aspens

10/28/2019: I'm moving!! I've been in Seattle for 5 long years and it's time for a change. I'm headed east and should be settled in a new city within the month, hopefully! Any mail received after 11/03/2019 will be forwarded to my dad's house, and I likely will not get to it until Thanksgiving. Once I'm all moved in I'll get back into swapping. Thank you for filling my mailbox in Seattle after all this time!

09/04/2019: I'm going on a 3 week trip around southeast Asia starting in mid-September, so any mail received during that time will not be rated until I return in early October!

Hello! My name is Analise, and I live in Seattle, Washington, USA, (with my German Shepherd/Rottweiler rescue, Rutherford) but I grew up in a desert in California. My favorite color is grey, and my favorite animals are sharks! I'm one half Mexican, one half Italian & Lithuanian, so feel free to write in any of the respective languages to help me learn. I've travelled to Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Ireland (and Northern Ireland for all you separatists), France, Iceland, Hungary, Germany, Russia (2018 World Cup!), Singapore, Vietnam, and South Korea. I currently have seven tattoos, and can't wait to collect more!

• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

• The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

I don't really have the attention span for reading anymore (argh) but when I can finally simmer down, I love postmodern literature (hence Greene!), and some modernist works (like Tennessee Williams).

Currently by my bedside are

• Narconomics by Tom Wainwright (an analysis on the economics of drug cartels--so fascinating!)

• Richistan by Robert Frank (was given by a friend to learn about wealth. Hmmm)

Feel free to PM if you want to swap for either of these books. :)

I don't watch TV unless I'm watching a documentary series on Viceland, or the nightly news. I'm so largely out of tune with TV and movies--I haven't seen anything.

From the shows I have seen, my favorites are Will & Grace, Ink Master, Game of Thrones, & Chernobyl.

It's an absolute cliche but I do really love most types of music--alternative, dance, rap, reggaeton amongst my favorites. My shower playlist currently includes "Si Tu Novio Te Deja Sola" by J Balvin/Bad Bunny, "Strict Machine" by Goldfrapp, "Whole Lotta Lovin'" by DJ Mustard, and “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton.

I try to go to shows often, and I go to Coachella every year (I grew up a few blocks away!). Other festivals I've been to include EDC Las Vegas, Bumbershoot, Capitol Hill Block Party, and 111 Music Festival. This year (2019) I’ll also be going to Bomfest (Edmonton, Canada), Outside Lands (San Francisco), and Austin City Limits!

I would be so happy to receive postcards, stationery, unused stamps, and washi! My only request with postcards (excluding those listed in Dislikes) is that if you are sending blanks, please don't send any touristy/destination ones. I think it's weird to get a card of a place I've never been to if there isn't a note that shows the sender has been there or otherwise has a connection to it, if that makes sense? If it's written, though, then I am so happy with tourist cards.

I myself am not much for stickers or coloring pages, but if I have young nieces who love things like that! They live pretty far so I like to send them mail regularly to surprise them. They are aged 13 and 10, and they love everything from Barbie to the Avengers!

Other than all that, my favorite types of art are drawing (charcoal, pencil), painting (oil, watercolor), and photography.

My favorite artists are:

• Painting: Wayne Thiebaud, Ben Steele

• Illustration: Henn Kim, Apollonia Saintclair

• Photography: Mary Ellen Mark

I'll get on the ABC thing too! Here's "just a few of my favorite things" not mentioned already:

A - 80s Advertisements / Amusement parks / / Aviation (esp. vintage)

B - Barbie / the Beatles / Birthday Cake / Burlesque

C - Cars / Catholicism (not Catholic anymore but it makes me nostalgic for home) / Cider / Clouds (esp. cumulonimbus!) / Coffee

D - Daggers / Del Taco (there's only 1 in WA!) / Doughnuts / Drag

E - Eyeshadow / Expletives

F - Fairs & Festivals / Fashion / Film Cameras (I shoot 35mm) / Fireworks / Food / Formula Racing

G - Globetrotting / Guns (not in the NRA type of way... & oddly enough I'm a pacifist)

H - Halloween / Heart-shaped things / Herbal teas / Hiking (a new love of mine!!) / Hotels

I - Iconography

J - Juice / Jaywalking (hard letter)

K - Kit Kats / Kids (HA! Just kidding. Never having them)

L - LA Dodgers / LGBT+ / Lingerie / Linguistics

M - Mean Girls Quotes / Memphis (design style, not city) / Money / Motorcycles

N - National Parks / Neon Signs

O - Okapis / Ombre / Opals / Otto von Bismarck / Outer Space

P - "Painterly" & "Photorealistic" art / Pasta / Peruvian Lilies / Pulp Fiction

Q - Quantum Physics (it's fun to read & talk about even though I don't understand it, LOL) / Quartz

R - Records (LPs but I also have 45s and 78s) / Reincarnation / Running

S - Sailor Jerry / Sewing / Soccer / Skulls

T - Textures (you could send a picture of denim and I'd be happy!) /Triangles / Typography (fave font is Helvetica)

U - Unpredictability / Urbanity / Unsaturated Fats (yes? no? This letter was hard)

V - Vegetarian / Volleyball

W - West Coast / Wine / World War II

X - /

Y - Yoga / Yuletide

Z - Zombies (cute ones like pin-ups otherwise I get bad dreams, lol)

Please don't send items with religious or cutesy/kawaii imagery. I'm perfectly fine receiving vulgar, provocative, or otherwise obscene cards (in fact I encourage those)!

My least favorite colors are yellows and neon lime green. I'm embarrassed to admit they make me physically nauseous, lol! Not embarrassed to admit they're ugly anyway.

And please, please, one of my only true pet peeves is when someone misspells my name. I get that it is very unusual, but as I get older, it starts to bother me more to see people write "Ana" or "Annelise" when my name is literally typed out in front of them. Other than these few things, I am very easygoing and I am so happy to receive anything! :)

Others have this list, so it must be useful, right? At least for me, I'm trying to be more diligent about making sure my swaps go where they need to be. Swapping is one of my favorite hobbies so I do put a lot of time and effort into what I send to others, and it is disheartening when people kind of disrespect that by not rating and then ignoring messages with offers of resending, etc. I'm also kind of a "neat freak" and so I like keeping my Swap-bot dashboard tidy and with swaps regularly moved to the archive (which I do after I have both rated AND been rated). Since I won't be rated for these apparently, this is my way of moving some swaps to the archive.

• @dvmac for NYUP USA Only #49
• @suepier and @matt319 for Ratings Booster Postcard Swap #29
• @matt319 for Ratings Booster Postcard Swap #10 USA Only
• @matt319 for Ratings Booster Postcard Swap #11 USA Only When the host of a swap doesn't rate or answer messages...umm...

& I guess Flakers Hall of Shame...

• @onewingedangel for Ratings Booster Postcard Swap #29