i read this book once, a great book, and I read so much of course I can’t remember the title, but I know it will turn up again eventually (I seem to have lost a couple of boxes of books, in the move) and then…….. haHA! See? People think my rambling is just so much… rambling… but no. It has a purpose. And that purpose is: I just remembered the name of the book. “Hope Floats”? Nope. That was the book they made into a movie with what’s-her-name and I wasn’t into the book, or the movie. The title is:

“Sorrow Floats,” by Tim Sandlin

From Publishers Weekly: Able storytelling and an engaging cast of dysfunctional modern American pilgrims animate this winning tale of the road. When tipsy, 23-year-old Maurey Pierce Talbot accidentally drives through her Wyoming town with her baby on the roof of her car, she realizes just how far she has sunk since her father’s death left her distraught and almost unhinged. (She writes him daily picture postcards, knowing full well he is gone but unable to come to terms with her loss.) After attempting suicide and being thrown out by her philandering husband, she meets Lloyd and Shane, two recovering alcoholics who have devised a scheme to smuggle Coors beer to the East Coast. Longing to be reunited with her eight-year-old daughter Shannon in North Carolina (Sandlin chronicled Shannon’s birth in Skipped Parts), Maurey decamps on an unlikely odyssey, pulling a horse trailer full of beer behind a broken-down old ambulance, sipping Yukon Jack from the bottle as her companions search for AA meetings. Maurey is not yet ready to deal with her alcoholism or her reluctance to be loved, but the hardships of the road and the bonds that unite this group of refugees (others join them along the way) will change that. Maurey’s wry, cocksure voice evokes both her cowgirl roots and the novel’s ’70s setting. Despite the bickering, sarcasm, cynicism and personal tragedy that season the lives of his colorful, credible characters, Sandlin fashions a convincing tale of redemption.

She writes postcards to her dead dad. I’m telling you — I read that and I thought, that is one helluva good and crazy idea. I keep meaning to do it, but it will have to be just the right postcard. And no, I’m not going to do like Steve’s ex-girlfriend and write teeny-tiny in order to fit more writing on them. (I was snooping through his stuff cleaning our room once and found a card from her. I tried to read it, in case there was anything sexy written on it? Oh, please, like you’ve never done that, gimme a break.

But the writing was so teeeeeeeeeeny and cramped that I couldn’t even read it. When Steve finally came in the room I was all, What the hell?!?? and threw the card at him.

“I can’t even read this, dude!”

Like it was his fault she didn’t know how to write on stationery and stuff it in an envelope instead of going the postcard route.

I guess I wouldn’t need to put stamps on them, if I started mailing my dad cards. Anyway, it does sound cathartic to me. And a little weird, but who cares?

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, my dad’s birthday, and… the weather… I give you three re-runs. Cuz apparently I don’t need to write the guy postcards when I can just write posts for him on Thee Blog. I should call it, Notes to My Dead Dad instead of Wacky Mommy, in all honesty.

this one

and

that one

and…

the best one.

peace.

— wm