Updated October 22, 2020

I studied mathematics and biology in college and read scientific articles about the coronavirus. I have family members who are scientists and physicians who keep us apprised as well. One is a genetic scientist who is studying the spread of COVID-19. My family and my husband's family believe that wearing masks and practicing social distancing and frequently washing our hands reduce our risk of getting COVID-19 and spreading it to others. The dubious science of herd immunity puts us all at risk. I wish that everyone would wear a mask and stop going to bars.
A powerful argument for wearing a mask, in visual form

With an abundance of caution, we take the incoming mail out of our mailbox, dump it in a pile in the front hall, and wash our hands. We open it a couple of days later. See also this free article in The New York Times: You’ve Got Mail. Will You Get the Coronavirus? and this one in The Washington Post: "How Fauci, 5 other health specialists deal with covid-19 risks in their everyday lives."

Swap-bot doesn't use HTTPS for secure communications over the internet. Because my Swap-bot profile is public, visible to everyone on the internet, my profile will change with the seasons, with a little information about me that's relevant to swaps.

I swap for blank postcards in envelopes and written, naked postcards. I send the blank postcards I receive to family and friends and people on Postcrossing; I set them aside so I won't send them for Swap-bot swaps. I don't mind gently bent corners; I lop them off with a corner rounder. Please send nice postcards that you'd happily send your family and friends.

If you're sending me a naked postcard, please send one that's a favorite of yours, sender's choice or for a swap with a theme.

No, thank you. Sorry, no hearts. Postcards to color, postcards for Christian holidays and legends, and Zazzle postcards. Those cheap sepia 32-pcs Vintage Travel Sights Landscape Retro Postcards. I have many Pomegranate postcards because I buy their remaindered postcard books at Half Price Books for $3.

My favorite kawaii has a face. I love food with faces and anchovies with legs and animals in an unlikely milieu like cat servers at faux Starbucks.

I'd appreciate stickers and memos for mail art: faux postage, letters, writing implements, and stationery.

I enjoy most characters, especially San-X. My favorite characters at the moment are Corocoro Coronya, gudetama lazy (or depressed or fatigued?) egg yolk, Kogepan Burnt Bread, and pastel Sentimental Circus.

I'm looking for kawaii books with faces. And puffins. How could all the kawaii artists have never thought to draw puffins?

No thanks. Poo and bottoms aren't kawaii to me. 3D stickers from sheets and sticker flakes, especially PVC and puffy.

• I'm bingeing on Louise Penny's mysteries featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Our library has all the audio books and I enjoy listening to them while I'm weeding the garden.
• I read and recommend Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.
• I just raced through the first two books in the Gunnie Rose series by Charlaine Harris and look forward to the third book, expected next February.
• Book club books for September are Nemesis by Philip Roth, a novel about the polio epidemic, and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, another book about illness.
• I'm learning Talmud with a Daf Yomi group.

I'm Jewish. I don’t see Jesus as divine. I believe Jesus was a teacher, healer, and social activist in the tradition of Hebrew prophets. Not a messiah.

I enjoy the cheer and goodwill around Thanksgiving and Christmas. When I join Christmas swaps, I send items with a theme of winter in the Northern Hemisphere's Temperate and Arctic zones. And maybe a palm tree with a string of lights.

I love all the lights around the winter holidays because days are short here in Minnesota, 8 hours at the Winter Solstice. Our neighbors put up lights Thanksgiving weekend and leave them on through January.

Chanukkah is not equivalent to Christmas. Jews started giving children small gifts in the 1950s to lessen feelings of otherness and being left out.

My kitchen is my craft room. My mail art has lots of room for improvement. Maybe over the winter when I can't play in the garden.

• Colorful ATC blanks
• An ATC you made, to inspire me
• Book pages
• Cookbook pages. I can't bear to cut up one of mine.
• My printer is black and white. If you have an image pdf that you love, would you please print and send it to me?
• Enamel pins
• Paper for layering on ATCs, favorites of yours, especially handmade or painted papers
• What else might I use to make ATCs or for mail art?