"Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes. How do you measure, measure a year?" In case you don't recognize the lyrics, they are from the song "Seasons of Love" in the musical
Rent. The musical and this particular song have always been among my favorites.
Today is the one year anniversary of "A Plethora of Postcards".
First post was July 5, 2009. So how does one measure a year? Well, here are a couple ways:
1.
By the number of posts: The original goal was to post a postcard a day for a year. As of today (before this post), 354 posts have been logged - not quite 365. There was one planned lapse (my three week trip in April) and one technology-induced lapse over Christmas. I did miss a very few days either because I forgot, or because I was having fun and got home too late.
2.
By the variety of subjects as measured by the tags: I've attempted to add labels for every post, although I haven't been completely consistent. A look at the labels shows 22 labels for the Mystery Sender, 15 for California, 12 for Mexico, 10 each for Christmas, colleges, and Postcard Friendship Friday, nine for New York and New York City, eight for England, seven each for Florida, France, Spain, and bucket list, six each for Morocco, Oregon, and Portugal, and five each for China, Fez, London, the Olympics, Paris, Postcrossing, road trips, Thanksgiving, and San Francisco. A marketer or an anthropologist might be able to draw a variety of conclusions about a person whose interests/choices appear as above. Or not.
3.
By the readers: There are 45 of you who have registered as "followers". I appreciate every one of you, some of whom I know and some I don't. I know some of my friends and relatives show up, perhaps daily, perhaps occasionally, and I always like it when someone mentions having read something of interest here.
4.
By the providers of the content: There are a host of regular postcard providers including my Mom, the Mystery Sender, my friend Julie who takes the most exotic trips, my friends Chris & Noel who faithfully send cards when they think of it, my friend Yolanda who lives in China right now, my friend Paula who travels a lot, my old friend Rachel in Chicago who always sends something fun [
I'm feeling like I am giving an Academy Award speech and am going to forget someone important], my friends Jack and Lorry who send postcards and who support me no matter what hairbrained project I'm up to, my friends Paul and Gayle with whom I pick peaches although we haven't found any peach postcards yet, my new friends and fellow postcard people Chris, Christine, and Sheila, and finally all the folks who participate in Postcrossing and Postcard Friendship Friday. Phew. And everybody else who sends me postcards, regularly or not. Thank you to everyone and for every postcard!
5.
By the amount of time keeping the cards in order: The sheer volume of postcards and keeping them sorted and choosing which card to post is a challenge. I am starting to understand why postcard people specialize, whether in bridges or painters or transportation methods or hotels or time periods.
By any measure, it's been great for me. I've enjoyed the commitment, I've learned about a whole sub-culture of people I never knew existed, I've practiced writing, and I hope I've entertained you to a certain extent.
The question now is, what next? I'd love any input.
In the meantime, postcards pandering to the old adage "sex sells".
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