When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.I want to wish everyone a happy and healthy new year, though we are a magnificent group of unhappy, fucked up writers here. If the shoe fits, if the bee bites, if the netflix series you’re bingeing on is all out of episodes. If everything you write is a sestina about betrayal, if the novel you finished didn’t start, the screenplay you wrote for Julie Christie wound up in the hands of Heather Graham, if everything you didn’t believe in came true, if you found love lacking, the future past, if every time you open your mouth to sing a butterfly dies in the Pacific Northwest — what will you have, how will you live, when will you find the words to say it?
I love you all. Be safe. Write well. Love too much.
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Betsy Lerner 
Happy 2018!
Yes, please: let the New Year bring so much more happiness and contentment than these past 11.75 months! Thanks, Betsy, for giving us misfits a safe harbor.
A fine season to you, Betsy, and many thanks.
To all of you here, may your words come on a clean, sweet wind, and your stories sail full and bye.
Betsy, thanks so much for giving us this space, this place, this haven,
where we can own our craft, hone our craft, be crafty!
To one and all, happiness and peace, laughter and light.
I am ready, ready, ready to shut (slam) the door on 2017. For all the good, there was the bad, frosted with terrible.
May 2018 be The Year, for one and all. Here’s to you, Betsy, and all who come here, often cloaked in angst and writerly woes.
Love you too, Betsy. I began reading The Bridge Ladies yesterday. Thank you for writing it.
And thank all you other writers who write. The gift you give to humanity of yourselves. Of our common plight, our daily blessings and despairs. The ties that bind us together.
I love writing in form, but I have never written even half of a capable sestina. Ah well.
Thanks all you lovely, cussy, fucked up people for being my favorite imaginary friends.
I know!! It is like having imaginary friends!
Peace & love to all.
I agree. To word sphere friends! Or short of that, word sphere in-laws! Well, at least on your chinny chin chin tolerators. So you can connect to something that makes sense and make sense of your work. May we all see those undiscovered elements that pass right through us unnoticed.
I’m just not feeling all the love these days — things are too fucked up and I think they’re just going to get worse. Fa la la la la and all like that.
My new year’s resolution: I won’t be too gleeful when all things Trump explode in 2018.
(I mean when everything comes crashing down around him. Not when he pushes the hot button).
So yes, write and love. What else is there?
As an old woman named after her mother, this post, this place, is a tiny haven. Ring the shit out of the New Year everyone!!
Thanks, Betsy, For The Blessings. The Like To You & More. Tell Bill Clegg I’d Love Him To Accept My Late Friend’s Ms. As A Christmas Present. I’m Back In Touch w/Her Son, After youtube Hack, & He Is Rich Beyond Aravice. We Shall See: In 2018, God Willing!
Very Best,
Sean Andrew
Right back at-cha babe.
We’re here, together, that’s a good thing.
Speaking of good things, where’s my Hershey’s with almonds?
May’18 be everyone’s Hershey’s with almonds
A new typing technique: I lift my fingers in faith and push them down with hope. Now that’s a merry christmas. Technically.