Postcrossing

Did you know?

- My city has 12 bridges

- My boyfriend’s a jerk because he won’t let us have kitties (he isn’t really)

- I’m a fan of Mumford & Sons though not particularly sociable

- I disdain postcard makers that don’t realize that room to write on a postcard is at a premium

- I have a deep and unwavering affection for a boy named Pavel in Belarus

Well now you do, and so does some person in Taiwan.

My friend Maggie recently sent me a link to Postcrossing. It’s for those of us who always wanted a pen pal from some faraway place but failed miserably at corresponding on a semi-regular basis. (Sorry little blonde girl in Ireland whose picture I think I still have; I’m sure you were a really nice 10-year-old 20 years ago, but I barely manage to return books to the library, so there was really no hope for our epistolary friendship). With Postcrossing, there's no need for all that pesky follow-up. If you can manage to muster up a paragraph or even a couple of sentences, slap it on the back of a postcard and (here’s the crucial step that I am close to mastering) mail it to a registered Postcrossing user, then in a few weeks' time you’ll get a postcard back from another random person on the other side of the world.

If the postcards I have received are any indication, most people must expect to receive pretty postcards and aren’t particularly interested in the message on the other side. But honestly, I don’t understand why you would pass up the opportunity to confuse, amuse, love, or possibly irritate a total stranger who is patiently awaiting a card and an introduction from somebody half a world away.

Hopefully, right now there is a boy named Pavel* in Belarus who realizes that he is loved... or at least not too terribly annoyed by my distracted musings.

*Why yes, I am proud that I managed not to ask Pavel to call me and leave a message of him saying “Nuclear Wessels”.