Weekend Postbox

I've said time and time again that the point of LetterMo for me is in the sending, not the receiving, but I would be a dirty lying rat if I said I didn't enjoy the abundance of mail I receive during the month as well. I've gotten a lot of great postcards, and don't want to wait until the end of the month to show them off.

Cary Grant, 1958, photo by Milton H. Greene

Um, wow. I don't even swing that way but that's a compelling stare there, mister. Swoon. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Ok, George Clooney approaches that Old Hollywood style of glamour, now that he's older, but I can't think of anyone else.

Sent by a friend before she took off on an amazing adventure - we are now getting more immediate updates from Myanmar when there's a wifi connection.

Illustration from The Macmillan ALICE by Sir John Tenniel

From the back:

"You seem very clever at explaining words Sir," said Alice. "Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called 'Jabberwocky'?"

Can I just say that it's taken me FOUR YEARS to notice that this blog has a quote box feature? I am a master of observation.

Robert Ellis, Motorway/City 1969

A postcard from the road! Tilly was on a business trip in New Zealand (jealous!) and sent this cool card. Check out that cute stamp! On the picture side, even! I thought maybe that's how they roll at the NZ Post Office, but apparently Tilly was just being cheeky. She's kind of a rule-breaker.

The sender is a professional photographer, and this is a picture of a nest from her yard, marred slightly by the mighty machinery of the USPS.

Buffalo @ Yellowstone National Park, Dawn Taylor

Another dear college friend, one with whom I managed to stay in contact for most of the intervening years, with a few absences along the way. 2015 was a rough year for Dawn: she was diagnosed with a brain tumor (which she's named Bob), and as a result has had her life thrown a bit upside-down. She started blogging as a way to document and share her journey, and this postcard includes the URL for her site, so I asked for permission to post it here. Her frankness, courage and humor make this blog a compelling read, even if you don't know her, or know anyone who is living with something most of us will (hopefully) never have to face.

Brain Tumor Life blog

Kate Newby, Don't act all scared like before (Louise), 2009

Another postcard from Tilly - one that includes an honest-to-god "Wish you were here"! At least I think so - I've always been pretty adept at deciphering handwriting, but Tilly's is probably the most cryptic I've encountered in all my born days.

I'm going to miss seeing New Zealand pop up in my blog stats - it was a sweet reminder that someone out there was looking for me. I asked Tilly to just pop back there every so often to click my blog link, but she demurred. I can't imagine why.

Weekend Roundup

I know it's not the weekend anymore, but let's pretend I posted this yesterday, shall we?

I got my first mail of the month - not a postcard, but a nifty letter featuring Domo-kun. A highlight of watching the NHK Trophy figure skating competition every fall is seeing all the little Domos in the "kiss and cry" area where skaters await their scores after competing.

As you can see, this is one of those envelopes-and-letters-in-one, and I had a hard time opening it without tearing the edges. It's been a while, what can I say?

Mailed Feb 5:

Édouard Boubat, We Prefer Life 1968

Here's a great image that was almost wasted - I started writing to someone using this postcard way back in 2012, but only got about a sentence in. I kept this great image, though, so I decided to continue the correspondence and send it anyway this year. No big.

This is a map of the world created in the 1540s, I think. I've been reading a lot of historical adventure/exploration books lately, and it just amazes me how people made maps of the globe before all the major land masses were known. I mean, there are definitely some errors here - the USA was not connected to Russia and China 500 years ago, and I don't see Australia on here at all - but it's pretty amazing how close this gets, all things considered.

Sent to my niece, who is about to spend a semester abroad.

It was weird to not mail anything yesterday. Of course, I was going to get started on the letters portion of my month and didn't. I'm such a procrastinator.

Dance History

I've been in a correspondence rut lately, focusing more on reading than writing. Maybe it's the change of seasons, or being back home after such an adventure, but I just haven't had much to say. But it's Thursday, so why not take a trip in ye olde time machine for a spell...

August 1993:

Photo by Barbara Morgan

As always, [sic]....

"Hey woman,

Sorry it's taken me so long to write you - I've beem thinkin about ^you quite a - but I hope ^your dancin dancin. You sound like you have a crazy schedule - I'll send you my address when I get it. I'll be staying in a graduate housing type of deal. I haven't danced in a long time I'm getting pretty nervous. I don't remember how to do this school thing. I want to make this good. I want to learn my brains out. 

I'm leaving here the 16th and probably be in Mass around the 25th. I'm going to try to get an E-MAIL account so we can communicate - Take care

Love ya - T"

This was the summer before my final year in college, from a friend who had graduated some years before but had come back to my school to teach and generally be awesome the previous year. She was on her way to Smith College to get her MFA in Dance. I can so relate to those nerves about school and that thirst for learning, although I'm pretty sure that "a long time" back then meant something like 6 weeks. Nowadays I sometimes go months between classes - and trust me, even when it's been weeks, it might as well be 6 months. Aging bodies are cruel!

As with many school friends, we drifted apart after a few years. She did come visit me in Seattle after her graduate program, and through the magic of social media I know she's still choreographing and dancing (yay!).

The most telling part of this postcard is the final sentence - this was back when email was accessible primarily through schools (and was still being called Electronic Mail or "e-mail"!), and everyone was so excited about this new, instant way to communicate with people. "Instant" being relative, of course - at my college, at least, few people had their own computers or access to a modem on their own, so we'd find excuses all day long to drop by the mail room or the library to use one of the 3 or 4 terminals. But the (electronic) writing was on the wall. It's no coincidence that my archive of postcards dries up about two years after this.
 
You can see the tape marks on this postcard - it was clearly well loved. The photo is from legendary modern dance pioneer Martha Graham's work Celebration, taken in 1937. I love the simplicity of the action in this picture, as well as the costumes and those gorgeously pointed (but not over-stretched) feet.

Beijing (revisited)

I've been across the world and back since my last post. My sweetie and I spent a madcap week in Beijing, China, taking in as much history (and delicious food) as we could manage in 7 days. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to come back to this blog, but it's probably a combination of not wanting to admit the trip is really in the past, and being a bit frustrated with myself for not getting my travel blog off the ground.

My first view of China after a long flight

I took several postcards with me, as always, as a backup. Ideally, I prefer to get postcards from the place that I'm visiting, but sometimes I am too busy experiencing a place to search out postcards. I did manage to find some decent postcard packets early on (although I found better individual postcards on our last day that will have to go out later). We spent our days walking walking walking and returned to our rented room utterly spent, and I was focused on trying to write down what we'd done and seen in my journal, soak up some internet to let friends and family know we hadn't dropped off the edge of the world, and then we would spend time with our amazing hosts in the evenings. This made it surprisingly hard to carve out a few minutes to write postcards - my facebook posts were basically what I would say anyway, so what was the point? Exactly the mindset I'm trying to combat, great.

Exploring the hutong alleyways

 
I did manage to write two postcards (to people who are not on facebook) midweek, which led to the next challenge: getting them stamped and in the mail before we left the country. I asked our host about mailing postcards, and he said it was really expensive and not really worth it. I didn't care about that, since it was only two, but he didn't offer up information about how or where to go. So I carried these two postcards with me the rest of the week on the off chance we saw a post office - although admittedly our daily adventures were so vast, and Beijing is so huge and a little overwhelming, that I wasn't really looking that hard.

Our favorite street food vendors, making pork belly sandwiches

 On Sunday, our final day, I was kicking myself for having missed out AGAIN on mailing postcards from the road. I thought about leaving some money with our host and asking him to mail them, but he'd really gone above and beyond for us already - and that would be kind of cheating, wouldn't it? We headed out for our final day of exploring, taking a bus to the 798 Art District and wandering through graffiti-lined alleyways, art galleries, and boutiques (finding gifts for home and better postcards), willing our trip to extend just a little longer. When we got off the bus back in our neighborhood, I spotted something that had the words "post" and "bank" in the title and it was open. On a SUNDAY. I yelled out "Post Office!!!", alarming my girlfriend who had no idea I was even looking for one, and made a beeline for it.

Art + tourism in the 798 District

Inside, there was a handful of customers and a few postal workers, none of whom seemed in a hurry to wait on us. I should point out that we were staying well out of the main part of the city, and most locals we encountered spoke little-to-no english. But this was a pretty simple transaction, after all. It cost ¥4.50 to mail each postcard, which seemed spendy (but worth it) in the moment, but it's actually less than 75 cents in USD, less than it costs to send an international postcard here.

Obligatory Great Wall photo.

The rest of the day I was high on having finally succeeded in mailing a postcard from the road. Thank goodness for communist work schedules.

Hastily taken cell phone photos of the postcards mailed:

Both of these show parts of the Forbidden City, which is probably 10 times larger than we anticipated. Missing: the thousands of people visiting at the same time we were there. The day we visited the Forbidden City was probably my least favorite - the walled former palace itself is undeniably impressive, but the air quality was quite bad that day and we just didn't set ourselves up well for the crowds or the level of walking that this site requires. It felt like a slog rather than an adventure. By the time we got through the Forbidden City we were far too wiped out to see Jingshan Park just across the exit, which would have been a good way to balance out the tourist saturation of the preceding hours. I'm glad we went, but I would structure that whole day differently based on what I know now.

Post from China can take a few weeks, as it all gets inspected before leaving the country. I was surprised less than 3 weeks after we returned to get this in my mailbox:

I was so focused on getting my postcards mailed that I didn't notice my girlfriend in the background, madly scribbling away. I knew she'd sent something too but was not expecting one to show up at our door. Nice! It reminds me that I've been wanting to try mailing myself a postcard a day from the road as a way to remember my trip. Considering how hard it is for me to get any postcards sent from the road, however, this may be beyond my capabilities.

Four for Me, One for You

Time to show off some great postcards I've gotten this summer! Scanning has gotten more complicated in my house, so I've been pretty bad about keeping up. To be fair, the scanning process was kind of ridiculous already, but now space and electrical outlets are at a premium, so I need to set aside some quality time to scan them in batches.

This one I got way back in the spring, but it is so fabulous that I had to post it. It's a Peep, of course - but it's really a postcard of a Peep that was squished and scanned. By David Byrne of all people. Which kinda makes sense if you look at it - so simple, yet a little creepy.

A great postcard to Tilly and me from friends we got to see in July. It's an advertisement for liquor, but it's a cute image.

A handpainted postcard! Gah, I had a set of blank postcards for creating one's own and I think it went away with the Great Purge in the spring because I hadn't done anything with it yet. I totally loved getting this.

This one showed up just last week. Kind of a dark card for a relentlessly sunny summer, but I like it.




I did manage to get one postcard of my own out the door this week:

Titouan Lamazon - Heiata, égérie de la perle de Tahiti

Is this a black and white image with a slash of color down the middle? Or a color painting that didn't get finished at the edges?



I also got a packet of MOMA postcards given to me by a friend, so it looks like I'm going to have to block some time out for another scanning party pretty soon.

Sick Day, TBT, Vaults etc...

It's a lovely August Thursday and I'm home with either the worst allergies or the most annoying summer cold. I'm too unfocused to write correspondence, so I thought I'd go with Throwback Thursday and pull a postcard out of the ol' vault. I didn't even recognize this one, so it must have been unearthed during my spring cleaning.

June 1988, to my roommate and me:

Bear and monkeys, Egyptian painting c. 1335, from Bidpai's Fables.

"hey guys - how's it going? Not much here - DC is great - Joe N' I have been getting around by subways (they get you everywhere). You know I miss you both cuz' DC's nice but, just ain't no CINCINNATI. Tell Danny I said hi. Been playing lots of cards? I've been teaching Joe how to play games - cuz' he don't know none - we went to the FREER Gallery & the Hirschorn Museum AND the Sculpture Garden - I'll tell you more when I get home -- See you areound 7:00 (I THINK?!) Friday -

love,
Mimi"

The summer between my 1st and 2nd years of college, my friend Susan and I lived in Cincinnati. Mimi came into the café in our building a lot - she was a teenager, still in high school, and unbelievably precocious. Girl had a LOT of energy. Joe was her older brother (our age), and was the shyest punk to ever rock a mohawk. They made a funny pair.

It seems so odd now to read a postcard from a brief trip letting us know what time we would see her next, clearly only a few days away - but then I remember how careful we were about long distance phone calls back then. We didn't even have an answering machine at our apartment, let alone voicemail, so this was the most efficient way to let us know she was coming back!

Historic PRIDE

I set up a draft of this post a few days ago because I'm visiting family and will miss Pride weekend at home. I figured I'd just pull something from the vaults and call it good. But I'm in New York City, and after the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, guaranteeing gays and lesbians the right to marry in all 50 states, my mom, my sister and I hoofed it down to Christopher Street and the historic Stonewall Inn, where the modern gay rights movement began in the US.

It was a momentous afternoon, spent laughing with strangers as we passed around cameras and flags and stories. I think the only reason we could even get this close to the entrance is that it was Friday afternoon and many people were still at work.

I'm now a bit conflicted. My honeyboo is back at home, and I won't be attending Pride celebrations on either coast (for a good reason - check back next post). I hate to miss out on the massive celebrations about  to happen, but I remind myself that I was there - I am here - for a little slice of it. I'm sure the party will still be going by the time I return to the left coast.

In the meantime, here is my previously selected Pride postcard from 1995. From a college girlfriend - we were already exes by this time, and I had graduated.

"What is it you're looking for?" Rosa Ainley

"Hey sweetie-pie
honey bunch
punkin snatch
     (no offense intended, claro) ~
Wha's up?

Thought this postcard might give you some ideas for your new + improved dating game - any action yet? Good luck...

SO- here I am at [school]. Eek. I'm doing the LGBC fwsp [Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Center work study]. Eek. I'm leaning towards a women's studies major with a queer emphasis. Eek. I love my little cubicle of a room, but feel rather alone on the outside. T. told me there are some cool 1st years. We'll see.

Love + back rubs to you...send me postcards! (I can't find all the shit i usually put on my walls.) SEV

¡Amo café!"

Ugh - I just sat here deciding whether to redact this silly postcard, since my mom is in the other room and will likely be the first to read it. hell, we just went to see Fun Home together, I think she can deal.

My favorite part of the postcard is the silly doodle by the stamp:

"ANARCHY
QUEER
PERVERSION
CHAOS
Revolution
(American flags make me want to spew ideological rhetoric. Excuse the dribble.)"

SEV and I exchanged correspondence for many years after college and I always loved her droll humor.

Happy Pride to all!

Vaults #10, non-family edition

I am pretty informal about keeping up with this blog - pretty sure I skipped about a year and a half in there -  and occasionally I go back and realize with horror how frequently I repeat myself. I prefer to think of it as just having some strong themes in my life, but it's probably a sign I'm losing my marbles. I'd do well to peruse the last couple of posts before setting imaginary pen to paper.

It's come to my attention that the last several posts from the vaults have been from and about My Awesome Sister. It's true that she has been my most consistent correspondent through the years, and she had a flair for great cards and words - but it's time to mix it up. I do have postcards from other people. People with no family ties whatsoever, even.

Like this one, sent in July 1985, the summer between 10th and 11th grade, from my soon-to-be roommate (as always, everything is [sic]):

"Is tiger punchy?" is the title on the back

J,

I hope your mom doesn't take this the wrong way, but just that I love sleep! I found a really good post card shop (I'm at the shore, not UNIONVILLE) you'll have to bring them to decorate our room. Yesterday I saw A.M., it was really strange, but she was really nice! She cut her hair and it looks really good. She said she's going to be in W. chester the rest of the summer. It's pretty nice here, but there are 10,000 surfers and their girlfriends. I saw a Circle Jerk record, I might get it but I've only heard 1 of the songs on the radio. If you want, we should go to the UB40 concert with MB & her friend Andy (I guess you might want to save your money for England. OH WELL.

I hope you can read this, it's a mess
Love,
     Love,
          Love,
              Love,                





If you've read through previous archives, you might recognize the writing style from this entry. Abijah was another one who always found great and interesting postcards and she always wrote in a way that I could actually hear her voice leap off the page.

The back of the postcard has some random text printed at the bottom: Mirrored in a serene canal, a venerable home appears as in a dream - a haunt of silence broken only by the whisper of water cradling a boat and the echo of a boy's footsteps on paving stones. Its shuttered windows seem to blink like eyes closing in sleep. (The word echo is underlined by Abijah because we were into Echo and the Bunnymen, of course).

This postcard was made by a California-based outfit called hold the mustard productions. I see that they are still around, which surprises me. I may have to order some from their site. You can even order today's featured postcard!

Ah! I just noticed that there is a little heart and name of a boy that I sort of had a crush on underneath the postmark. Brat.

From the Vaults #9

It's TBT time! Earlier this week I saw a meme on Facebook claiming that it was "Back to the Future Day!!" - it wasn't, but in Marty McFly's honor, here's a postcard from My Awesome Sister dated March 1985:

Erastus Salisbury Field, The Garden of Eden ca. 1860

"Dear J,    Thanks so much for your letter! Glad to hear you're playing I.M. Tennis instead of track. It has been physiologically proven that some people are born sprinters and some are born long-distance runners. It has to do with the % of 2 types of muscle tissue that you have. I know I cannot run more than 2 miles max. Maybe you're a sprinter too.
      "I went to see a great exhibit at the Boston Art Museum last weekend. This was one of the paintings there. Go see 'Private Function' or 'Stranger Than Paradise' if you go to the movies soon. I saw both this past week. 'Amadeus' is pretty good too...I'll be seeing you on Long Island soon. Bring your jelly beans!
lots of love, A"

Fact: I am neither a sprinter nor a long-distance runner. I loathe running. My high school had no gym classes, so we were required to participate in after school sports. There were a certain number of quarters that you had to do competitive team sports, and others where you could be more casual about it. Sometimes you would have to try to be sporty and only after sucking very, very badly at everything were you allowed to go do what you wanted. That spring, I had to try out for the lacrosse team (long sticks and hard rubber balls constantly flying at your face = frightening!), then I had to try track and field, which made my teeth hurt after about 25 yards. Eventually I was released into the luxury of "Intramural Tennis", which involved carrying a tennis racquet and calling each other Muffy while chasing down all the balls that we let slip past.

This isn't to say that I dislike exercise, or being athletic. I mean, NOW I don't dislike it. As a teenager? Sports were supremely uncool. And running still sux.

I know I've seen Amadeus (impossible to avoid in the '80s), And I might have seen Stranger Than Paradise - although now that I think about it, I think I'm confusing it with Down By Law - but I am positive I never saw A Private Function.

Coincidentally, I'll be seeing My Awesome Sister on Long Island in just two weeks. Her note on the front of the postcard refers to the trip she was to take later that summer to Kenya to study rhinoceroseseses (rhinoceri?).

The Resurrection (almost)

It's been a little crazy the last few weeks, but I woke up this morning and realized I have an entire day with no plans. Actually, that's not true - I'm cleaning out old files, which are currently strewn across the floor below me as I type. There is so much paper that I may just start a trend of wallpapering floors. But nothing is scheduled, so it still feels like I've got this whole luxurious day ahead of me. I think I'll procrastinate and take a look at some of the great mail I got last month:
 

Artist: Erica Jane Huntzinger (no title listed)

I love this postcard. Green is my favorite color and the chaotic randomness of it feels a bit like my brain some days. From a friend who, unknown to me, moved some months ago. Fortunately my postcard in February found her - and I just scheduled a weekend getaway in her city, so I hope to see her face to face in May.

Egon Schiele, Portrait of the Artist's Wife, Standing (1915)

 From my Mom:

"I tend to buy my postcards from museums so I can remember paintings or pieces I like/love. This is a lovely portraint of Schiele's wife, who was so young when she died. The dress is an astonishment of color and form - all those beautiful stripes - but does not distract from her lovely face. Now she's yours!"

I do the same thing when I am visiting museums - buy postcards of pieces I want to remember.

Ha! A friend who bought the naughty postcards collection read this post from 2 years ago where I kvetched about having to part with this postcard and she sent it to me. Score!

Of course, this makes me feel terribly guilty, as I haven't responded to any of these yet. Perhaps the paper carpet will have to wait just a little longer. Did I mention that I found a bunch of postcards shoved in files from 15-20 years ago during the excavation? I'm more than a little sad that eventually I will be an organized person and I'll stop finding them everywhere.

Oh, and the Easter part of this post: I'm making homemade cadbury creme eggs. Very messy, very delicious little sugar bombs.

Old School Cassette Night

In keeping with my last post, here is a letter I received at the end of February:

It's not a postcard, but a card, and check out the envelope...

It really is a pity that mixtapes are a thing of the past. They are such a marker of a specific time and place. I've made a couple of CDs for friends, and while it's a lot easier than recording cassettes, it's not as much fun. The flaws in homemade tapes - the scrap of the DJ's spiel from the radio, the abrupt cut when you don't push Record at just the right moment, the self-conscious soliloquies - often stand out even more than the music.

I still have a ton of cassettes from high school, college, and beyond. I break them out every once in a while to play on a Friday night when I've got nothing else going on. There's that moment when the music ends and you have to fast forward or just wait to reach the end of the tape before switching sides. Or you leave the room for a minute and when you come back you want to hear the song from the beginning and can't just hit a single button. Every time I play one of my precious, irreplaceable mixtapes I say a little prayer that this won't be the time that my boom box eats it. Dang Ramona got me a device that was supposed to convert cassettes to mp3s a few years ago - but the instructions were in Chinese and we could not get it to work, so I keep my boom box and I keep my fingers crossed.

a smattering of my cassette collection

So, this letter...
Like a new cassette from an old buddy, one who's been gone long enough that neither of you know where the other's musical tastes lie anymore, but somehow it all fits together, the familiar sprinkled with something totally new. This is what I have missed about correspondence.

From the Vaults #8

I almost never get it together to post #TBT pictures on facebook, but here's a lovely postcard from My Awesome Sister back in the day- received April 1985:

"Like Father Like Sunglasses" (c) 1984 Card-ee-Yak Arrest, Inc.

As always, [sic]...


"Dear J,
    Remember Newbury Comics that record store with all the t-shirts? I went today and got U2: The Unforgettable Fire, Freur: Doot-Doot, Heaven 17: Fascist Groove Thang and Tears for Fears: Songs from the big Chair. Didn't get any homework done!
    It's great weather here - almost ready for sunglasses.
                                      Be cool!                               love, A"

Oh, the '80s. My Awesome Sister lived in Cambridge MA during this time. I went to visit her over the preceding New Year's Eve, and I came home with some records that I probably got in the shop she mentions. I bought Heaven 17: The Luxury Gap (and was thrilled that the super cool punk chick who worked there approved of my selection) and The Cure: The Top. The latter album was kind of a bummer other than "The Caterpillar", which had been making the rounds on Rock Over London. I still have that Heaven 17 album, but The Top did not make the cut when I went off to college - I only brought about half of my record collection, and the rest were lost to the world as my mom moved more often than I did during my college years and beyond.

In the summer of 1985 My Awesome Sister sent me a mixtape including songs from those albums and more. It's still in heavy rotation on Old School Cassette Nights at my house.

My Awesome Sister has awesome handwriting

(oh-woah) Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman...

Whee! I got mail! A postcard for MEEEEEE!

It's funny. I started writing postcards again because I wanted to write (and I wanted to unload some of the postcards I'd collected over the previous 20 years). I knew better than to expect a return to the days of 8 page letters that take a week to write, an hour to read and days to contemplate before attempting a reply. I didn't want to go into this expecting mail in return - the process of sending missives out into the world would have to be enough. It is enough - that process is its own reward.

But.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't care at all about getting mail. It's fantastic. I love that some of my friends have started writing letters and postcards too.

Received 19 February:

This postcard is a picture of my friend's cats - it was created through www.postcardly.com. You open an account, upload an image, type your message and the address of the recipient and voilà! They create a postcard and mail it for you. There's a limited free trial and then you purchase plans either by number of postcards or by month - either way it's cheaper than buying postcards and paying for postage. Of course, it's not quite as awesome as doing it yourself: when I saw the computer-generated text on my postcard I admit at first I thought I'd gotten an appointment reminder from my dentist. So much for the swooping scripts and flourishes of a hand-written card - but really that's me being incredibly jealous that I didn't think of this first because it's genius.

# # #

I haven't even posted ANY of my LetterMo postcards yet. Here's one, mailed February 2:

I can never get enough of Jeffrey Brown's cat comix. Sent to My Awesome Sister, of course.

The Letdown

Somehow, I really expected to have the energy to continue writing daily postcards, at least for a few days after the end of the month. Faithful readers probably knew better, based on my posts of endless procrastination, but a girl can dream. And dreams can be broken....nothing has left my mailbox since last Thursday. Not even bill payments.

While I get reorganized about writing, here's a blast from the past...

Received July 1986:

Ben Verkaaik, "Zonder titel/Untitled" 1983

"Hi J,
I spent last weekend on the beach at the end of Long Island. It was great! Next week I'm going to Cape Cod for the week at the expense of the dept. I work for. My french lessons are going trés bien!
Let me know how your internship is going!!
lots of love, A"

I'm still not 100% sure I know what internship is being referred to here. I did my senior project at the Walnut St Theatre in Philadelphia, and subsequently (I thought) came back in the summer to intern during their kids summer camp in exchange for adult level acting classes. But my senior project was in March or April 1987, and I spent my summer after graduation working elsewhere. I must have done the summer program first. It's a little disquieting to have your sense of your own history shaken up like that. What I remember about the youth camp is that there was one girl (around 10) who had been in some commercials and she lorded it over all the other kids. She also wore a ton of makeup all the time, and as a result had terrible skin, which made me a bit sympathetic. Needless to say, the other kids despised her. The production was a musical putting the characters of beloved fairy tales on trial...for what, I can't remember.

I'm also shocked to note that My Awesome Sister used the wrong accent in 'très bien'. She's as much of a stickler for spelling and punctuation as I am (and I definitely make mistakes, to my chagrin. There's probably one in this post).

In the mail

One of the nice things about doing this challenge a second year is that some of my friends have gotten in on the action. One person said she was going to try the whole 1-a-day challenge, others have just sent me cards or letter back and a few have sent out a big batch of postcards in one fell swoop. I've also gotten a few emails from some folks I had lost touch with, after I sent them a postcard just because I was going down my address book.

Here is a selection of what I received (aka the ones I could lay my hands on while the scanner was on):

Sent from friends with whom I danced for many years...and we had an annual gig in Walla Walla, Washington performing with a local school, so this is perfect. We didn't have to perform as onion ballerinas, thank you ceiling cat!

This is a card, not a postcard. Best part? The person who sent it to me lives 3 blocks away. But we don't see each other that often and she's not on Facebook, so we shockingly don't know every excruciating detail of each others' lives without someone making a little effort to reach out.

And as a bonus, yesterday's postcard (sent Feb 26):

I was at a friends house Sunday to watch the Oscars and noticed she had a series of vintage Vogue cover postcards on display - I just picked this postcard up last week, and while it doesn't quite match her collection, thought it might be a nice addition. This is a cover from 1916. It sure is more interesting than current covers with photoshopped images of celebrities.

I can't believe the month is almost over!

Happy Valentine's Day

Sometimes a goofy valentine from your mom can make your whole day:

Never too late for resolutions...right?

Happy New Year!

yeah, yeah, yeah, 2013 is old news by now, but I have reasons for belatedness. Good ones! Or at least one good one...I was traveling for two weeks in January, resulting in actual "Wish you were here" postcards, some of which were mailed while I was traveling. And then I was...jet-lagged for another two weeks! Sure!

It really helps to set one's expectations low, I'm afraid.

Nevertheless, the year is still young, and I am looking forward to many adventures told through brief scraps of cardstock.

Yes! I went to Amsterdam - and also Ghent, Belgium. I picked up many more postcards while I was there, but these were the only two I managed to mail from Europe. It was surprisingly difficult to find post offices and mailboxes in either city - the only reason these got mailed is that I stayed in a super fancy hotel in Ghent and they just send out your mail for you, at no additional charge. If I'd realized that ahead of time I would have made sure to have more written when I checked out.

And then this arrived, right before my birthday:

Aaaaah, it's a Griffin and Sabine postcard!

Even better, it's written in metallic marker!!!

"B#2!
H-BD to U!
What's up? How much are you dancing?
Do you ever go to the "LoFi"? Let's make a date!
luv, B#1"

Getting mail is nice :)

Missives from Mom

I always love highlighting postcards from My Awesome Sister, but I have to give credit to my mother - she's really stepped up her game this year. I think she enjoys sending postcards more than I do. Here are a couple that I've gotten recently (am I buying time to get back in the swing of things? why yes, thanks for noticing!)...

Received back in October:

Peace Sign, Missoula, Montana - Dismantled 2001

"Don't know why they took this down. 
Mission accomplished?

NOT

love you,
Mom"

And received last week:

"Blue Snow, The Battery" George Bellows (1910)

"This is Battery Park - way before the landfill. looks like a park, eh? Bellows exhibit blew me away. Amazing stuff - This is only one of favorites - M"

Short and sweet!

MOMA moment from Mom

I am procrastinating. I have a new refrigerator that will be delivered tomorrow (my life is SO exciting!), and I should be defrosting the old one, throwing out items that have been lurking in there for far too long, cleaning the kitchen, moving the furniture to make it easier for the delivery, etc etc etc....sounds exhausting, non? Fortunately, my mailbox had a couple of interesting items today to distract me from such boring endeavors.

First up:

The Vegetabull, Jan Lewitt, 1943

"Read the fine print! xxx Mom"
                                                    is all she wrote.

I'm not really sure if that's a literal instruction or a figure of speech. There is one line of type so tiny it couldn't possibly say anything relevant - but I do know this image was part of a very groovy exhibit on kitchens that my mom and I went to in September 2009 at the Museum of Modern Art. It might be a surprise to see vegetarian propaganda from the mid-20th century, but the message - "a vegetable dish made with dried eggs or household milk is as good as a joint" - is not espousing an ethical, non-meat diet; it's a positive spin on wartime rationing.

I also got a card (not a postcard) from my friend who was in town last month, and in light of my last post I had to share one line:

"So many times I've wanted to return your fabulous postcards that you've sent with an extra cool one from me, but, no dice. Sorry!"

See? For some reason, correspondence creates pressure, even though it should just be fun. And no, I didn't pay her to say my postcards are fabulous. All I can say to any potential correspondent is: in this day and age of mostly electronic communication, anything other than bills or junk mail in the post box is a huge thrill! it's not so much what you write - it's that you write at all!