Japanese pillar postbox

What a great read postbox from Japan! This postcard came to me from a swap-bot exchange that turned into a longer exchange. Thanks, Danielle!

Postal haiku

There is some excellent "postal haiku" on your postal blog. I highly recommend checking it out.

My favorite, by twitterer Postal_Poems:

why write a letter?
to savor pen on paper
life between the lines

Pen-stamped envelope

This fantastic envelope came to me from a very knowledgeable fountain pen aficionado pen pal. If memory serves, I believe his wife did the stamping.



I am envious of such a fine collection of fountain-pen-themed rubber stamps! They sure jazz up an envelope nicely.

Epistolary persona

This postcard came from one of my favorite pen pals, who often sends me excellent food for thought. This quote has kept me musing for a while.

A correspondence is a kind of love affair...
It is with our own epistolary persona that we fall in love,
rather than with that of our pen pal.
-Janet Malcolm

Thoughts?

September Slammed

I've been exceptionally, unexpectedly busy.

I mean, I knew I'd be busy in September, but I didn't realize quite how insane it was going to be.

It's got me a little bit down. Not only have I not written any letters... I haven't even read my mail. Last week I read Tuesday through Friday's mail on Friday, and it's now Thursday and I haven't read any mail this week. I haven't even picked up my Thursday mail, in fact.

I'm doing a speedy blog post in between necessary work emails. It is most disappointing but I don't have a choice in the matter right now. I do apologize. I think next week things might calm down enough for me to read my mail, but I don't see big changes anytime soon.

I miss writing letters and postcards.

L'Shana Tovah/Happy New Year!

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is one of the most important Jewish Holidays of the year. It started today at sunset and concludes Friday at sunset.

(Above, Jewish New Year Cards by SusanItkinBatik. In the middle it shows the Hebrew greeting L'Shana Tovah - to you a good year - in colorful lettering, and around the edges we see both a translation and a transliteration.)

Wishing all my Jewish blog readers L'Shanah Tovah, and wishing everyone joy and peace this Rosh Hashanah.

August stats

How did it get to be September already? Eek.

August was a productive month, despite settling into the new digs after a move and having a few houseguests:

Letters
55

Postcards
59

Total output
114

I received 64 items in August. 18 of them were Postcrossing postcards, and 18 of the items I sent were Postcrossing postcards. (If you're supposed to receive as many postcards as you send on Postcrossing, how come I'm perpetually an unlucky 13 behind? I've currently sent 202 and received 189, and ever since they've been sending monthly stats reports, I've received as many as I've sent. Something is missing here.)

On 4 mail-delivery days in August, I received nothing at all - 3 on Tuesdays and 1 on a Friday. That's pretty big for me... I don't ever recall having as many days in a month where I received nothing, but... I've mused recently about mail speed and delivery changes, so head on over to that post if you want to muse along with me.

Well, for once my output is significantly above my input. I expect that to change right away, as my life gets uber-busy again in September. Uber-busier than ever... I'm going to drop my average (average, folks - not guaranteed) letter/postcard response time back to 4 months now, as I've been responding to a bunch of May stuff lately and I still have things in the pile back to March. So. There you have it, I'm not even going to pretend like I'm ever going to catch up, and I'm definitely not going to be able to keep up with even some of the people that I've written in the past. Life gets intense and I don't know what else to say about it except I wish I could be one of those people who needs only 4 hours of sleep a night - then I could write a LOT more letters! But alas, I am one of those people who really needs 9 hours of sleep a night but generally survives on 7 or 8... but I digress. Them's the stats, and I might be able to squeeze out another postcard before dinner if I blog off now.

Prior monthly stats and commentary:
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April and March 2010

Bobberdilly's envelope critters

Here is another fantastic artistic envelope from a wildly creative and interesting pen pal. He turns stereotypes about Kansas (and hey, a large part of my own childhood was spent in Kansas, so I have a reason for my stereotypes) upside down and all around. His letters are as interesting as his artwork, but I have to say - this is pretty damn unique and interesting stuff! Yes, every envelope is a work of art. (Here's a past example of another envelope he's sent me.) You can see more of his work at his own blog, Bobberdilly.com.

Dragon seal

This fine wax seal - is it a dragon or a gryphon? - came to me from a wise correspondent who puts seals on the inside of an envelope, right on the page of the letter, so that they don't get mangled in the mail sorting machines. Love this one!