It did my heart good to see this in the Times on this crummy morning. Except for the “handwritten” part (because my handwriting is terrible), I’m all in.

We Could All Use a Little Snail Mail Right Now (The New York Times)

@garciabuxton Oh, this is great; I hadn’t thought of some of those. I used to be a letter-writer, fell into email-writing in college and grad school (and because my handwriting is also terrible, and only getting worse from disuse!) and now am just about the last emailer standing among people I know.

@jw, I think, did a letter-a-day thing earlier this year, and seeing him post photos of his letters in part prompted me to start trying again. It’s not so much correspondence as talking to the trees, but I can do it without wading into the swamp that is corporate social media, so it’s a win even if only in that regard. In a happy coincidence, I was just thinking earlier today about writing another card to a friend….

@smokey @garciabuxton oh! We should start a micro.blog pen pal club! 🙌👍✨

@vasta That's a lot of letters! Nice! I'm lucky if I send a couple dozen a year. Would really like to send more and seeing your number is inspiring. /@garciabuxton @herself

@vasta 😮 very impressed by that number ... I can't even remember when I wrote an actual letter the last time. 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago??

When I was a student I wrote a lot of letters just because I enjoyed writing with pen & paper.

@jack @herself @vasta @smokey A Micro.blog pen pal club would be awesome. And I doubt I'll get up to as many letters per year as Sameer, but I'm with Jack and am very inspired.

@garciabuxton @jack @herself @vasta @smokey I’d love to get involved in a Micro.blog penpal club! I imagine there’d be extensive crossover between this and the pen/pencil folks and the typewriter folks.

@herself I’d love a pen pal club!

@smokey @garciabuxton @vasta @jack @jemostrom @rnv @cheri Well, I'd be happy to put my hand up and organise something, if we want a little formality around it? I guess the nature of micro.blog means we can't easily PM each other. One option is we could have a thread where if we're interested in a pen pal we reply with our interests, etc, and then somehow find a way to exchange emails. Another option would be to set up a form where we collate interested parties in a google doc, and I could pair people up who have similar interests? Everyone gets sent a person to write to, so you'd potentially wind up with two penpals (the one you write to, and the one who writes to you).

I may have been thinking about this too much, this morning...

@herself @smokey @garciabuxton @vasta @jack @jemostrom @cheri I don’t have any firm thoughts on how we might want to organize the match-making, and no strong opinions about how formally we’d want to make it. But as for the actual exchange of addresses, maybe the PM feature via the MB Slack, assuming most/all of us are already over there? (And for this ongoing conversation, maybe we should consider setting up a new penpal channel over at the MB Slack…)

@rnv (and co!) That’s a good idea! I’m not on the slack channel but happy to join :)

@herself Cool! (cc: @Manton)

@rnv (etc.) This pen pal thing has taken on a life of its own. :) So delighted. Thank you so much, @herself, for taking this on!

How does one join Slack? Do you need to be part of an existing workplace that uses it? As you might guess, I'm not on the channel of which you speak.

@rnv I hate slack with a fiery passion but I am willing to go online long enough to exchange pen pal information. That’s a good idea. 🖊

@garciabuxton There's already a Micro.blog Slack but I honestly can't remember how I joined. @Manton?

@rnv I set up #penpals channel in Slack and invited you. Right now anyone can join the channel.

@herself oooo!!! Me too!

@rnv Ooooh, I see this: "Contact the workspace administrator for an invitation." Might that be @Manton?

@cheri Is it that scary? I've never been on it.

@rnv micro.blog/slack

@garciabuxton Go here: micro.blog/slack and enter your email to receive an invitation.

@garciabuxton I’m hearing @Cheri in an Indiana Jones voice muttering, “Slack. Why'd it have to be Slack?…”

@garciabuxton The Slack app is a bit of a mess. But the micro.blog Slack is a friendly place with the discussions in topic-specific channels. The traffic isn’t as crazy on some other Slacks I’m on.

@rnv Thanks!

@rnv @cheri 😆

@rnv @herself @garciabuxton @vasta @jemostrom @cheri I love this plan! Some people have reservations about Slack, but in this case I think it makes sense. I haven't been very active recently in the Micro.blog Slack channels, but I read it daily (ish) and it seems just as helpful and friendly as micro.blog itself. I've eagerly joined the #penpals channel. Thanks to @macgenie for setting it up!

@garciabuxton Nah. It’s just the rabid mutated offspring of email and 1990’s style IRC chat. Wear a condom and you’ll be alright. 😂

@rnv hahaaaaa!

@cheri I’ll have Purell at the ready when I dive in.

@jw yeah!! :)

@rnv awesome, I’m on. How to proceed? We post a little “about me” and if someone wants to write you (or if you want to write someone) they contact you via your private channel?

@herself That sounds fun! But at this point, I shouldn’t be taking on any more correspondence commitments, so I need to pass.

@smokey fair enough! It’s meant to be enjoyable, not stressful :)