Mid Month Malaise

It's February, which means I've been participating the Month of Letters (postcards) again. I totally blew it off in 2014, but I really missed writing in general, so I decided to use this particular challenge to get back in the habit. I sent out a couple of warmup postcards in January, just to see how awful my handwriting had gotten (result: bad), and have been more organized than ever - mostly writing out my postcards the night before, tracking who's gotten mail, balancing between sending items to people living in Seattle and in greater distances. I'm also being careful to not update my Facebook page as much, as I'd noticed that I had a lot more to say to the few friends who do not maintain social media  pages and thus do not yet know what I had for lunch yesterday. It's been really fun, and I can already feel the flow of writing coming more naturally.

Mailed January 8 to Dang Ramona. From a collection of postcards designed by Mark Mothersbaugh. Of DEVO!

But somehow President's Day weekend always threatens to derail my LetterMo mojo. Friday night I stayed at Tilly's (the GF), and I took my postcard supplies with me so I could drop the day's postcard in the mail after my French conversation group in the morning. After bidding mes amis a fond à bientôt, I found a table outside the café, selected the card I wanted to use and the recipient - and discovered that I had no pen. Postcards, address book, stamps - check. NO PEN. How is that even possible? I always, always have a pen with me - most of the time I have two or three! Now, I could have gone back inside and asked for a pen, but this café is kind of a zoo on Saturdays, and I would have felt guilty not buying another coffee after being there for 3 hours already, so I decided to head home and hope for the best. Upon my return, I stopped to talk to a neighbor for a few minutes, and once I was inside taking off my shoes, I heard the familiar sound of the postman. It was that kind of day. I did end up writing my postcard, and did in fact drop it in the mail on Saturday, but it rankles a bit to know that's it's still sitting in that box, more than two full days later. It just seems like this long weekend always has some sort of hiccup that threatens to derail my focus for the second half of the month. Which is why I'm going to write tomorrow's postcard as soon as I finish with this post.
 

Mailed January 30, to Tilly Losch, my main squeeze

I bought this postcard in either Amsterdam or Belgium, and thought I had scanned it already. Scanning is a ridiculous process in my house and best done in batches, so I took a quick shot with my phone before dropping it in the mail, so it looks terrible. On the plus side you can see where I tried to estimate the path of the Trans-Mongolian Rail line, which we hope to take in the not-too-distant future.

I'll start posting my LetterMo postcards next time...