called Mysterious Fossil that evolves into a couple different Pokemon. If it's hard to figure out, ask Cordell for help. (If he won't play with you, ask him if he remembers how patient the big kids at The End Zone were with him, and I bet he'll do it.)
I had a really good time sitting on my living room floor going through all my cards and building those decks, talking to Clayton on the phone about Pokemon. Did you know Clay was a Pokemon for Halloween one year? He was Sandshrew. That was about 13 years ago. We talked about how these cards are older than you are, and we talked about the neighbor kids we used to trade Pokemon cards with, and talking to Clayton about Pokemon made me remember how excited we used to be. It was cool to remember that, so thank you for making me think about it.
Maybe in a while I'll send you some of my holographic rares, too. It's kind of silly that I'm worried about bad things happening to them, because they're not really worth all that much money. Sometimes people are silly about things that are important to them, though, and my cards used to be really, really important to me. But they're supposed to be played with, they're not supposed to be kept hidden on a bookshelf. So if you keep being excited about Pokemon, and you promise to take good care of them, I'll try to stop being silly and let you have them.
For now, I hope these will keep you busy. Have fun!
Love,
Julia
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 11:55 am (UTC)This is one of the hardest lessons to learn. This is why I take my great-grandfather's 100-year old delicate-pages Kol Nidre machzor (a special prayer book for the night service that begins Yom Kippur) out of its slipcase, bring it to synagogue, and pray at least one prayer from it every year. And why I held my breath and handed it over to my then-ten-year-old son last year, so he could do the same.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-06 01:07 pm (UTC)B) Lincoln cannot be 8. No.
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Date: 2012-08-06 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-09 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-10 08:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-10 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 08:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-11 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-08-12 03:44 am (UTC)