GreenVelvet

I'm a gal in her mid-30s, happily married with no kids and 3 excessively spoiled and very loved cats. I live in Newport, RI and love it.

I am a little bit obsessed with letters and snail mail - you can see all my mail action on my blog, http://missivemaven.blogspot.com/ - and I decided to start up doing a couple of swaps because I have a few pen pals who really dig SwapBot. It sounds like a really fun idea! I'm a newbie as of October 2009 and am really grateful for the swaps that are open to newbies.

I'm very into mail art or decorative mail, I like funky postcards and decorated envelopes, anything interesting, different, fun in my mailbox makes my day! I send and receive a ridiculous amount of mail, but there's always room for more.

(I kind of wish I could change my username, oh well - other places I am known as Missive Maven.)

*cats

*bats (the amazing flying mammals!)

*mythical creatures such as dragons, unicorns, fairies, mermaids

*snails

*fountain pens and ink. I am mad crazy about fountain pens and fountain pen ink.

*Victorian, Edwardian and Art Nouveau

*postal and writing motifs

*cards with postal/mailbox/airmail themes

*sparkles & glitter

*The Muppets and anything by Jim Henson

*Edward Gorey

*stickers

*weird or dark humor

*spooky halloween themes

*not generally into dogs, but I love pugs

*anything odd, offbeat, unusual

*genuine upfront honesty

*curling up with a good book and losing myself for an hour

*sitting by a cozy fire in winter

Oddly enough, I'm part of one of the few American families that does not own a TV.

But - I do watch some things on DVD, and I am absolutely devoted to old episodes of The Muppet Show.

I read a lot, and am partial to modern literary fiction, but I have a big fantasy streak, too.

Some of my favorite books, in no particular order (except the order I think of them): The Corrections / Jonathan Franzen

The Mists of Avalon / Marion Zimmer Bradley

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit / Jeanette Winterson

The Passion / Jeanette Winterson

(actually I love almost anything by Jeanette Winterson)

Bastard out of Carolina / Dorothy Allison

Three Junes / Julia Glass

The Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky

The God of Small Things / Arundhati Roy

Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides

...I could go on and on...

but here's my LibraryThing library, which I use pretty much as a reading journal: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/GreenVelvet

*CHRISTMAS STUFF / anything with a Christmas theme (stickers, notecards, etc)

*Anything flavored with ginger

*Naked postcards with nothing written on them (unless the swap specifies that they must be blank and mint)

I'm a big tea drinker and am really excited about the tea swap idea!

I like all kinds of teas - black, green, white, red, herbal, etc. I'm particularly fond of spiced black teas (like chai! yum!) and organic teas. The only kind of tea I really won't like is anything that has ginger as a main component (the small amount of ginger in a chai blend is okay, though). I really don't care for ginger. I'm not big on orange flavored teas, but I'm willing to be open-minded on that. Otherwise, I'm really looking forward to trying all kinds of new teas!