Despite Google making it harder for me to do so 🤬, I managed to add not one, not two, not three but four new memorial benches to the OpenBenches database during a dog walk this morning.
A particular excitement was adding my first bench with two plaques.
It’s the little things.
I got another postcard, and another new country for the senders list.
I’ve added it to my gallery. This one’s from grubbyfox, whom I’ve crossed paths with on a Web forum2.
It remains a huge pleasure to receive a postcard from an Internet stranger (or even somebody I already know). It’s so much more tactile, and thoughtful, and human, and real than most of the other feedback I get.3
I guess there’s sort-of a scale of effort that it takes to react to content online. At the lowest end of the scale, barely above “doing nothing”, is “clicking a reaction button” (hey, did you see that you can click one below this?). It takes more effort to fill in a contact form. More still to send an individual email or ping me on Mastodon. But yet more still to write a postcard, find a stamp, go to the postbox… And I really appreciate it when somebody makes the effort.
1 The surprise is dampened only slightly by the fact that my PO Box provider emails me in advance to tell me I’ve received something.
2 Remember Web forums? They’re still very much around, and there are some cool communities if you can find the right one for you.
3 If you want to send my a postcard, my PO Box address is over here…
How kind of the humans who constructed this sofa to leave a perfect dog-shaped nest in-between the cushions. Our pupper is appreciative.
