In the mail!

Hey! Check out this fab postcard that arrived this weekend from my favorite flamenco dancer, Melinda.

She's an artist living in Sevilla (of course), but she comes to teach and perform in the States and particularly the Pacific Northwest frequently. I'm looking forward to her upcoming show in September at the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theatre. If you're in the area, please come! In the meantime, here's a shameless plug for her awesome work;

Baile!

random Wednesday morning

Up at 5:45am for no reason. Why not send a postcard?

"Smoking Kills"

It really does!

*yawn* now excuse me, I gotta get ready for work...

From the Vaults #7 - Collaborative Correspondence

Since I posted the group postcards from my trip last night, it only seems fair to post the inspiration...

(postmark April 23, 1991)

"Hello Miss J! Congratulations on a successful escape from the midwest! Do you realize how fat [My Awesome Sister aka MAS] is making your cat? If you don't send for her soon you'll have to pay extra for the shipping because of all that extra weight. We miss you! Love, AC

Your evil cat just attacked AC & AC attacked your cat. Whose blood is it? MAS is in the process of feeding us. I am happy. xxoo John.

I'm twenty nine, two days ago and still I don't understand the humor of this company or I still don't understand English. Anyway they look funny and I enjoy them. The strange and funny company and I miss you and your funny hair - Gio

Hey J!! We're having a quiche and chocolate cake dinner with some bizarre CDs brought by Gio + John. We are only missing you for a perfect meal! Write soon and tell us how you are... xo, A"

If only I had more font options to truly capture the wonder of this postcard.

In the fall of 1990, I house-sat (aka slacked) for my sister for 2 months while she was working on her graduate studies elsewhere. Her friends kindly adopted me (possibly because she made them), which was good because otherwise I may never have left the apartment. We went on a scavenger hunt, saw Social Distortion and Sonic Youth, frequented a great Irish pub, watched an opera on tv (don't remember which one, but I'm pretty sure it was Mozart), and had many dinners. Soon afterward, I made my big move to Seattle, and this card was a welcome reminder of friends before I'd had any time to make my own in a new city (besides Dang Ramona, who was already here).

I never did get my cat back. I decided to go back to college, and begged my sister to hang on to her for a little while longer, which ended up being until 2008, when the Meepster finally trilled her last song. This is one of the many reasons that My Awesome Sister has a fancy title.

Derailed by Derecho in DC

I was visiting our nation's capitol last week, aka The Swamp of It All, and in delightful anticipation, I sent a friendly little windstorm in an effort to expand the vocabularies of the people and spice things up a bit. Unfortunately, this was my first time working with one of these things, and I overdid it a leetle bit. Sorry, people of DC!

I did manage to ensure that our house was the only one in the neighborhood that didn't lose power (and thank goodness - it was 98F with a heat index of 110, y'all!!), but our small sacrifice was living without internet. On the positive side, it made for more conversation, reading, and most importantly: writing.

Sent July 1:

from the series "I grew up" - Keisha Scarville, 1997

I arrived in DC with an agenda: group postcards. Since I was visiting friends I've known since college, I figured we should write to a few of our other friends who could not join us (even though I offered to bring one of them along in my carry on bag). First up! A postcard to Dang Ramona, who kindly gave me a ride to the airport at an ungodly hour of the morning and hopefully had enough gas left to get to a station and make it back home. It should be noted that one of our party was a little unclear on the concept of postcards and wanted to write where the address goes. Or under the stamp.

I know I wrote down the text from this postcard before I sent it, because it was pretty cool and I knew it would be illegible on my crappy cell phone camera. Can I find this anywhere now? Non.

ETA: Found it!

"When I got my first set of keys I felt free. I thought I could leave the house whenever I wanted (which wasn't true). The first time I used them I couldn't figure out which keys went to which door. even though I had keys, I couldn't get in. Later my dad taped numbers to my keys. Each number represented a door."

Sent July 2:

Solo scribbling to My Awesome Sister (tm). It was cool enough in the morning (a mere 85 degrees) for me to sit out on the porch with my coffee and a borrowed cat, a perfect set up for sisterly correspondence. I could actually feel when it went over 90, which made me scurry back into the AC cave.

Sent July 5:

Another group effort, this one headed to the Motor City. There were more of us to write this time, and I was mean and wouldn't let anyone eat the mountains of Delicious Pork (and corn, and mashed potatoes, and grilled zucchini, and homemade guacamole, and...you get the picture) for our July 4th celebrations until we'd written this card. Because nothing says "independence!" like coercion, amiright?

All of these are just some postcards I bought about a month ago and stuffed in my bag at the last minute. I had hoped to find some cool DC ones, but it was so freakin hot we didn't leave the house much. The one afternoon we went exploring we tried to find a bookstore, but there was none. I half-heartedly looked for some DC cards in the airport on my way out, but the selection was lame.