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Post by mailartist on Feb 2, 2016 22:03:17 GMT
These past few weeks, US snail mail has seemed unusually "snail-maily," in that a fair share of US letters have taken two or three times longer in transit than expected. Today, for example, I received a postcard from the east coast that was mailed two-and-a-half weeks ago, although I've had slow mail coming from other areas of the country also.
Are other US folks noticing mail lags?
(This is something for those new to InCo to keep in mind. Namely, that it may take until March to begin receiving replies, whether the addresses are international, or domestic.)
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Post by mailartist on Feb 2, 2016 2:58:24 GMT
Not sure if there will be a Global International, also if my math is correct. The International cost ($1.20) is a Forever and a Shollowtail (0.71) stamp Or, two forevers and a penguin (22-cent additional ounce stamp).
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Post by mailartist on Jan 29, 2016 15:19:57 GMT
It occurred to me that a bigger problem than illegible letter content is illegible addresses. Particularly for foreign ones, where I might not know all the postal conventions.
I can usually sleuth out a scrawled US address (using things such as "zip code lookup" through the USPS website), but with lengthy foreign addresses (Brazil comes to mind), I'm more at a loss.
I have wondered whether, in writing to foreign pen pals for the first time, whether it might be best to include my address, typewritten, as a label on a small slip of paper, that they could then just tape to the envelope. Ditto for their return mail to me. After all, if an address can't be read, the mail won't be delivered.
Keep the handwriting for the letter proper, but keep the envelope itself easily deliverable.
I'm all for beautiful addresses handwritten in script on envelopes, but I wonder whether that may tax international mail delivery too much?
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Post by mailartist on Jan 29, 2016 2:53:35 GMT
I received a letter last year from a foreign pal (so, not a native English speaker). So, add the somewhat creative use of English words to tiny handwriting, a yellow ink, and a pen nib that skipped. Even with a magnifying glass, I couldn't make anything out, and had no Rosetta stone to assist.
I had received letters from this pal before (with a better pen, and darker ink), and it clearly seemed from the denseness of the letters that this person was intent on trying to convey something. Problem was, there was no way I'd ever figure out what. So I responded with a generic, upbeat letter about life and such, and am crossing fingers that this pen is dumped.
I have no clue (from a technical perspective) what makes writing "legible." Certainly the ink color factors in (my handwriting looks best with a mid-tone ink), but it may also have something to do with uniformity of characters, the spacing between them, and whether verticals are vertical, and dots centered over the "i" underneath.
Does anyone know what, specifically, makes writing "legible," or have any ideas?
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Post by mailartist on Jan 28, 2016 15:53:33 GMT
I have two examples to share, which (I think) capture the extremes of the "writing to people the same or different from me." One was a Postcrossing posting of a teenage girl looking for a pen pal. The other was a story of two folks (John Bennett and C. Mehrl) in the "Making Mail" You Tube documentary.
I don't recall the exact "asking for a pen pal" posting by the Postcrossing gal, but what I read was essentially looking for AN EXACT CLONE of the writer. Her exact age, her same interests, her identical birthday month, her particular hair color and style -- she went on and on like this. "Here's me. Be a duplicate." As I read, I thought "there's NO WAY that anyone is going to meet all these requirements. She might just as well correspond with herself." And I don't think that she got any responses, so that may well have been her fate.
Then again, the Making Mail story involved a woman named "C. Mehrl" (don't recall whether the documentary told her first name), who went to a 1970s mail art show in Dubuque, Iowa. While there, the wrote down some addresses of people whose art she was intrigued by, and one of those was John Bennett's.
Not that she immediately liked John Bennett's work. It was a form of visual poetry that seemed abstract, swirly and strange. But, she recognized that "hey, I can learn something from this person, and I want to understand his work better." (That being said, I have seen some of John's work online, and in a book at the bookstore once, and I don't "get it" either. It is intriguing, though, his creational style.) Anyway, she said that as they corresponded, she began to respect more what he was doing, and the eventually became friends, got married, and continued in the mail art world.
A good pen pal will probably be somewhere between those two extremes, and I think it's healthy to write folks at various points on that continuum. I'm guessing that folks newer to pen palling may be likely to look for pen friends closer to the "just like me" end of things, while more seasoned folks may realize that people who (at first) seem different, are nevertheless like us in lots of areas.
For me, I look for a pen pal who writes about a variety of things. It would become tedious if someone wrote about the same thing, the same thing, the same thing, the same . . . (you get the point). And that's true whether it's about a child, a detested boss, or "I want this fountain pen, that fountain pen" -- as though a letter were simply a grocery list. Mailing after mailing like that would start to feel like a book of essays, and not correspondence, along with seeming a bit narcissistic and obsessed. I do recall reading a posting somewhere about a pen pal who talked about nothing except the weather. Two or three page letters about rain and sun -- and this person wasn't a meteorologist! In my letters, I try to change up the topics. If I included a lot of fountain pen info in one letter, then the next one, I might talk about art, or some holiday experience. I don't ever want my letters to be clones.
I think we need to be patient with other writers, and with the writing process, which can take some time to sort out. We can be as interested in other people as we can, and honest about our own lives and experiences, but remember that people dwindle from writing for a number of reasons. Receiving snail mail may seem like an enchanting thing, but it's going to require an ongoing commitment, and some people aren't realistic about what that entails. Sort of like getting a pet. It may seem wonderful at first, but there are invariably some hard moments where one wonders about the wisdom of ever "pet getting."
This original post is the opposite of the "Not Sure If I Should Keep Writing" thread started by Adomnan. Whether one is trying to dump a pen pal, or is coping with the fall out of having been dumped, we're all, at the base of it, pretty much the same. Realizing that we may not know the full reason why people do various things, we should just give people the benefit of the doubt, and be as kind as we can. THAT INCLUDES TO OURSELVES, particularly if we've been dumped for one reason or another.
Anna, don't take uninformed criticism coming from a relative stranger as valid judgment against yourself. Even in the court of law, there is a jury of varied individuals that hears all the evidence and then takes time to deliberate to a verdict. We, on the other hand, are much more likely to condemn ourselves after the first critical remark, when instead you just had a pen pal that didn't work out. Next time, pursue a number of pen friendships, and keep all those open until time separates out the diamonds from the dust bunnies.
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Post by mailartist on Jan 25, 2016 19:54:36 GMT
I thought I would just throw this out, but (as I've thought about this thread) it occurred to me that I don't generally feel comfortable asking people questions until I get to know them well. This is the same in person as it is via the mail. For some reason, asking questions feels a bit forward.
I may, for example, know that two people have been in the hospital, but I will only ask a close friend what happened, if they're feeling better, etc. For some reason, asking a stranger feels like prying (even though I do like hearing what people have to say, if they are so inclined.
I didn't realize this about myself before, but that's how I've been my whole life. Maybe that because I was shy as a child, or because that's how I was raised, to view question asking as invasive? Dunno . . .
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Post by mailartist on Jan 21, 2016 23:55:18 GMT
This may either be a stylistic thing, or the fact that there are so few pen pal relationships these days that no one really knows what the rules should be. After all, a great many correspondences end quickly, so you may just be mailing someone who hasn't had the luxury of having anyone write back.
The "Five Question" initiative sounds a lot like what you may envision regarding pen pals. But it doesn't have to be that way, and I probably write more the type of letter your describing here. I write about what's currently up in my life, although (as I get to know a pen pal), I might ask how someone's new kitten is doing, for example, or about their trip to the knitting festival. I've never been a pen pal to "Here are my answers to your questions. Now, answer this." (The latter feels a bit like a therapy session.)
To me, what is a satisfying pen pal relationship is if something they wrote to me about comes to mind at a later point. For example, one pen pal talked about how the family dog got into the garbage, and dragged some juicy and particularly rank package onto the oriental rug, whereupon the dog proceeded to chew it open. In another letter, this same pen pal talked about giving a cheap fountain pen to a child on Christmas day, and the child went around all day with blue fingers. Those aren't "question/answer, yes you read my last letter" responses, but it gives me something concrete to hang on to about this pen pal. Here is somebody who has a "sort of okay, sort of not okay" life, just like mine, and it gives me hope that I'm not the only weirdo on the planet.
I'm not sure what to say relative to your pen pal, but it may well be that the interchange is less than satisfying for a different reason (something to consider on your part). However, I do know that I've found some relationships to become pleasant, simply because I kept at it and (over time) came to appreciate different writing styles. One pen pal, for example, likes commercial bi-fold cards, and Washi tape. Shortish notes, but I have found that I don't mind answering in kind once in a while. After all, some days, I'm not in the mood for a longer letter.
Good question to raise, however.
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Post by mailartist on Jan 21, 2016 22:19:31 GMT
What experiences have you had receiving mail that was damaged in transit?
Do you think it adds to the exchange, or takes away from it?
Maybe it's my offbeat sense of humor, but to me, the added tears/scruffs/creases/mangles/dousings only add to the experience (so long as the letter hasn't vanished entirely). It suggests a mystery as to how the letter got that way, and I've had some funny interchanges with senders on exactly that subject.
I received a shredded letter today that was encased in its own USPS "WE CARE" protective bag, which got me thinking about this . . .
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Post by mailartist on Jan 8, 2016 23:32:20 GMT
Gender and relationships have become so fluid now that to be completely safe from unwanted advances, one should only write a parakeet. To secure a current relationship, one must secure that current relationship. There is no other way around that.
If a pen pal makes an unwanted advance, then that needs to be clearly addressed in a follow up correspondence, perhaps with the warning that if such forward talk continues, that person's letters will no longer be read or responded to.
I am happily and securely married (i.e., not a swinger) and would be creeped out by a proposition from anyone, regardless of gender.
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Post by mailartist on Jan 8, 2016 23:22:25 GMT
If the "weather writer" were a meteorologist (or Virginia Woolf, who could spin compelling prose about anything), then three pages might actually be compelling. I don't knock even ordinary topic's ability to be interesting, but it has to be written about in an interesting way. Not everyone can do this.
That being said, I have two thoughts on the short letter people. First, is that every dog deserves two bites. The laconic letter may be an anomaly, reflecting haste, or a headache, or even a verbal dry spell on the writer's part. The question is, will every interchange be like this?
Second, as far as I'm concerned, I'm not looking for busy work, so correspondence has to "work for me" on some level. I have had some very laconic pen pals, but more out of "I just don't know how to do any better" than "I'm lazy" or "I don't want to be your pen pal at all." Some pen pals are quirky, and I'm okay with "quirk" so long as I don't feel I'm spinning hum-drum letters just to spin hum-drum letters. So, correspondence needs to be "going somewhere" for me to justify time/postage, etc. on it. Sometimes I send letters just because I know it brightens the recipient's day.
My approach is always to send back a little more than I received. So I'll respond to a shorter letter with a "short" one, or to a long letter with a "longer" one. But if someone just sends me "Happy Pen Palling!" then I will at least send off a sentence (maybe two, if I'm feeling generous), on a postcard, and put that person's name on an iffy list. If all I get the next time is "Happy Snail Mail!" then I don't feel guilty allowing time and inertia to dwindle it into nonexistence. My approach is to answer everything, but maybe the person's brevity is their way of breaking things off with me, and my responding is just prolonging the agony.
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Post by mailartist on Jan 8, 2016 23:04:02 GMT
Generally, I'm sending a letter, and not applying for a passport. So, no, I don't send a photo just to send "a mug."
On the other hand, if a photo would serve to illustrate something I'm talking about in my letter, then I might include it. You know, "a picture is worth a thousand words" -- and sometimes I just don't want to write that much. So, if I'm writing about some place I visited on vacation, it might be "here's a picture of that place, and my husband and I just happened to be in the shot, so okay, this is me."
However, I do think carefully about what other people might be in a snapshot, and whether they would be okay with this photo being sent out. If I have any doubts, I don't send.
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Post by mailartist on Jan 8, 2016 22:49:40 GMT
A friend of mine just sent me a little cardboard fish as a tuck in, I made the mistake of leaving it on top of the letter. It must have looked very realistic as when my back was turned the cat helped herself to it! I now have 3 bits of a fish the 4th is still with the cat and she will not relinquish it no matter how many treats I try to distract her with! If the mail-eating cat becomes too much of a problem, you can always include "her" as a tuck-in. Problem solved! Now, "who," the lucky recipient . . . ?
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