postcrossing

One night when I couldn't sleep and was mindlessly surfing the world wide web (why don't we ever call it that anymore, the alliteration is awesomely appealing (see what I did there...)), I stumbled across the site postcrossing.com. On this website, you're randomly assigned persons from all over the globe for the purpose of sending each a postcard. After one of your postcards' specific ID numbers has been logged on the website as received, you start receiving some as well.

I like the idea for a number of reasons. Firstly, we don't send enough handwritten mail anymore. In fact, I hand write so little, that after a few minutes, my hand aches, its underused muscles screaming with fatigue. Secondly, I never had a "pen-pal" when I was younger, but I've always wanted to send mail to some far-off place with the hope that I would receive something back in return. Thirdly, it gave me an excuse to make my own postcards on snapfish, something I've been wanting to do since I found out it was possible.

This morning I sat down to write my five postcards. I retrieved my customized Riley postcards from the drawer, opted for a blue pen (spunky, I know), and then stared at the empty box in front of me for ten minutes, not knowing what to write. Eventually, I decided to introduce the lovely Vizsla gracing the front of the card, tell the recipient that I was doing this as part of this project, and gave them the web address to my blog in the hopes that maybe they would see this entry and leave a comment. I addressed the cards to people of all ages from five different countries: China, Taiwan, Belarus, the Netherlands, and Australia. I placed a 98¢ stamp on each, dropped them in the corner mailbox, and hoped my scratchy penmanship was legible enough to get me by.

I'll keep everyone POST-ed (haHA!) as to whether or not they're marked as received or if I receive any of my own cards from yet-to-be-determined senders.