on my way home from work this morning, i stopped at the PO and had a wonderful good-mail day.  technically, it yesterday was but i'm not a stickler.  i received a postcard from Maria in Russia, and a note from my friend The Contessa.   i wish i had had the time to scan the card she sent, it was very colourful and gilt peacock.    i'm encouraging her to move closer to home.  she's accomplished all she can with what she has to work with down in Meth Alley and tho' she wouldn't have as many opportunities she would be closer to her people and she's missing them.   i've told her we've sufficient fab'lusness that tho' we would be extremely taken with genteel bonhomie we could make the scene.....doesn't take too much money to enjoy good food, good tea,  good books, and good company. 

another young'un has killed himself......14, i think.   a friend of mine posits that the isolation so many of us experience (is it definitive of the 'gay experience?) prevents mentoring and these children don't have the advantage of older folks who know what it is like to provide REAL understanding and guidance.  now, i do believe he's right, to an extent.  i was fortunate to have had older queer-folk to look after me when i was a young, tender, succulent chicken.  Auntie Dave,  Aunt Buck, Madame (a really big drag queen), Ms. Linda, and Delli sort of kept an eye on us youngsters...and a sharper eye and a stronger hand on the chickenhawks.
then, we had the Venerables......really old queens and dykes from the generation before Dave, Buck, et. al.:  Mr. Harper, Miss Fall, The Judge.  i am grateful that myself, my cousins (the queer ones), and The Contessa had elders......it helped, a lot.