Postcard #164: John Henry

 

Text:

When I was younger I never really liked the album "John Henry" by They Might be Giants. I had a friend who played the album for me and at the time I remember not liking many of the songs. I think that this album followed Apollo 18, Misc. T,  and Flood. 3 solid albums. The album after, my personal favorite was Factory Showroom. Followed by Severe Tire Damage. I listened to a ridiculous amount of Flood. But in my MP 3 / Lime wire / Napster years I lost ahold of what songs were on what albums, In my somewhat depressive funks I recall listening to "Self-called nowhere" and "End of the Tour" on repeat. "Destination Moon" always reminds me of one of my favorite shows Futurama. I love the horn sections of "Spy " and "Sleeping in the Flowers". Lately, I have been listening to "AKA Driver" and "Meet James Ensor." My album playing friend was Jesse. Whose friendship of ours was only severed by time and distance from what I remember. He was a good friend, who at the time had a better and more mature grasp of music than I did.

Thomas Minor

www.minormumbles.com

So I looked this guy up.  I hope it's him.  2020 is a crazy time and maybe he will get a kick out of getting a card out of nowhere.  Maybe I will come off as a weirdo...I am 99% sure it was the album John Henry.  My memory is not as wonderful as it used to be.  But if it's not him or his address maybe they might take a listen to They Might Be Giants.  You probably should too.

Interlude: Doing my Part

 

Yeah.  So I deactivated my Facebook account.  Its deactivation is hopefully just my first step to actually deleting it.  It became apparent I have absolutely no self-control.   I can't have shitty interactions with people and then pretend they are "meaningful" interactions.  Just because I know them doesn't mean I am having healthy conversations with them.  Just because I have "collected" their friendship doesn't mean I am a good friend for them or them for me.  

I am hoping this will help buoy my feelings of togetherness.  Facebook was destroying my insides.  People make me sad.  I think its worse to wish to that I did not have a connection to people because of the dumb shit they write (myself included) than to actually feel and be isolated or alone.

So if you want a postcard.  Comment here.  I will get in contact with you and we can trade addresses or something.  

Here is a first of many interludes...this is Postcrossing.  A website that enables you to safely trade a limited number of postcards with people all over the world.  It's a free service.  But you should donate.  You can donate money to them so they can run the site and put together programs for people.  I am hoping that deactivating Facebook might direct me to be a little more creative. Maybe be a better person in general.  

Postcard #163: "Doublespeak"

 

Original Card:

Stamp: United States White House with US Flag Postage Stamp 8¢ Scott: 1338f (I think)

Original Postmark: Libby, MT 59923 Jun 17th AM 1974 

Message:

Dear Janice,

Staying with Thora and Earl 'til Monday morning. Even Montana is Hot! Think it will be cool at Glacier. The "Hook's" say hello & so does David. Dad tried to get you on the phone, but no one answered! Lots of love. Mom, Dad

Text: Something I have learned working in healthcare for the past 8 months is what I am really hearing when a manager talks to me (not necessarily MY manager)

"I hear your concerns and they are important to me.  I am going to escalate these concerns up the chain of command in order for them to fall on the appropriate deaf ears."

-T.M.

Sent via postcrossing to MmeJarrell. She said she went to the World's fair in Portugal.  Which was in 1998 I suppose  I had a few of these 74 world's fair cards.  I think this is the second I have sent.  They all require editing to cover up the previous writing.  

Postcard #162: "The Big One (a 2020 reprisal)"

 

TEXT: www.minormumbles.com

US-7034052

Oct 4, 2020

This was the first year that I can remember where I paid next to zero attention to hurricanes. My life has been altered several times by them Andrew (Miami Fl 1992) Katrina (NJ - 2005) Irene (NJ-2011), Sandy (NJ-2012). After Sandy, I was done with the East Coast. When I told my father I was going to move out west. "But what about the Big One ?" He warned. The belief that the Juan de Fuca plate or the Cascadia Subduction Zone will utterly annihilate Oregon. I dismissed the warnings "I'd rather deal with a hypothetical natural disaster than a definitive/actualized disaster uprooting my life every 4 years or destroying it every 10. I will be completely honest a pandemic, never factored in as a natural disaster. Couple with the Oregon wildfires and the rest of 2020 I feel I was missing a lot of calculations. The "Big One" seems awfully real now. Perhaps my idea of Big One " lacks vision. If wildfires and pandemics escaped my list of "what if's " along with months-long protests...Perhaps there are even more creative "Big Ones" that await.

Sent to cimplicius.  He likes photos.  And culture.  One out of 2 ain't bad.

Postcard #161: "Viral Load"

 

Text:

www.minormumbles.com US-1017630

"GREETINGS FROM ATLANTA”

R. LAND 

It's 3 am. I awake to find my 2 1/2-year-old daughter had crawled up into arms at some point in the night.  I turned over in bed to look again at the clock. I begin to perform the calculations "if I fall asleep by 'X' I will get 'Y' amount of sleep before work."  1 hr 45 mins max. Then I realize I have called out already. My daughter was exposed to Covid-19 at school by her teacher. 3 days ago the teacher and all students were ejected from the class for 14 days. Quarantined. No daycare, besides my wife and I.  I am a nurse by trade, my wife also works in Healthcare. Who is to say I am any more or less exposed or positive than my daughter is right now? I become aware that I am holding my breath contemplating my daughter. I know this because the CPAP I am wearing, is violently trying to force air into my nostrils - a humidified pressurized high flow cloud of potentially aerosolized airborne-stable COVID -19. I am faced with a new calculation How long had my child been in my arms? How much of a viral load could she have received? I push her into the middle of the bed between my wife and I.  I turn off the CPAP and sit on the edge of the bed. I will get up. Knowing the chance of sleep is gone. The symptoms of non-illness now rival those of an illness.  -TM.

Sent to chanm.  She wanted a "Greetings from Postcard..." and something typical of my country.  I had the perfect card.  

I am actually back on postcrossing.  I finally deactivated my facebook account.  Maybe at some point I can actually delete it.  I will try and watch that Social Dilemma program everyone has been raving about.  Maybe that will finally get me to delete the account rather than treating it like a credit card I can not get rid of because its the credit card I have the most credit history with.  I am looking at you discovercard.com with your 20.99% self.  

Postcard #160: "Heroes"

So I had a whole card written on the back on the back of this.  But.  I don't think I want to transcribe it all.  I think I might rework the writing differently. It essentially was the embodiment of this graph:

But the writing makes me sound pretty bitter.  Which wasn't really what I was going for when I set out to write it.  So I will probably cannibalize it for a later postcard.  I sent this postcard to a comic that I subscribe to that I enjoy.  This might feel a little fanmailish.  Maybe it is.  Check out his stuff and Patreon.  It's pretty funny.

Postcard #159: Old Man's War review

I finished John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" and "Murder by Other Means" back to back. I came to the realization how much I do not like Hugo award-winning sci-fi novel Writer John Scalzi compared to fiction novella writing John Scalzi. People keep comparing his writing to the Expanse Series by James SA Corey. It's not. "Redshirts" was "okay" and I did not care for "Old Mans War." John Scalzi takes mildly interesting / likable characters and attempts to humanize and impress these characters by killing (often violently) other more likable characters around them. The Dispatcher was a more palatable series. But it's just more John Scalzi except he is killing characters (very gray characters) in a world where people come back from the dead. I found John Scalzi's writing of what essentially amounts to descriptions of old people fucking for 2 chapters somewhat... excessive. So am I a prude? Or is he at fault for not making it more palatable for me? Am I vain for contemplating this element of his writing vs. the greater arcing of theme of the futility and senselessness of war, and the evil of man? Fuck writing.  -T.M. www.Minormumbles.com

Sent to P.R.  Ursa added the writing to the front of the postcard while I was distracted with editing this blog.  I am pretty sure those are U's.  She says it says the word "Daddy"

Postcard #158: Violent Femme

Since birth I've been rocking Ursa to sleep with a good night playlist. It starts with C. W. Stoneking's "The Zombie" then has a variety of tracks a few from "Over the Garden Wall", Pink Floyd, Streetlight Manifesto, among others. In my arms, Ursa grows restless and starts talking. I tell her I can't understand her with the pacifier in her mouth. She pulls it free and sits back in my arms "...stay with me just a little longer? " "What?" I ask. She starts humming, for a few moments smiling "It always seems like you are leaving when I need you here..." My 2 1/2 year old says to me as she leans in to touch my face warmly. "Won't you stay with me just a little longer it all..." her words melded into a mix of baby speak but I could clearly tell she was singing along with the music now. She almost had the la la la's down at the end. And it was true I did not want the feeling to end. - T.M. "Violent Femme"

I sent this card to my father for Father's Day.  The card is among the oldest in my collection.  Originally mailed on March 20, 1903. He said it made him cry.

I sent this card to my father for Father's Day. The card is among the oldest in my collection. Originally mailed on March 20, 1903. He said it made him cry.

Postcard #157: "Missing you..."

Sent to Fosforito!  

My friends Patty and Drew came out to visit.  We took a trip up to Snoqualmie to check out some Twin Peaks locations.

Postcard #156: "I farted..."

Sent to my friend JB RN.

Text: I farted.  I am not proud of that fact but, it happened.  I was alone in a room cleaning it up after surgery.  No cases to follow.  Perhaps I felt safe?  In a room adjacent to the OR, a coworker knocked on the door and gave me a friendly middle finger through the glass and smiled.  I walked over dragging the shame cloud of my flatulence with me.  It carried a familiar smell I could not place.  I opened the door and he was checking the shelves for outdated product.  My guilty conscious urged me to speak. "In an effort to meet full disclosure...I just farted. It's pretty bad." He replied, "Is that why it smells like McDonald's in here?" I laughed.  It did.  Like a large order of fries.