I wrote a post tonight for Markings that caused me to create a new category, the “I Had a Pork Chop for Dinner” post. The image derives from a short story by Mona Simpson that I first read in 1995. Jenny, the troubled young protagonist, works in the mail room of her college, where she steals letters and packages:
“But I take one letter a Saturday, I make it just one and someone I don’t know. And I keep ’em and burn ’em with a match in the bathroom sink and wash the ashes down the drain. I wait until the end of the shift. I always expect it to be something exciting. The two so far were just everyday letters, just mundane, so that’s all that’s new, I-had-a-pork-chop-for-dinner letters.”
                                    — Mona Simpson, “Lawns”