post/mail

this week the postmaster general told congress that any reasonable plan to keep the united states postal service solvent in the coming years would likely involve raising the price of postage at a rate greater than that of inflation and dropping saturday delivery.

drop saturday delivery! i don't generally consider myself particularly attached to custom and habit, though i'm learning to appreciate its comforts, but there's something about the almosteverydayness of the united states postal service that's somehow tangled up in my own wiring. changes in the way the mail is delivered feel like some kind of threat to my own homeostasis. i won't wax on here (i've almost hit my self-imposed blog writing time limit) on the topic of my feelings about and associations with the mail and it's delivery, but i will say i was very nearly moved to read a congressman object to the changes, citing, in part, the loss of "the social component of going down to the post office."

the thing is, though, we send less mail now than we did. and we will send less later than we do now. and there's no point in lamenting it, i guess-- its a way of doing things that's been replaced by other ways of doing things, which also have their value. in a changing world, we all have to change to stay solvent. even 'homeostasis' is just a fancy word for the process of changing to remain the same. but! i'm going to do my own small part to reverse the trend: one letter a week.

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UPDATE!

letter, week one.

update!

letter: week 2