Spring Flings and a PSA

The last 6 weeks have been a whirlwind. Two quick trips, huge work projects, a move, and a week of illness meant that there wasn't a lot of room for writing, despite the renewed sense of purpose in my last post. I had hoped to send some actual Wish You Were Here postcards during my travels, but both sojourns were brief, and I was woefully unprepared.

DC/Baltimore:

 

One of my oldest and dearest friends, Katja 7, got married in April. I flew into DC and spent a few days there, but the wedding was held at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. It was an exquisite location for a wedding, especially for two creative people who wanted to ensure a magical environment for their less-than-traditional nuptials (about an hour into the initial reception, the bartender asked me "So...what exactly is the theme here?", eliciting a poor description of steampunk from me - there was no actual theme, but there were lots of wings, tutus, and the groom wore full on steampunk regalia). That egg, with its mosaic of mirrors, was a real hit. 

I did write this postcard while back in DC, but I didn't bring any stamps, so I handed it to Tilly when I returned. Postcard fail.

Chicago:

Willis Tower Skyledge

Two weeks ago I was in Chicago for a weekend. I spent one day being super touristy: Grant Park, Millenium Park, riverwalk, Navy Pier, water taxi, Sears Willis* Tower, riding the Loop, architectural boat tour. It was a great day, and totally exhausting. Normally I wouldn't bother with any tourist trap that involves huge crowds or long lines, but it was a cloudy day, so I was able to get up to the top of  Sears Tower relatively quickly. The more tedious line was waiting to step into one of these little boxes that let you go 4 feet outside the building, 103 floors up. Watching the reactions of those who went before me was better than doing it myself, to be honest. The people in the postcard are NOT drawn to scale, by the way. A person kneeling like the fake photographer in the left would take up most of her side of the box.

I brought stamps this time, but not my address book, so even though I bought several postcards in Chicago, I could only mail one to my mom, because I know her address by heart. Postcard semi-fail.

* Apparently, all of Chicago resents the renaming of this building and still calls it Sears Tower, so I do too.

Public Service Announcement:

Effective June 1 (tomorrow!), postage rates are going up. First class letter stamps are staying at $0.49, but extra ounces will cost you another penny, and so will postcards ($0.35 - still a bargain!). It bugs me to no end that there are no forever stamps available for postcards. I tried to get some of the new rate stamps at the post office last week, but was told they wouldn't be available until the price changed. How irritating. Especially because they last raised the rates right after I'd bought a roll of 100 postcard stamps, so I've been adding a 1-cent stamp for two years now.

I did manage to get one final postcard out the door yesterday under the old rate:

Sent to a friend I haven't seen since college who spent Day Two of my Chicago adventure with me in Wicker Park.

Death and Taxes

It's tax day in the US, so the postal service will be busy today - or will it? Is filing by mail still much of a thing? I never like waiting until April 15 to do my taxes - occasionally I've filed on or near the deadline if I've owed money, but in those cases I've prepared my return early. I both like and hate deadlines - they are great motivators, but I don't like getting too close to them without having everything sorted. I think my many years of poor study habits and scholastic procrastination have scarred me for life.

I'm going through a round of de-cluttering, opening drawers that haven't seen the light of day for many years. Some highlights: meeting notes from my dance company days; strongly worded letters to a previous landlord, a stereo manufacturer, the phone company; planning notes for a 1999 vacation to Maui; a school binder from 1983 that made me rethink the quality of my education. More postcards, of course, both blank and received, as well as scraps of letters. One letter in particular stood out - it was written over the course of several days (as one did back then), and essentially nothing happened in all that time. It was a letter about the ennui of living in a small town where little things can have huge impacts but nothing really changes. This sort of rumination feels so foreign to me now. Connection and communication is so instantaneous that I can't even imagine the patience required to document such stillness, but part of me remembers filling pages and pages with "nothing is going on". It's remarkable how great it is to read that again so many years later.

The result is a renewed burst of energy around correspondence. I still haven't felt the call (or had the time) to write an actual letter, but a couple of postcards did manage to make it out the door, fighting for the postman's attention this week.

From the Mark Mothersbaugh (DEVO) collection:

I identify with this too many mornings

A promotional postcard for a show I was in last year. The back was filled with information about the show, so I covered it with blank mailing labels to create writing space.

There was another postcard I sent in a hurry without scanning - I've got more copies of it, may add later.

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.

March Madness

The only reason I know March Madness is upon us is that I went to watch The Amazing Race on Friday night, and instead there was basketball. I follow WNBA and figure skating, so I know the thrill of getting your non-traditional sport on the air, but still: meh.

March has been a bit mad. I've been trying to downsize my things (so painful), and getting organized generally means making a big fat mess first. Needless to say, I haven't managed to send anything in the mail in weeks. I've had more return correspondence from LetterMo this year than any other, which is fantastic but also makes me appreciate why we default to easier methods of communication (social media). My goal is to get at least two postcards out the door today.

In the meantime, here is the end of February so we can all move on...

Mailed Feb 20:

I think I sent this to my mom, who has been very nice about not getting as many postcards as when I first started doing this (and had fewer people to send mail to). In fact, she sends me great postcards herself.

 Mailed Feb 21

photo: Herb Ritts 1993

Last month there was internet chatter about unretouched photos of Cindy Crawford in a bikini, demonstrating her fitness but also very human-looking 47-year-old-2-kid-bearing stomach. I'm not sure those photos were real, but it did prompt a discussion with Tilly, and she recalled this image, which came out in the '90s and was quite famous (for the kids: that's k.d. lang in the chair). I actually already had this postcard. Of course.

Mailed Feb 24 (2):

The Two Fridas, 1939 Frida Kahlo

From the Frida Kahlo postcard book I bought in college. One of my favorite images. This postcard used to hang on my wall and has a lot of tape scarring.

Edward Gorey

In 2013 I hosted a couchsurfer from Montreal who'd been staying on a farm on Whidbey Island. She brought lavender and zucchini as host gifts, and also a pile postcards and told me to choose one. This was the winner, hands down. I didn't write down the title of this image - I believe it's from a postcard collection called Mysterious Messages.

Friday the 13th

It's the freakiest Friday, and I'm starting off with a postcard mailed a month ago. I blame having two Friday the 13thses in a row.

Sent Friday the 13th (of February):

This is a 3-D postcard, which doesn't really translate to digital format, but I dig the way you can kind of see what is going on there.

Sent Feb 14:

Valentine's Day! This was sent to the fabulous Katja 7, whose nuptials are right around the corner. I keep trying to goad her into some Bridezilla moments for my entertainment and she just won't do it. She's so hands off about this wedding I'm a little worried she'll forget to come. This attitude toward the bridal industrial complex speaks to our long lasting friendship, but I'm still hoping for a tiny meltdown somewhere along the way. Because I'm evillle.

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