It begins on Friday.

Sometimes, it does.

So starts Louisa May Alcott Was Kinda Right, or LMA Was Kinda Right for short (yeah, that's an 'L' over there. It just looks like an 'I.' it's not.), a site created with the express purpose of drawing out and aggregating together the musings, expressions, rants, drawings, textual weavings, and otherwise passionate craftings of and between four not-ficticious, not-so-little sissies.

First things first. Yes. It is fair to admit that a similar exchange has taken place in the past. A wholesomely rousing literary series documentating the interactions of like-named made-up young women occurred at least once before through the novels written by our blog's namesake. Alcott's Jo, Amy, Beth, and Meg were living in some tame and provencial times, but, throughout their matriarchial upbringing, they had adventures. They suffered traumas. They found love and heartbreak and played in the snow a lot. They hung out with Laurie. Oh, the life, the daring-do they had! Ah, Little Women.

Besides watching lots of Little House on the Prairie in our strictly rationed television hours, and being allowed to only read Newberry Award winning books (Beth and Meg got a little more leeway here, but we were all huge geeks), and eating natural peanut butter (we were hippyesque, pretty healthy geeks. Though we still believed Fillet o' Fish was diet food. And we swapped sandwiches when we could at school. And we dreamed of Skippy. Ah, the 70s.), me and my three sisters read Little Women growing up. For me, it was natural to identify the ways of the book sisters with my own sisters of the same name -- or at least to compare and contrast them. i expressly remember connecting one of the actions of the mild mannered book-based Meg to what I knew of the little terror of a Meg in my family when I was young, and thinking, "No, that's certainly not right." And when book Beth died, oh how we all cried. Cried and cried. It will be hard to forget one Christmas day the four of us spent together at the movie theatre watching the Hollywood interpretation played out on the big screen. Tears streamed down Jolie's, Meg's, and my cheeks as we left the theatre clinging to each other. "Beth's dead, Beth's dead!" Beth humored us some, but mostly just walked on shaking her head at our sappiness. (It changes guard somewhat, but Meg was the bleeding heart at the sisterly moments at the time, while Beth was pretty unfettered by emotions overall.).

But, anyway, if i am correct, all of us threw aside the book's offer of order and clarity through a long-dead authorwomen's fictional prophecy ages ago. But though the entireties of the character sketches didn't align too very well with the like-named sis in our real-life bunch, yeah, we share some traits. And, on review, i think each of us would be hard pressed not to admit that some of the dynamics between the four sisters onthe page ring more than familiar. Some stuff was kinda right.

Now, to be clear, though, this blog is not meant to draw direct comparisons to LMA's Women, nor to even mention that foursome ever again. Ideally, it won't do either. Their roles have been played out in providing a springboard to create a space for interaction and exchange between Jolie, Aimee, Elisabeth, and Margaret Mary. With two of us on the east coast, one in the midwest, one in the Rockies, i welcome the assistance of outside others to forge the connections that will bring the four of us together a little more. Even of dearly departed and made up others. Yep. i'll take it. Also, it will be good to note that, through this space, we promise to be less than true to any sort of form expected, deigned, or given to any one or all of us as a birthright. Absolutely assured.

Ok, enough with the background.

Maybe just a little more:

Yeah. We also grew up with the Letter People, the blown-up letter-shaped characters who would just drop by to "visit" us in kindergarden at Alice Gustafson School. The Letter People would "teach" us, conveniently through a Shel Silverstein-esque record that happened to be in the room when they arrived, all about their specific letter through trippy songs spilling wackily mismatched properties the Letter People claimed to have. Like with television commercials, we would jump around rooms singing those songs for weeks after their visits, our eyes wild and glazed with the memory of what absolute fun Mr. or Ms. whateverletter was (or were they Mrs.s? i like to think there were Ms.s). "That last one was DEFINITELY my favorite," we would think each time. But there were no betrayals. Loving them all was just fine. Jealousy was to learn later. It was infatuation at its best -- all-encompassing excitement and engagement and focus. Each Letter Person was so interesting! We were decidedly studious, geeky, kinda healthy, hippiesque, Little Women-named kids, and, wow! There were whole worlds of letter-associated wonders to learn with each Letter Person. And, as we passed them around the room from kid to kid, there was no way to not believe that each of these nearly same-sized plastic sages smiling at us from between ourstretched arms were oh so captivated with us too. They wanted us to learn with them! The wanted to sing with us! They were willing dance partners! Yeah, they promised our little hearts non-stop pint-sized parties. With them around, life was big, possibilities abounded. Oh, high times we had when the Letter People came to visit!

(On a side note -- once, late into the K year, i saw a 4th grader come to our closed classroom door, knock, drop a beloved Letter Person at the room's entryway, and run away down the hall back to his upper grade world. "Mr. P didn't come to visit us!" i thought, "Some kid had to bring him here!" Oh, youth. Oh, innocence. i was unconsolable.)

Anyway, Mr. M with the munchy mouth and all the gang. Good times, good times.

In honor of the exploratory fun and dance and merriment and world-opening awe brought to us by the Letter People, perhaps we can orient this blog of ours alphabetically. We can post an alphabetically-ordered (A to Z) issue to focus our writings on each session. A session can last two weeks. Or until people say "let's change it." We could also allow for expansion into other issues within that series letter while, of course, letting random and unrelated musings on other lettered-thangs people wanna write on come in too. So, like, this week, the writing would be based primarily on an issue that begins with an A, next time B, and so on. Sound good? And, hey! Don't tell me i'm being too bossy. Some order is needed if creativity is to be unleash-ed.

So, we'll go alphabetically with sisters too. i'll choose this week's topic -- Alcoholism. Alcohol works too. Yep. We're not gonna be talkin about the weather here. Well, maybe we will. But not on A! Beth and i talked a bit on the phone this afternoon, and, as our genetic and religious and cultural background goes, it seems an ideal place to start. So, we will. Uh, unless y'all don't want to. Then, I guess, we won't. But i'm thinking positive.

So, generally two weeks per letter. But, to get things a-rollin, maybe we wanna leave time to get everyone joined up and venting and discussing and hammering down the needed symantics on this first one. So, maybe we'll plan on leaving this first letter up for a month. Ok. For now, yeah. Beth will be in charge of calling the B topic for Friday, Dec. 3. Jolie's got C for Dec. 17. Meg's on D for Dec. 31 to welcome in the new year. And so on.

Ok. That's the scoop. So Alcoholism/Alcohol! Here we go!

Now, if i can just figure out out how to get permissions for more than one poster on this... then we'll have things moving along pehr-fectly. Ah. Got it.

Write on, sissies! Write on.

xo
aimee