Dear Kate Baer,
I’d like to be your pen pal. I realize this is a relatively delusional request because between the two of us we have six children, several under six years of age. But I come from a time before there was The Internet and I just like the idea of writing letters. Although I have learned about you entirely from using The Internet, you seem like the kind of person who writes about the thoughts I like to think. Also I almost tinkled when I read some of your humorous lists. There’s a lot of tinkling at our house, sadly some of it from my postpartum body.
But I don’t want you to charge rashly into being my friend so here are some reasons we should not be pen pals:
1. You have too many friends. This will never happen to me because even though I am a decently social introvert, I’m pretty sure my sister is my only close friend. She is, however, an unmarried millennial and I have the leaving-the-house stamina of an 85 year old woman, so sometimes we aren’t able to connect.
2. You have too many pen pals. Again, this will never happen to me because I have only one pen pal, and she is you. Hopefully. And also my sister, any time she goes on vacation.
3. You hate writing with pens. But really that shouldn’t stop us. Try mechanical pencils, lately I find them very satisfying and also they hold up to being tinkled on. I have a small journal written in Pilot G2 .7 (this was before my life and penmanship were vastly improved by switching to Pilot G2 .5) and much of its contents are now lost due to the output of someone’s undiapered bottom. Not my own, to be clear.
4. You are too busy writing your book. But really, if you’re writing a whole book, what’s one letter more? Even a postcard would be fine. “Dear Megan, just sitting here working on my book thinking of you. Hope you’re writing lots these days. Don’t forget to put a diaper on that baby’s bum. Your friend and child rearing mentor, Kate Baer.”
5. I don’t watch Netflix. I used to go on benders, but I have successfully weaned myself. A raging two year long case of postpartum OCD has assisted me in making good choices about television: if the show contains drama or violence or childhood flashbacks or has a theme song, I won’t sleep for a week. Let me tell you, my writing productivity has skyrocketed!
I sure do want to get to know some women writers. All the writers I know are men. Men are good for many things, they are wonderful creatures, but collaborating with women is surely the wave of my future. Our future? I write poetry too, but as one would expect I have a different voice than yours. One night a few weeks ago my friend Emma sent me a poem of yours for no particular reason, she just thought I’d like it, and I stopped in my tracks and sat for an hour on the uncomfortable blue IKEA stool that is sticky with congealed pancake batter, reading and guffawing and being so happy to discover your existence. And now here we are.
I probably wouldn’t ask to be pen pals if you lived in LA or Portland or Austin but since I also live in Pennsylvania, albeit on the other side of the state – and it sure is a wide one! – the thought did occur to me that if we are good at being pen pals, we might be good in-person friends too. If the letters go well, I will probably put our communique up on my blog, which is read by only my mom and my friends Emma, Alison, and, for some reasons I don’t quite understand, Dan. And also my sister. (My husband says “You can say whatever you want about me” when I check certain stories with him, so I do, because I don’t think he reads it.) Then if we get to be such good friends, like beyond me just sharing humorous, slightly self-deprecating anecdotes about my life, we could take our friendship offline and into the real world, perhaps stealing away from our people and their demands to meet up at that rest stop on I-80 with the big trees to eat Cinnabons and walk in circles for some exercise. Do you eat Cinnabons? I don’t usually but boy do they always smell good. I would be willing to try one with a new friend.
Well, by now you should have a good idea whether you think I’m a lunatic or just a regular mom who wants to use her brain more but uh-oh, it has been fried by toddlers. I look forward to your response but if you’re anything like me, you might not get to it for about six weeks, so I am not holding my breath. In the meantime I’ve got some people to diaper.
Your pen pal, hopefully,
Megan Lindsey
