in my mailbox

Happy Birthday Victo!

I got the best card ever in the mail yesterday. For some context, it was one of the hottest days here yesterday since probably early September. I open my mailbox and there's a card there from Sarah, one of my best friends from home. There's Snoopy, decked out in a red scarf and green hat, and Woodstock flying in the falling snow. It says "Merry Christmas."

But it's okay, because she crossed out "Merry Christmas" and wrote "Happy Birthday" instead. She also drew sunglasses on Snoopy and Woodstock, added a sun in the corner, and a beach scene in the snow.

Inside, she writes: "I was going to give this to you at Christmas last year but since I got you that Peanuts book I thought this would be too Peanutty. But it's perfect now!"

And just to further my confusion, she devised a "movie mini-game" which consists of artistic renderings of scenes from films that she apparently associates with me. I'm supposed to guess which films they come from. So far I only know the first three (there are five). Number one depicts an angry man with a captain's hat (that Sarah thinks "looks more like a sombrero") and two ships shooting at each other. That's Master and Commander. Number two has an anxious, weary-looking male's face in the middle of the United States map. That's United States of Leland, which I haven't seen, but Ryan Gosling is wonderful, and beautiful. Does anyone else remember that teen TV show Breaker High? He was also on the Mickey Mouse Club. But no, that's not why he's wonderful. Sarah and I saw the movie The Believer together a couple of summers ago, and if you want to know why he's wonderful, watch that. Number three took me awhile. It shows a girl with throbbing feet sitting in what I now realize is a car. One of my favorite scenes from Kill Bill Volume 1, when the Bride was trying to move her toes after she'd gotten out of the hospital. Number four and number five are lost on me. Number four shows a car, three kids, and a couple. There's someone in the car saying "Oops." The female counterpart of the couple is saying, "I hate you," and the male counterpart is saying, "I love you." Number five shows a man whispering to a tearful woman in the midst of crowds of people, cars, and buildings...while I was writing that I just realized that's the last scene of Lost in Translation (she also sent some beautifully mousy pictures of Sofia Coppola). Does anybody have any idea what number four might be?!

All this made me momentarily forget the sincere fear of turning twenty very soon.

Can I just say that I know the most lovably and interestingly strange people in the world?