The Wedge

I used to be a person who slept well. Almost too well. Morningtime was this mythical Atlantis that other people told tall tales about and I was content to peer at the edges from a fuzzy distance.

Now? I wake up at 7:30am, with or without alarm. Many mornings (such as this one) I wake with a start long before the clock screams at me, and there's no sinking back into slumber. I am aided in this by a certain orange cat I call The Wedge, whose only true happiness is to lie on top of me and purr REALLY LOUDLY right into my ear. His refusal to be dislodged would be impressive if it didn't make me so cranky.

None of this has to do with postcards, other than I'm up earlier than I'd like and thus writing.

Almost a week down!

Sent Feb 2:

I am helpless when it comes to PaperMilk postcards. If I see 'em, I buy 'em. Aside from the groovy images, the postcards have a neat matte finish and appealing design on the business side. I'm a sucker, I know. But I'll need to avoid the stores that stock them if I'm going to stay in compliance with Rule #5.

Sent Feb 3:

Paul Gaugin, Still Life with Apples, a Pear and a Ceramic Portal Jug (1889)

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.

(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.