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.

Pride posting...and where the hell did June go?

Blame the glorious transition from Spring to summer, blame a crazy work schedule, blame Mercury in retrograde - for whatever reason, I really just did not have anything to say this month. A couple times I sifted through postcards but wasn't feeling inspired. But! Last weekend was PRIDE weekend, so here's something new, something old, and a lot gay.

Mailed June 25:

I'm pretty sure I picked this us at the Hide/Seek exhibit at the Tacoma Art Museum a couple of months ago. I love this photo - it's really joyful and subversive. Plus - unironic saddle shoes! I don't, however, love how the photo looks all checkered when I upload it. It doesn't look that way in real life or on my computer.

As a bonus, a former girlfriend of mine from college was in town last week. Here's a postcard she sent me in November 1994 (I promise, it's not mushy!):

As always, everything is [sic]

Hey Sweet thang - Your card kixs ass over mine. I'm sitting here mourning over Liz Phair's new crap of an album. What a let down. So here's the thrilling news of the 1/4, I am going to Costa Rica! And so is V__, we will be in different parts of the country but we're planning on travelling together for the last 3 wks or so. I'm going to have to put my dykehood on the shelf for a while. I'm a little uncertain about working with two boys (from here) and my boss who will be ♂ too; I know I'm capable of putting up with it but it will be a different lifestyle. I'm going to try and find another woman here who might be interested just for my sanity. It will make my parents hopeful to know I'm with two boys "maybe she'll convert honey". Last night E__ showed some queer films in Kelly Hall, this one flick - 'It Wasn't Love' had that song you used in your senior piece, M__ told me, did you know this?It was a pretty good film. I can't believe it's 7th week - Ahhh save me! I've been talking to R_ + M_ about driving out with them - there not sure if they're going yet. either Seattle or Ohio for me. I would love it so much to see you. Write back and let me know what yer thinkin - I luv you
 
Ahh, memories... we really bonded over Liz Phair's first album, and let's get real, the follow up was a disappointment. I think the only people who really like that album are people who had never heard the first one, which still hold its position on my Desert Island Playlist.

When I read old postcards, one of the things I notice is whether the person uses traditional paragraphs or they just write one big run on block of text. I've done both, but it's kind of tricky - you have to gauge ahead of time how much you're going to say. Nothing like starting a postcard with tiny, compact writing, only to realize you've run out of things to say with several inches of blank space staring at you. Other times, you may start taking up lots of space with your writing and by the end you're curling your sentences around all the borders and your writing gets smaller and smaller and eventually the person can't ready what you're writing anyway. I admire people who know how much room they're going to need from the get go - or perhaps they just adjust what they say to how much room they've allotted themselves. I don't really know what I'm going to say until I'm saying it. I'm sure there's something terribly revealing about that factoid...

All Mixed Up

Confessions of a bloggy nerd: once February and the (self-imposed) pressure to mail something every day were over, I decided to scan all my blank postcards. The picture quality was vastly improved, plus I figured having them all in my computer would make writing more spontaneous and less of a process. Except that I keep discovering postcards that weren't scanned (invariably after I've written them, but usually before I drop them in the mail). And it's getting harder to remember what I sent if I don't post about it right away. And so it is that a mystery postcard was sent into the world last week without its proper documentation. A moment of silence for the unknown postcard.


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I went to Canada for the weekend, and managed to get a little old fashioned touristy correspondence going.

Written May 27 (mailed May 29):

"Smoke Rings (January 28, 1999)" by Donald Sultan

Written from a sunny deck in the lazy stretch of afternoon after a long bike ride. I love this photo - it reminds me of Laurie Anderson's epic Smoke Rings from her concert film "Home of the Brave". I didn't have time to go to the post office in Canada, so I brought it back to the US to mail.

Written and mailed May 28:

At the train station there were these postcards that had international postage already included. The cost was probably a ripoff, but what a thrill to just send it, eh? <---- note the Canadian slang  Of course, I then could not find a post box in the train station, and I would have felt a little silly having to mail my fancy Canadian postage postcard from the US (probably with US postage!), but I did find a mailbox outside the station. 

I always hated geography in school, but lately I am very interested in maps. People in the know have informed me that geography is actually not about maps at all, but I'm not letting that deter me in my newfound interest in Where Things Are.

School Spirit aka Vaults #6

Last weekend was my 25th high school reunion (eex). I didn't go, but in honor, here is a postcard from my 11th grade roommate Abijah, whose postcard writing skillz rival My Awesome Sister's.

Summer 1985 [sic throughout]:

Don't Play With Your Food

J,

Hi! I hope your summer is getting better. I just got back from "Landhope" where I saw 2 of the people I least wanted to see from "Upland" - they are "popular" and trendy & they just got their hair cut so now they think the're "Punk" - OH WELL - I saw '16 Candles' last night - it was pretty good - MB called and said she is "sooo sorry" and "will I ever forgive her?" - HA - I talked to Susan & Missy & it was good to talk to Susan again - we're trying to get a party together for Fri. YOU SHOULD COME - the SMITHS concert is tomorrow night -> I almost got us a ride with MB's friend :( - you left your shoes here (I sure you know) I should get them to you somehow - I want to go to the beach - I want U to come! - My cat misses U! <- me too. This concert for Africa sounds good. but the one in London has the only good groups - ELVIS COSTELLO will be there! I won't :( why can't he come here? why can't I go there? - OH WELL. this is a boring note but it's something.

-Love, Abijah

summer - HA!

P.S. we should get together. W/B

the news guy said "the" "U2s"

The use of quotation marks really makes this postcard. It reads exactly the way she spoke. I have no idea who Susan and Missy are - they didn't go to our school. MB was Abijah's friend from home that I knew a lot about but I don't remember if I actually met her. I also have no idea what MB did that made her so sorry, but they're still friends, so they clearly managed to muddle through.

And that concert for Africa? That would be Live Aid, of course. It is to my eternal shame that I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia and did NOT attend Live Aid. Even if ELVIS COSTELLO wasn't there.