Happy Valentine's Day. Or Not.

An extremely short break-up letter from Jacqueline Susann to her then (and again later) husband Irving:

Irving, when we were at the Essex House and I had room service and I could buy all my Florence Lustig dresses, I found that I loved you very much, but now that you’re in the army and getting fifty-six dollars a month, I feel that my love has waned.

You've got to wonder why Irving ever agreed to get back together with her. I don't have a copy of the book this letter was collected in, Hell Hath No Fury: Women's Letters from the End of the Affair -- I heard it read aloud on the radio this afternoon -- but I'm tempted. The book was edited by Jezebel's editor-in-chief Anna Holmes. There are a couple more break-up letters from the book, including one written by Rebecca West, quoted here.

Then they played I Don't Want to Get Over You by The Magnetic Fields on the radio and, as I drove past, this huge lanky man in blue jeans and a black leather jacket half-staggered, half-swaggered down the hill in the pale winter sunlight in perfect time to this song. That's one of my favourite things:  I love when random people on the street seem to be walking in time to the song that's playing inside my car and it's even better when the person seems to suit the song. It's so "brown paper packages tied up with string," don't you agree?

Comments

[Ailen]

Ha! That love letter was hilarious. Love's eternal while it lasts!