Take this job and shove it

OK, I'm being a leetle dramatic, but this work week was just rude! To commemorate, this week's postcard is career-oriented.

Mailed April 28:

I love that the embodiment of "prestige" is wearing a snappy bowler hat and smirking so hard that rays of smugness emanate from your head.

Frankly my dear...(vaults #5)

I'm feeling lazy, so here's an old postcard:

(postmark 29 December 1985)

"J!
I LOVE the tape, especially the two songs by the Flying Lizards and Yello. (Believe it or not!) Chicago is very cold, but it has good chinese food. Everyone in this hotel is an English professor, seriously. I've never seen so many wire-rimmed glasses in all my born days. I purchased some red patent leather boots, but who knows whether or not I will wear them. Auf wiedersehn, MAGS"

I grew up in a small town where everyone pretty much knew everyone and anyone you went to school with could be described as a friend at some point. This girl and I had been sorta kinda friends in elementary school, but somehow reconnected for a brief time in high school, even though I was going to a school in a different town by then. We probably would have been good friends if I'd stayed in my original school, two awkward smartypants new wave freaks with a love of unknown music and an aversion to spritz and Jams(tm) and other '80s staples. I wonder what she is up to now.

Sent on 4/20...if you know what I mean by 4/20

Salvador Dali's work is probably more associated with LSD than marijuana, but this was mailed Friday:

Dali Atomicus, Philippe Halsman, 1948

I was able to go to the Theatre-Museum Dali in Figueres, Spain in November - it was fantastic, as expected. Of course this photograph was not there, since it was not Dali's work, but I've always loved this picture and how it captures Dali so well.

In some ways I regret how accessible the answers to everything are these days...but that didn't keep me from looking up how this picture came to be. Here is a version where you can see some of the effects employed to get this shot....but the cats were really thrown!

Dead Letter Office #1

Since I so narrowly avoided adding another half-written/never sent postcard to my pile, I thought I should do penance by posting one I wrote to my sister a lifetime ago that she never received.

Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait with Braid, 1941

"23 February 1992
Dear A -
Hola! After our talk last weekend, I've been very curious how your talk with your advisor went and if you solved the mystery of the missing cat vomit. I sent in my financial aid form but I am dreadfully afraid that it is too late, which means I can't go to school until Fall. How typically irresponsible of me, right? I am quite angry at myself over this, but oh well. What else is new? We will have a niece or nephew very soon! xo J

Hi MEEP + CINE!"

Oh dear.....I'd love to muse about the missing cat vomit (we've all been there, right?), but I am already imagining the reply my mom is going to leave about this. You see, in February 1992 I was preparing to return to college after an extended sabbatical, and as I feared, I had sent my financial aid form in too late to qualify for spring quarter aid. But I didn't wait until Fall quarter to return. I honestly don't remember if I knew when I flew back to Ohio in April that I had missed out on financial aid or maybe I was hoping they'd just give it to me if they saw I was serious about my education (this seems more likely), but let's just say there was an unpleasant conversation halfway through the quarter when a bill arrived at my mother's house. And that I never missed a financial aid deadline again.

Love you, mom!!! Sorry I was so flaky 20 years ago! xoxoxo

Bonus Post

My Awesome Sister (tm) sent me this link today. I added the Post Secret site to my list of links, but I love this presentation as well. It's a bit lengthy, but worth it.

Here's some truth: I've still got two voicemails that my grandmother left me over a decade ago. She's still alive, but she has never called me that much so I've kept them. One is her singing me happy birthday and relaying birthday wishes from her and my grandfather (who died in 2006). This made me go listen to them again. Good times.

I also have a voicemail from my neighbor circa 2002 letting me know that my cat had gotten locked outside by mistake. Said cat is freaking out in the background, which is pretty hilarious. That feisty grimalkin passed away last year, so I guess I do have a voicemail to remember the dead.

Tax day posting, part 2

Uncle Sam has all my precious financial data for the year, so let's see what I was doing this weekend besides filing my taxes.

Mailed April 14:

Two of my favorite activities: kittens and pinball! What's that? You say kittens are not an "activity"? Come to my house and you will understand the truth...

And now for a confession...

Gah! Falling back into bad habits...I started writing this postcard back on March 10. I wrote a sentence and addressed it, lost track, and it sat on my table until I shoved it into a pile for a few weeks. But I love this postcard - I've had it since high school - so I couldn't leave it sitting there, shaming me with inertia. I finally got it together and sent it off on Saturday. PHEW!

Mailed April 15:

It's another of the so-called "naughty" postcards. This one reminds me a bit of Lori Nix's work. I adore her photographs. Her earlier pieces are a bit more like this - an ordinary scene with something dark and wrong that you don't necessarily see at first glance. Her more recent work is larger scale and usually combines the gorgeous decay of abandoned civilization and the enduring power of nature.

So, did you get your taxes filed on time?

Ready for tax day?

It's April 15, but thanks to the wonder of Sundays and a wandering holiday called Emancipation Day*  celebrated on April 16 in Washington DC, US taxes aren't due until Tuesday April 17. Sounds like a great excuse to procrastinate a little more and get caught up. I've been busy writing while I've avoided posting, so this may end up as two posts.

Mailed April 6:

This is another wooden postcard, sent for a friend's birthday. I found a shop that has some more of these, but I didn't see any designs I liked. I then looked up the company, Spitfire Girl, and you can create your own design for wooden postcards. They're not cheap, but it's kind of cool.

Also mailed April 6:

I recently picked up a booklet of slightly naughty postcards involving little figurines. This is one of the more fun ones....it looks like they're part of some new dance craze, a flatulent watusi perhaps. Can you honestly say that wouldn't be a laugh riot? I can't....but then I'm very in touch with my inner 12 year old boy.

Mailed April 12:

Janet Flanner, photo by Berenice Abbott, 1927

Getting a bit more highbrow, this is a photograph from the Hide/Seek exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum I went to two weeks ago. This is a great exhibit highlighting the evolution of sexual identity over a span of 150 years. There weren't postcards of many of my favorite pieces, but I liked this one a lot (and you'll note on the TAM page that it's the lead image). The show runs through June 10, so I encourage anyone in the area to go see it.

I've got a few more to post, but they will have to wait for the next post.....hopefully not such a long wait this time.

*read about Emancipation Day here...I never knew about it before this tax day business, although I know about Juneteenth (as it's called in Texas). Interesting that it is celebrated on different days in different areas - I wonder why it isn't a federal holiday for the whole country.

Life, it interferes.

ugh, I am so behind! Last week I figured that even if I wasn't posting, there was some mail happening, but I have to confess the post box has been boring this week. There's even a layer of dust on my postcard-scanning laptop. Adding insult to injury, my last posted correspondence went awry - those show postcards usually are full of info about the shows, rather than being meant for personal messages, so I tape a piece of paper over them with my message. I guess I didn't do a very good job on that one, because half of my message was missing upon delivery - and you just know it was probably the most poignant and awe-inspiring message a person has ever written to a friend. le sigh.

In better news, I got this postcard last week from my friend Sandra in London:

The Large Cat by Cornelis Visscher

"I promise this cat will behave", she writes, in reference to my kitten who is quite sweet but is currently a weapon of mass destruction about my house. J'adore!

Mailed March 28:

sent to a friend who attended a fundraiser for the local dance studio with me.


I also got some new postcards to send at a few art exhibits I've seen recently. Now, though, I need to write up a few to send before this week is over!