Too many, too short

Letter to friend about today's telegraphic communication style (the writer had sent me a couple of pieces of writing):

dyed-eye:

nice piece. you painted a vivid concise picture about your finding the value in living in Florida. your highwaymen piece was nice too. was the highwaymen piece a blurb for the newspaper?

the cellphone call that was breaking up was me saying how pleasant it was to get an e-mail with something to read in it beyond the one-liner twitter-speak communication that is fashionable these days.

i mentioned how i have been wading through old letters from my uncle from the 1940s and 50s, and how full and well-written they were, even though the subject matter was merely day-to-day stuff (getting relocated to a new base for the Korean War, the yuckiness of the army chow, etc). It wasn't as though my uncle was Mr. Writer; he was just another soldier from that era, communicating in the way you had to communciate in those days, when long-distance calls were a big deal.

i saw some letters online from civil war soldiers. Wow! They could write, and in ink, and without crossing out any words or sentences (of course, they weren't ALL good). again the subject matter was mundane, but so more full and satisfying than twitter-speak and facebook-speak.

twitter-speak has its uses, but also its drawbacks.

i mentioned in the dropped cellphone call how i am supposing the pendulum will swing from the telegraphic communications now in vogue back to missives of (at least) a bit more length and complexity and subtlety. i am supposing that at some point, this mass-exploration of brevity and volume in communications will recede back somewhat to being longer and less-frequent. Just a guess. I am getting weary of communications being virtual office memos. It has its place, of course.

i know we ALL are super-busy, and don't have time to write 1940s-style letters, but forwarding your prose pieces is a damn-nice substitute.

not the right time to fly to Fla., but it is on my mind. I think that I have been accumulating vacation pay (i have to check on this). Our organization that I work for is still very young, and "hooking up" to various government agencies. I know that eventually I will get vacation time, but I don't know if that is accessible yet. I am all-but-certain that vacation time is accruing.

all the best,

Purple "soul in a skeleton" Neon Lights
[actual named replaced by "Purple Neon Lights"]
.