There was a momentary bit of stress at the beginning, though. There always is. I have trouble with online profiles; even under the best of circumstances, what I come up with is at best misleading and vague. My facebook page just says “I like rusty scissors” and whenever I have to submit an artist bio to anything, I just copy/paste one that my boyfriend wrote for me a couple years ago that insinuates that I only put my camera down to drink gin and masturbate. And while that may technically be true, I don’t think it’s gotten me very far in the high-falutin’ ahhht world.
So when putting together my Postcrossing profile, I had my natural reticence well in hand, as well as a fair bit of self-consciousness about how my lifestyle would translate in to an all-ages international arena– would an 11-year old Latvian girl know what roller derby is (I was a derby coach at the time), or would a 50-year old veterinarian from Italy want to correspond about abandoned silver mines? Are there any Taiwanese fans of The New Duncan Imperials? Is it more important to express these minutiae or to look for larger similarities and work down from there? Or am I totally over-thinking everything, like usual, and maybe I should just stop worrying about it and put up something basic?
When I tried to write out something pedestrian and simple, it came out looking like a small-town Weekly Gazette singles ad: “Hi, my name is Lorien and I live in Seattle. I have 2 cats, and like to read books and watch movies. My favorite colors are black and a very specific shade of iris blue, and I have a marked weakness for buying Carmen Cavalero albums at thrift stores. Will you be my special postal friend?”
Ungh.
Reading other people’s profiles in the hopes of kickstarting my brain didn’t really help either, mostly they were just wishlists of what kinds of postcards they wanted to get – scenic, wildflowers, cute little bunnies, UNESCO, “no ad cards, please.”
Then I figured it out, rather than fussing and fretting about how best to tell strangers about myself, I’d ask people about themselves instead – the universal question, the question that everyone, everywhere can answer – “what do you like to have for breakfast?”
Not everyone answers, but those who do have given me some great insights. This is in no way scientific, but it sure is nifty:
- Nobody loves bacon. Nobody. Not a single person listed bacon as a part of their breakfast of choice. I hope this means that the whole bacon phenom is over.
- A gal in Belarus said that her favorite breakfast is coffee with granola in it. "It’s speedy" she says, "it wakes me up and fills me up at the same time." I love her for that.
- Not a lot of people eat eggs, it seems, except the Dutch.
- For beverages, tea beat out coffee nearly 2 to 1, with banana smoothies coming in just a smidge over orange juice.
- Czechoslovakians love pancakes. Every card from there that mentions breakfast lists pancakes, with most saying sweetened condensed milk is their topping of choice. Sorry, maple syrup.
- Great Brittan and Germany tie for sausage, not surprisingly, with Finns coming in a close third. Germans like it with buttered bread and the Brits like fried mushroom caps and beans. And beer.
- While most people mentioned some form of bread made up a part of their morning meal, only the Japanese specified cinnamon toast and Germans mentioned croissants.
- Cucumbers are popular morning eating in Finland, Japan, China, and Thailand. Most are pickled.
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