It’s been a rather trying time as far as ‘Mail Time’ goes. It all started a few weeks ago when I noticed that two weeks had gone by with no mail. I called Canada Post and learned that my mail had been suspended (which would suck for anyone, but as a freelance writer it struck a particular fear into my heart. My cheques! My rejection letters! My copy of Persona 4!). It seems that a few weeks ago a postal worker had been ‘jumped’ while delivering mail so to keep the mail carriers ‘safe’ they had changed the ‘rules,’ which meant that they were no longer delivering mail to mail boxes tucked away in the ass end of homes. Bleh.
But it’s all better now. Over the weekend I moved my mail box to a less ambushable spot, and yesterday when I saw my local mail carrier I chased her down and dragged her over to where I had moved the mail boxes, all while telling her I was a perfectly normal person who would never ever jump her, I just really needed to get mail. I don’t know if I reassured her or just scared her more, but it worked! I received two packages in the mail today.
First one was from Italy. It was three copies of ‘Perche nulla vada perduto’, an Italian anthology containing the Italian translation of my story, ‘You First Meet the Devil at a Church Fete,’ (or, in Italian, ‘ La prime volta l’hai incontrato in parrocchia’). Seeing a story that I wrote translated into a language that I have next to no knowledge of is sublimely surreal. I can ‘read’ my story because I know it so well, going through and understanding it all just because I have the original English pretty much memorized (though I gotta admit, some lines sounded a lot better in Italian).
The other package was a Christmas mix-tape from my friend and complete Christmas fiend Amelia! Whoo-hoo!
Tags: Mail Time, Short stories, Writing