Talkin' Shit About A Pretty Sunset

Tonight, my wife and I helped Frank and his wife select the postsecrets for this week's edition. The four of us began with a large cardboard box of a week's worth of postcards---likely over 600. We sat at a table, separating our favorites from the rest, and went through the highly selective process of choosing the final 23. At one point I asked Frank, "So how often do you have people help you with this?" He responded, "You're the first". I hadn't realized what a privilege it was.

Here are my thoughts, bullet-pointed for short attention spans.

• Only three percent make the final cut. Siphoning 600 postcards into 23 can't be done in an hour, especially when so many people's real lives are being considered with the flick of your fingers.
  
• I can't believe how many people cut themselves. I thought it usually occurred in the 13-19 year-old-girl demographic, but Frank said he's gotten cards about cutting from boys, too. Picture, if you can, a postcard smeared thick in dried human blood, with three razor blades taped to it. The caption said something like, "I bought the razor blades for art, but used them on my skin." A note to postsecret prospectives: please don't soak things in your own blood and put them in the mail. To anyone.
  
• I'm pretty sure I want children. Ok, this has nothing to do with the postcards, but Frank's daughter is so inspiringly precocious, that I think I may be moving away from the urban male cynic that I've become in recent years.
  
• Some things are even too fucked up to put on postsecet.com. Killing dogs, touching friends' genitals while they sleep, raw hatred. That shit doesn't make the final cut. It just makes people feel bad. The beauty of the project is its beautiful, raw humanity. If you're just looking for 15 minutes of fame, go on American Idol. Don't send meanness on a postcard.

I chose this postcard: