i do believe the usps is participating in some sort of legal form of price-gouging

do you realize that the price of stamps is going up...again?!?! 

when i heard this news i was not angered.  rather, i was sad. sorrowful.  mournful, perhaps.  because i know that these ridiculous prices are going to force me to do even less letter-writing. forget about the white family christmas card for 2008.  i'm moving to "all email, all the time". 

which, although i love email, is simply not as good as a hand-written letter.  letter-writing has become such a lost art.  and i love everything about it.  don't even get me started on the stationery.  i love stationery.  i love to buy it.  i love to use it.  i love to give it as gifts. stationery is BEAUTIFUL to me.  so much so that jeremy has banned me from two of my favorites: papyrus and crane.  no longer am i allowed to enter their hallowed grounds.

he did, however, let me purchase crane invitations for harrison's birthday. (online.  not in the store).  because they were on clearance for $5.99.  he's so generous. 

oh, and the pens.  i refuse to write a letter with none other than the micro-fine-point-black-sharpie.  nothing else will do.

i have a box of letters...some of which were written/received back in 8th grade.  i cherish many letters that were written in college, back and forth with one dear friend each summer.  nothing was better (or funnier) than getting one of her letters in the mail.  and i cherish the letters that my cousin has compiled - back and forth between my grandmother and grandfather while he was off at war in WWII.  i have printed out all the emails (and saved all the letters) that jeremy and i sent to one another while we were getting to know each other long distance.  they are precious memories to me.  and i always save the hoards of christmas cards we receive each year.  at least until the next christmas comes around.  

simply put, letters are a keepsake to me.  

but, at $.43 a pop, i just don't know that i can swing it. 

is anyone else feeling the pain of the terrible dichotomy of really wanting to hang on to the beautiful tradition of a hand-written letter...yet being forced to go electronic???