Mr. Stranger used to send postcards back to some of his co-workers when we were coming here to visit my parents.

I'm up already (just shy of 4am)—been sleeping weird hours for about a week, including a couple of days where it added up to 10-12h 😬 not sure if I'm fighting something or still recovering from getting overheated. I really do need a reliable vehicle with A/C.

I'm at the opposite end of the scale: I'm not so horribly bothered by gifts that I don't love because I might be able to pass them on to someone who gains joy or function; but unless a greetings card has an image I'd choose to display, I feel I should recycle it which oft causes a niggly dissonance over the card having been used at all.

So, I might send a note to someone I won't see in person if the words or image are special but I have long left behind the sending of postcards to people from holidays and such.

I mail almost nothing these days. Got out of the habit and now the stamps cost an arm and a leg... Also since I have trouble with my handwriting since my stroke, I wouldn't want to send anybody my scribbles right now.

I used to collect old vintage postcards. Kind of downsizing some of that now though. It is kind of fun to go back and read what people were sending back in the 1910s when they used to be able to send a postcard across town in the morning to meet someone for dinner because in most towns everything was same-day delivery.

I was very pleased to get that postcard from @Muse

Roughly 1969, I had a friend who got drafted into the Army. While he was in basic training, I sent him postcards.

I used clear plastic as the paper.

I glued on a stamp and used a dark black ink on white for the address.

I wrote the text in yellow etching ink. It was effectively unreadable.

And what did I write? I closed with "If you are having trouble reading this, just find a Xerox photocopier and make a copy."

And yes, a photocopy was completely legible.

Another time I was doing some painting (I am really awful) and a tube of cadmium orange acrylic paint broke. So I slathered the paint onto a postcard about a quarter inch (6mm) thick. The post office delivered it.

We went up to visit my friend at his base (Fort Ord here on the Monterey Bay) - we all stayed in a one-bed motel room (three guys). I was on a sofa and another on the floor. Our Army friend got the bed. And that bed had a thing called "Magic Fingers" - basically a whole-bed vibrator. So we plopped a quarter in. The vibration started. Our friend got into the bed and went to sleep. The timer never timed out - that bed vibrated all night. When our friend woke up, he found that he had been transmogrified into a mound of quivering aspic.

Only things that work by post, @Carsten Raddatz.

My Uncle was at Ft. Ord in the middle of the last century, and later my son was there as well toward the end.
I used to send illustrations done on mylar with rapidograph pens and Pantone markers to a close friend attending Berkeley Engineering.

Hit the post office this morning and stocked up on stamps instead of ordering them online. Managed to dig up several stationary boxes of folded mail cards and an absolute trove of regular post cards. Cleaned my grandfather's fountain pen and discovered it is now unusable due to a crack, ruining a shirt in the process.
Guess I'll try to locate my old Sheaffer and some ink cartridges for it.

My handwriting suffered mightily after brain surgery, but I can still write with my other hand, well, I can draw the letters out clearly. A youthful dive in to ambidextrous efforts a la Da Vinci finally pay off.
I may even return to paying dues by cheque...