Today I decoded a love letter, of sorts.
On one of the forums I frequent, a woman had posted a very old photograph of a young man she didn't know, and a scan of the back of the photograph which was absolutely covered in coded letters. She said she didn't know how old the photograph was, exactly, or who the young man was, but she wondered if anyone could de-code it.
It took me about four hours, but once I realised it was a simple substitution code and that the word I could've sworn was "and" was actually "him", it went nicely.
The message was something to the effect of a woman who loved the man in the photo talking about how he knew she loved him and treated her terribly. It's the sort of thing you can find here on D-land if you go looking- terribly vauge, terribly teenaged emo angst- she actually writes "O my love!" at one point.
Sent this back to the woman, who seems to think now that this must be a photograph of her great grandfather. Well, that was some relationship. She intimated that they may have not been married, and that her grandfather was raised by an aunt and uncle.
I recently found books and books of photographs at my grandfather's house. He did go to the trouble to write down who most of the people were, but, not always in a helpful way.
I know that Granny is his paternal grandmother, but not everyone would. He also doesn't give dates, because he knows them. The problem with that, of course, is that he's not around to tell anyone what the dates were anymore.
Documenting the past is such a difficult thing to do once the past is gone. I'm always convinced that The Boy's family must have something to hide because she seems convinced that genealogy is useless unless you find a claim to money.
Her sister does genealogy, but, stupidly, only sideways and in the present, not very far backwards. My father knows more about TB's family than any actual members of the family because I spent some time trying to find out. They won't tell me anything more since I found out their mother's family was Catholic. I guess they liked to live with the belief that they were always Lutherans, both sides. Nope. His mother's family was Catholic, but there was a certain faction of that family who were present at the founding of Nauvoo. Take that as you will.
The Boy's father's side is difficult because the only people who really know are getting too old to remember anymore.
It's astonishing to me because my whole life I've always known who my family is. At least my father's family, not as much about my mother's, but there are plenty of things I'm aware of that my cousins are not (my mother's family tree has some rings in it, not so very far back either). I know who we are and where we came from and how we got here.
TB, on the other hand, couldn't hardly tell you his grandparent's names, never mind further than that. My father has worked out that my mother's family is distantly related to both sides of his father's family. (I'm pretty certain that's the relationship. I can't get a totally straight answer, because when I bring this up, I'm supposed to try to weasel more information out of people who won't tell me much.)
I suppose this is why Friend Stimpy is so conscious of her Armenian heritage. It's her father's side of the family which she knows little about, besides the Armenian thing, and she knows a lot about that. I've always thought it was just a little strange, because Armenian isn't a common nationality in the Midwest, not like it is in California. But I can understand that she has a need to know who she is, and where she is.
I suppose, really, we all do.
I read David Sedaris's Naked the other day. I liked the beginning. I held through in hopes that the rest of it would be as good as the first three or four chapters, and it's not.
I found myself thinking that I really didn't like this pretentious self important guy who really didn't have a lot to uphold those tendencies. There are people who have every reason to be pretentious, and this guy, um, no. While he'd probably be an interesting guy to talk to for half an hour or so, I wouldn't want to have to say I knew him really well. Something about him just struck me as, well, like I say, pretentious.
Now I'm reading American Gods, because someone finally returned it to the library. It's the last Neil Gaiman they've got, and I have to find some way to get hold of Stardust before the movie comes out. Saw the trailer for it during The Simpsons Movie yesterday (which was great- see it, stay for the credits) and decided it was going to be interesting, though maybe a little shallow.
I think after this I'll have to move on to Terry Pratchett, although the library does have a copy of Starship Titanic, which I haven't read in years.
This is the most modern literature I've ever read in one stretch in my whole life.