Postcards are the Twitter of Snailmail

I talked with a friend last night who was the recipient of one of the postcard from my challenge to myself (see "Love Me Some Gorey" post for full details). Turns out she was thrilled when she realized what it was. Which in turn made me feel good! Good karma all around.

So, I'm counting this a success and I will continue working at sending postcards to as many people as possible. But it got me thinking (and we all know how dangerous that can be); to write a short note, that's meaningful to someone is a lost art. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much this will help my writing. All this blogging and tweeting, etc., is just an exercise to write something, anything, that's not related to work. I want to get back to creating my fanfic, with the thought that's the path to more original, creative work. Plus, I hadn't realized how many postcards I have sitting around. Every time I ordered a calendar from Pomegranate (who, btw, has the best stuff - every year, I order a day planner and this year I purchased the absolute greatest address book), they send me a batch of really neat, free postcards. Which I promptly stuff in my stationary drawer and forget about. No more.

All of this came from the epiphany I had in the bathroom this morning: postcards are the Twitter of snailmail. You have such a limited space to use and so far I've been using it for the "hope this note finds you well" variety of blah. Not that it's not a nice or sincere sentiment - but really, I can do sooooo much better. So with that in mind, I've decided to change the original intent of my challenge. Not only will I send a postcard every other week to someone, I will attempt to be creative in my notes. Personalize it in a way that's meaningful to both of us.

And again, if you'd like to be on the mailing list - email me with your mailing address and I'll get you on my list.

Ash Wednesday

We haven't been the most observant for the past few years. A bad experience with nasty, close-minded people kinda put off our need to worship with any regularity and structure. BUT, that doesn't mean I won't observe on my own.

So - this being Ash Wednesday and the first day of Lent, I decided I will not only give something up, as our tradition, but also observe a strict fasting schedule for some of the 40 days. And yes, I'm well aware of what kind of benefits I can get with that. I'm not that unselfish...

I will give up sweets, candy, cakes, etc. and today and every Friday, from sun up to sun down, I'll only have liquid nutrients. And I'll post after Easter to see how successfull I was. And I will try to be honest. ;) Wish me luck!

Stolen from my friend Kit

So - this is one of those Facebook things. I'd perfer to do it here, where I don't have to cut my commentary short. :)

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up? Share with your fellow reader friends. Copy, edit and paste into a note of your own.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen YES
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien YES
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte YES
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling YES
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee YES
6 The Bible - YES
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte YES
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell YES
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman NO
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens YES
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott YES
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy YES
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller No
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare Some
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier YES
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien YES
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk NO
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger NO
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger NO
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot NO
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell YES
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald YES
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens No
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy YES
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams YES (And the Restaurant at the edge of the Universe)
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh NO
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky NO
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck YES
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll YES (and Through the Looking Glass)
30 The Wind in the Willows - NO
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy NO
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens YES
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis YES (on my own and out loud with Boo)
34 Emma - Jane Austen NO
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen NO
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis YES
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini NO
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres Mais NO
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden NO
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne YES (and the House on Pooh Corner)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell YES
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown YES
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez NO
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving NO
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins NO
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery NO
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy NO
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood YES
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding YES
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan NO
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel YES (The saddest book I've EVER read)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert OH GOD YES
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons NO
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen YES
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth NO
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon NO
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens YES
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley NO
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time NO
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez NO
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck YES
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov NO
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt NO
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold NO
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas NO
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac YES
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy NO
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding NO
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie NO
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville YES
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens YES
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker YES
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett NO
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson NO
75 Ulysses - James Joyce YES
76 The Inferno - Dante YES
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome NO
78 Germinal - Emile Zola NO
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray NO
80 Possession - AS Byatt NO
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens YES
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell NO
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker YES
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro NO
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert NO
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry NO
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White YES
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom NO
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle NO
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton NO
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad YES
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery NO
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks NO
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams NO (But I read one of the "Adult" novels Adams wrote)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole NO
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute NO
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas NO
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare YES
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl NO (Which my husband is still shaking his head about - me, the great reader, no Dahl?)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo YES

So 44 out of 100, that's pretty pathetic. I guess I have my summer reading list already created...

Mardi Gras and Misc. Things

Mardi Gras - Enjoyed Mardi Gras in St. Louis over the weekend. Yes, THAT St. Louis. As in comma Missouri. Who would have thought they would have the 2nd largest MG celebration in the country (yes, they are second only to Nawlins' in shear audacity and magnitude). The parade was an hour and 1/2 long with a TON of floats. They actually close down an entire residential section of the city (it appears to be about 20 square city blocks) for the whole day (if you live there - don't plan on going anywhere, you can't drive in or out after a certain time). Every business within the area sets up tents and sells alcohol and beads (the staple/currency of MG). And it's just one big party.

It was hella cold this year and we got there way to early and were not quite prepared for the day. Next year (yes, already making plans), will be much better. Much Grass to Bunni3 for her gracious hospitality.

Fat Tuesday - I found a place in Bloomington that makes paczkis. Whoopee! Ordered 3 dozen to feed our students with. At least I'll have that right this year.

Gorey postcard challenge - I've gotten several already sent and I appear to have caught up. So now it'll be every other week (on Monday). If you would like a post card, email me your request and I'll add you to the list. Make sure I have your snail-mail address so I can get it out to you.

Work - Having a ball - it's slowed down a bit. But I can see where there will be "I'm so busy that I can't even think straight" times. Really like my boss and the guys in the group. So far, they seem to like me.

Love me some Edward Gorey

I got this great pocket calendar / postcard combo. Includes the art of Edward Gorey (think Adam's Family - and no, not the TV series). So, I am making a pledge. I have a series of 26 postcards. I will actually write out one and mail it to a friend every other week. I will need to do one every week for the first few to catch up. This will also required a trip to the post office to get some stamps, but I'm sure I can handle this... :)

Update - work, life and things...

I haven't had a chance to breath much lately. I've been at my job for 30 days as of today. I've already worked from home for 2 of those days (ice and snow days). Almost had to leave at a moments notice to pick up a (not really) sick child (and no one would have held it against me). Realized that if I drove myself every day to work, I'd be filling up 3 times a week. What does that tell you about my work. Well, nothing really. Accept I'm really REALLY happy. It's the little things, you know. My boss is a great guy (genius-level smart on top of that), the team (which I am a part of) is made up of intelligent, nice guys who are passionate about their research. The paperwork situation - well, I could do without that. But if that's the price I have to pay, so be it. They seem to just accept that I have talent and brains and don't make a big deal about what I can do. As opposed to my last place where I quickly learned, the more people complimented you and told you how smart you are, the less they respected you and the more they were out to get you to make you look bad. (Paranoid, who me?!) But, that part of my life is over now. Not saying it will always be peaches n' cream here, but with the exception of a few co-workers who I miss dearly, I'm in a helluva better position now than 60 days ago.

House. Well - we (that's the royal we, mind you) are trying to get the house in shape so we can put it on the market. It's coming around slowly. Hopefully by the end of this month I can take a shower upstairs. That's been my dream for the last 7 years. Chuck's kicking ass at laying tile. It's going to look so cool. As will the rest of the house when we're leaving. Not sure how I feel about that.