By ALICE SARMIENTO

I have a nasty habit of randomly picking up ephemera off the street. If certain things that catch my eye seem suspect, I just stare at them for a long time, maybe I’ll take a picture. If they’re okay, and by okay I mean disease-free, I’ll pick them up and stick them in my wallet or between the pages of a book I’m reading. An ex-boyfriend used to keep a watchful eye on me when we would commute together, just to make sure I wasn’t picking up other people’s trash.My doses of anal retentiveness are unnatural and I have to  periodically clean out my wallet, my bag, and my drawers of these random finds.

I found a love letter.

Postcard from Dan to Yeong, forgot where I found it.

… and this is the front.

There’s no address or postmark, which makes you wonder if he even planned to send it Ms. Yeong. Maybe he didn’t know her address, maybe be didn’t even know her full name and was just unloading excess vacation baggage. Some people can be huge wusses when it comes to dealing with attraction, but I still harbor hammy romantic notions of love honed on movies like Serendipity and Say Anything. WWJCD? (What Would John Cusack do?)

So this note written on the back of a coffee shop receipt isn’t a total failure in my eyes, just a sadder attempt at posting a missed connection.

Translation: If I had less shame, I would have asked you a long time ago. Haha, "I'm shy."

Mild to medium level of sad bordering on pathetic, but don’t pretend you haven’t been there. It’s just unfortunate that some people can’t articulate it as well as you might have.

Some person who lives in "Choco Chips" received from (Choco)/Jer, at Cafe Noriter

…and the back.

I need a little help with this one, were these people famous at some point? Or was there something about the 1950s that made everyone go the extra mile to look like a movie star?

Either way, this picture made its way into the last decade, fell out of someone’s wallet or purse, onto the sidewalk, and found its was into my hands. And now it’s here because you just don’t get this kind of glamour and polish anymore. In this day and age, you’re more likely to find stuff like this:

That's me. That's my friend Brian. Don't be judgmental!

So if these people weren’t famous, hence it wasn’t a publicity shot (picture A, not the LOL MOM Prom Queen photos uploaded to facebook), then you get a clue of just how much work falling in love was. Ask your grandparents about what they did, what their dates were like, and they’ll probably be able to recount them for you because they took each other to places that would still find space in their 90-year-old memories. It makes you wonder about the validity of all this beta-male crap that involves liking you for who you are, sweatpants and all. Because Judd Apatow, why should someone take you as you are when you can be Don Draper?

My favorite find to this day is a leather bound diary with entries dating from 1977. I didn’t find it on the street though, my mom found it for me as one of the perks of having access to airport security and left-behind baggage.

The penmanship changes from page to page, so there was probably some kind of dialogue going in these pages. IMs before IMing was natural to the point of instinctive as a basis of human interaction. You want to get something done nowadays, you do it through a browser and a length of wire.

These guys had a book.

Unfortunately, I can’t understand…whatever language this is. So who knows, there’s probably nothing really special going on here.

I’ve had this diary for a little over half a decade, and it’s now half-filled with my thoughts and my own little conversations (with myself), alongside the ideas flowing from the pens of those who owned it over three decades ago.

But look, a birthday greeting ( of sorts, I think)! So at least we know they cared enough to greet you “Happy Birthday!” Unless people in the 70s just randomly broke into song, which is completely believable. Hasn’t anyone seen Hair?

By the way, translations are welcome.

This Sunday, I have a Valentine’s date with a bottle of whisky and my pajamas, probably throwing in a good chick flick (or two, or five), but I’m trying to keep the cynicism at bay when it comes to whether or not true love–or at the least, sincere attraction–still exists. Why even doubt it when it randomly turns up on the backs of old receipts.

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Alice is a managing editor of New Slang. This year, she has resolved to replace envy with fanmail and stop shoving her feelings in other people’s faces. She posts random songs here and overshares here.