i. PAST.

to begin: listen to this [30 second soundclip], and then read on.

.


just as soon as they started arriving in our mailbox, i was using AOL 30-day trials to log onto the internet to make friends around the world. in the early 90s i was in high school, and this World Wide Web was a magic escape. a web of weirdoes.

the people i talked to had one thing in common: they lived somewhere else.

i attended two different high schools: one in a rural town in northern florida, where the boys had dip cans pushing into the back pockets of their jeans; the other in the least-nice suburb in a satellite of suburbs orbiting orlando. i was too deeply weird to have any semblance of a good time at either.

the internet came to my house literally by mail during those outsider years. Prodigy and CompuServe, though it seems like the AOL discs arrived the most frequently. i cycled through the free trials, because we didn't have any money, though prioritized having a family computer and a landline.

in those early days there were themed chat rooms, and i spent a lot of time talking to people who liked the same things as me: tori amos, faeries (belief in, art of), the beatles, halloween, trois couleurs, shakespeare. whenever i think about a spammy porny banner ad that boasts,"chat with hot teens!!!" i think about how my teen reality was likely in a chat room debating hamlet with a stranger.

sometime in the late 90s, websites were being built out for all the little things, which i suppose is when i started finding dedicated sites for penpals and all my cultural touchtones. tori amos fans occupied the dent, and called themselves EWF (ears with feet); it was basically like an all-tori livejournal network. i made friends online, and we split time between digital and paper correspondence. there was iga in poland, who i met through another penpal who i didn't keep in touch with. there was cyn who signed every letter "kisses from rome"—we met on a kenneth branagh fansite. there was babsi from vienna: we met on a placebo fansite, and went on to visit one another IRL multiple times.

i have a box of postcards, largely from people i only vaguely remember but know that wasn't always the case. i made intricate care packages, swapped bside and bootleg cassettes. don't even get me started about FBs and slambooks.

there was our own lingo, which has a lot in common with current internet parlance (e.g., TFW, TBH). can you even imagine a use case for SNNP ("Sorry No New Pen Pals") in 2017? me either.


i. PRESENT.
as i prepare to pack up my life and move internationally, i'm beginning another chapter that commands a way to stay connected, whether i'm gone 6 months or 6 years. i've been thinking about this a lot--what are the ways i can stay a good friend, sibling, community member on this journey? and while, yes, i'll be reading and volunteering and donating to the causes that matter to me on a political and personal level, the interpersonal connection will need an active hand. to me, that feels like long-form letter writing, paper or email is the perfect antidote, just like back in the day. that said, it occurs to me that letter writing isn't something many of us still do. even tinyletter seems to take cues from penpal culture (though for most authors, tinyletters are written to a non-specific "you").


iii. FUTURE.
i move to helsinki on tuesday 18 july, on an epic 14-hour travel day with a layover in iceland. i'm bringing mina, who has recently been declared a service animal for anxiety (though it's hard to say on this particularly trip who's helping who).

when i get set up in finland, i'd love to KIT. which isn't to say i plan on stopping these tinyletters, or writing online in other formats. but i would love any of you who enjoy sending or receiving care packages, or who keep meaning to write more, or maybe just like a solid long-form email exchange, to connect with me.

if you're interested in being my penpal, send me back the following:

1. a reply to this in the affirmative

2. your mailing address

3. a note on what you're excited about (receiving postcards? care package swaps? sending long-format letters or emails? writing prompts/assignments together? or just staying in contact on a personal level?)

on the subject of penpals in pop culture: i saw mary & max at sundance in 2009 and it was perfect. it me:

LYLASBM,
rhienna

P.S. my kickstarter ends tonight at 11:59pm PST! if you haven't had a chance to pledge (and want to receive some goodies in the mail over the next 8 months), there's still a few hours left. <3