Sent in a plain envelope and written on lined paper. Black ink and quickly written block letters at the beginning, segueing into a relaxed cursive.

Dated October 16

Dear Paul,

Hey, how's it going? Now stop panicking -- I know it's not a phone call or e-mail, but nothing is wrong. Really. Sometimes I just want to write, you know? Feel the paper and take the time to spell stuff wrong if that's how it comes out. Usually my mom gets these… but that's more because she demands letters and hates to check her e-mail.

Lucky you, this time you get to be the recipient of my latest brain dump. Hope you'll forgive me.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I know anyone else who would put up with it. Got you trained up to deal with the Wandering Mind of Gray, and frankly it's too much work to start working on someone else.

Not that there are a lot of choice around here. Oh, the joys of small town life. The college is cool, and the history department (aside from a few old skeletons clinging to their tenure) is great, but, man… small towns suck for making friends that are anything more than surface.

Did you know that there are only three kinds of bars here? There's the Straight Dance Music Meat Market, the Café/Bar Straight Meat Market, and the Roadhouse Style Meat Market. Also Straight, of course. Thank Christ for the GLBT group on campus -- I seriously hate to think that gay kids would live out their four years here without it. So I wander down to the café/bar meat market once in a while and endure the noise, and I wind up getting eyed up by some young thing. And once in a while I get to thinking, 'Hell, I'm only thirty, the age difference isn't that much…' Bu...