I bought this while checking out at HEB this morning. It was either this or find out the true story behind the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston’s breakup. I figured if I was ever in a life-threatening situation I would never forgive myself for choosing the wrong magazine.

I plan to read a section a night. The first half is alphabetical, from Abdominal Injuries to Vertigo. The second half covers all sorts of emergency situations such as “Perils in a Boat”, “Escaping From a Car Underwater”, and “How to Deal With a Panicking Swimmer” to name just a few.

Begin Aside. A few years ago, while eating with some friends, I mentioned the common-knowledge (or what I thought was common) concept of keeping a hammer handy in your car in case your car is ever submerged in water and you are trapped inside. The hammer allows you to smash your windows when your doors are stuck or the water pressure too great to open them normally. I was ridiculed for sharing this. I have great friends, you see. Has anyone else heard this before? Where did I get this idea? Was it in a movie? A book? I’ve searched for years to no avail. End Aside.

So I figure if I finish reading this book, I’ll be prepared for most emergencies I encounter in my life. Many people die because they are ill-prepared for emergencies or they think they know how to handle a situation based off of what they saw in a movie and they end up worsening the situation or killing themselves/others. I don’t want to be that person. After I finish reading this guy, you’ll want me on your camping trip. My only fear is that I will only have read up to the food poisoning section and someone will go into “shock”. What can I say? I love living on the edge.

I’m a Craigslist believer.

Things that craigslist.com has done for me in the past week alone:

1. Helped me find my realtor who helped me snag the apartment I’ll be living in come August.
2. Helped us sell our bunkbeds to a cool guy.
3. Helped us find this nice old lady in west Austin that had tons of free moving boxes.

Craigslist is one of those websites, like BitTorrent or Ebay!, where the more people who use it, the better it gets.

So here’s my question. How did Craigslist get so big? It’s definitely not because of a flashy interface. (In fact, maybe it’s the lack of a flashy interface that makes it so appealing?)

Come to think of it, I can’t even remember how I first found out about Craigslist. It’s interesting to see that they’ve spread past the US borders. I wonder how it will fare overseas and even more interestingly, whether Google or Yahoo! or some other corporate giant will try to buy it. I hope Craig doesn’t sell out. Because that would go directly against his anti-corporate culture mission.

On a fun note: they have a section on craigslist called “best of craigslist.” While I don’t necessarily enjoy the sexually explicit posts, there are some pretty hilarious ones. Here are a few examples.

Jul 10 2005 - bos - $100 to steal my roommate’s cat

Jul 06 2005 - aus - Lazy girl seeks same in boy form

Jun 24 2005 - aus - Breaking up with I-35

Jun 23 2005 - wdc - My Ipod Shuffle thinks I’m Gay

Jun 21 2005 - por - Open letter to all Honda owners.

and so on and so forth…

For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.

- Lines, William Wordsworth

I can’t believe I’m quoting poetry again, but that’s what English correspondence classes in the summer does to a person.

Today the Gloryfist founders work hard to save the drama for your mama.

I’d just first like to start out with the fact that we are truly humbled by the concerned response of so many people around us. We would like to extend the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe that these reactions are due to genuine concern as opposed to the itch to stir up conflict. All four of us on multiple occasions have been asked about our feelings and reactions to the organization of “Yo Mama’s Day Showdown” (referenced as YMDS hereafter) by Vascon and LiNK. (I hope we got that upper and lowercase bit right.) Honestly, I don’t know the members of either of those organizations and will neither vouch nor discredit them. And that’s really the point of this official Gloryfist statement. Gloryfist has nothing to do with YMDS.

But, but, aren’t you like, pissed?

Nope.

Dude, I would be. They totally took Gloryfist’s idea.

I see where you’re coming from. Let’s liken this situation to another. People like metaphors, right? One of the reasons (not the only) why we held Gloryfist was to raise money for charity. AngelTree children of prisoners to be exact. What’s another big event that is held to raise money for charitable causes? Marathons and 5Ks. Now these things are pretty rampant. Keep Austin Weird 5K, Chuy’s Annual Hot to Trot 5K, Schlotzsky’s Bun Run 5K, you get the idea. Races have been held to raise money for years now and no one really raises an eyebrow when a new company or organization wants to use a 5K to raise money for a different charity. However, I am sure that the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation would be in an uproar if the Multiple Sclerosis Society decided to organize a 5K to fund Multiple Sclerosis research and named it “Race for the Cure”. This explains why we kindly asked Vascon/LiNK to remove our name from their website and refrain from using the name in any of their marketing efforts.

It’s understandable that one might think it’s outrageous for someone else to hold a Gloryfist-like event. It’s understandable because girls-only tackle football games where money is raised by owners aren’t exactly as common as 5K races. But it’s not as if we patented the idea. We don’t own tackle football. Even if it’s girls tackle football. And no, we don’t own the idea of owners and not even the idea of luring owners with t-shirts. (Did I just say luring out loud?) A better metaphor might go something like this. Magic Johnson starts to sell red plastic bracelets with the word “LIVESTRONG” on them for one dollar each to raise money for AIDS research. A reporter approaches Lance Armstrong and asks, “Hey Lance, aren’t you upset that Magic Johnson stole your idea?” What would his response be? He could probably convince Magic to change the word on the bracelet at least. And he could also convince him to be clear that the money Magic raises goes to AIDS research and not cancer survivorship research. Feels worse than the 5K doesn’t it? Why? Because there’s only been one LIVESTRONG bracelet and there’s been hundreds of 5Ks. Makes sense, right? Don’t fight your emotions. Learn to embrace and understand them.

Imitation is usually viewed as the highest form of flattery. Maybe it’s good someone’s copying us. It means that it was an awesome idea and it really does move people to action.

So, you’re not upset? At all?

We want to be candid with you. We really do. That’s how we’ve been from the beginning and it shouldn’t change now. It’s bittersweet. It hurts to see something you worked so hard for get implemented so easily by someone else. We won’t deny that. There’s a twinge in my heart when I see the Gloryfist pictures on the YMDS website because I think some people still don’t realize the amount of time and effort that went into planning for it. I think some people may fail to realize the amount of courage it took to even attempt it. And now that the idea has proven itself, the risk factor is significantly lower. (It’s fine that they have pictures there, although part of me worries that the less informed viewer might think YMDS is somehow related to Gloryfist.)

I guess we now know how Steve Jobs must feel every time Bill Gates modifies his ideas and puts them into the Windows interface. You know, I still remember laying in bed late at night dreaming up plans for Gloryfist and trying to work out the ownership of teams and the sheer excitement of seeing people support us. I still remember how nervous I was when I approached the room full of girls at Jester 2nd and hoped to God they would believe me when I told them it would be one of their greatest experiences in college. I still remember the first time I overheard complete strangers talking excitedly about Gloryfist one morning while I walking to class. We would be lying if we said we didn’t mind at all. But we do know that Vascon/LiNK are raising money for a charitable cause and not for their own profit so we feel somewhat at peace about the whole ordeal.

You talk too much. I’m sorry I asked.

Excellent. That was actually our plan. Kidding. Well, half kidding. We hope this clears things up. Sorry to disappoint anyone that was hoping for an angry response littered with foul four-lettered words. We really are peace-loving folks. We wish Vascon/LiNK the best with their YMDS event. And we’d like to take the opportunity to thank you one last time for your support. We look down on drama here at Gloryfist Headquarters and we strongly encourage you to work hard to save your drama for your mama.

I worry
I weigh three times my body
I worry
I throw my fear around
But this morning
There’s a calm I can’t explain
The rock candy’s melted, only diamonds now remain

-Clarity, John Mayer

Do you ever have these moments in your life when your mind feels so clear and so focused on one particular thing that everything else seems faded and muted? I don’t want to make this deeper than it really is and even though sometimes it IS profoundly deep, sometimes it’s actually quite simple.

On my way to tennis lessons on Thursday I sat at a traffic light and had a moment of clarity. I don’t remember what song was playing in the background but it had a pounding beat that shook my ratty Honda Accord stock speakers and rattled all the loose change in the console between my seat and the passenger seat. An oversized SUV waited patiently in front of me with its turn signal that patiently blinked at me. My left blinker was also on and the clickety-click of the green arrow flashing on my dashboard clicked with such wonderful regularity. I unconsciously slowed my breathing to the pace of my turn signal: 3 clicks per inhale and 3 clicks per exhale. And even though my flashing green arrow had started off in an alternating pattern with the patiently blinking turn signal of the SUV in front of me, the milliseconds of difference had finally added up and I realized that any second now my flashing arrow would be perfectly synchronized with the blinking red light in front of me. And it did. In wonderful harmony the pulsating beat of the music matched with the flashing green arrow and the blinking red turn signal in front of me.

And as fast as it had happened, it was gone. The traffic light turned green, the SUV pulled away from me, and the DJ started talking on the radio. I snapped out of it.

Sometimes I feel my hours during the day get so blurry and chaotic. The few moments of intense clarity in unpredictable places are like little gifts of assurance that remind me that the world is still in working order and that everything is exactly how it should be.

Not sure if this post really makes sense but I’m posting without revising because it’s Monday.

It was the kind of conversation you dread. The kind you hoped to God you’d never have to have. But it was also the kind you rehearsed a million times in your head while lying awake in bed late at night– just in case you had to have it. Strangely enough, now that he found himself standing in front of her, after all these years, he easily shrugged off the dread and caught himself feeling more alive than he had felt for a long time. He consciously chose to ignore the fact that he was also feeling a bit light-headed. He forced a smile and said the first line in his well-rehearsed conversation script.

“God, you look good. You haven’t changed a bit.”

“You think so? I don’t recognize myself in the mirror sometimes.”

She bit her bottom lip and awkwardly adjusted the shoulder strap on her oversized bag.

“So what are you up to these days?”

“You know, working and trying to get my shit together. I’m saving up money for a house, or maybe something else. I haven’t decided.”

“You’re buying a house?” She laughs uncomfortably. “I mean, not that you wouldn’t… it’s just that-”

“Hey, go ahead and say it. I’m not the kind of guy that would save up to buy a house, right?”

She’s quiet.

He refuses to settle for silence. “Right?”

“Look, I’m happy for you. I really am. I’m glad to see you this way.”

She looks away from him as she says this, distracted by the noisy city bus that has arrived and is unloading people onto the sidewalk.

“I think that’s my bus.”

He’s startled at the abrupt end to their conversation. Before she can say anything else, he blurts out words that aren’t rehearsed.

“Hey listen, I’m real sorry. I feel lousy. For everything. God, I’m so damned sorry.”

She looks down at her shoes. In a small voice that’s almost lost in the rumble of the parked bus, she says, “You don’t have to do that.” She looks up at him expectantly.

“Yeah, I know. I just wanted to. I wanted you to know that I am. That I’m sorry. In case you were wondering.”

His words trail off as he searches her eyes for any hint of recognition. Understanding. Anything. She hurriedly blinks away what he supposes might be tears. Or maybe he just wishes they were tears.

“Well, I’ve got to get going.” She awkwardly gestures towards the city bus that is now loading people from the sidewalk.

Unwilling to end the conversation, he asks, “You think I could call you sometime?”

She hesitates.

“I don’t think that’d be a good idea.”

Both are silent for a moment. She affectionately squeezes his arm and smiles.

“It was real good seeing you. Take care of yourself, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. She’s already walking away from him towards the dwindling line of people waiting to board the bus. His head is spinning with all the things he wants to say to her. It takes every inch of his willpower to stop himself from shouting out every last thought to her as she gets on the bus. The bus speeds by him as he stands in disbelief on the now deserted sidewalk.

Rehearsed conversations never turn out the way you want.

I’m not usually much for poetry, but here’s John Donne’s famous sonnet on which I just wrote a 431-word essay. Donne is no Neruda, but it stirred my heart all the same. (I apologize if that sounds blasphemous to hard-core British, Renaissance poet lovers.) Enjoy!

14

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am bethrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

So I’ve added some links to my sidebar and I love promoting other people so here goes:

Dooce.
She hardly needs any promotion from me as she’s nominated a jillion times in the 2005 Bloggies (Fifth Annual Weblog Awards). I actually found her through Supergirl’s site. In fact I didn’t even remember finding her until a pal of mine reminded me a few weeks ago. I think my memory was refusing to attribute such a fantastic discovery to myself. Right. It all started with a terrifying post about the horrors of breastfeeding.

Supergirl.
Found by a pal when looking for Ayn Rand quotes. She doesn’t refer to herself as Supergirl or anything, that’s just what we called her until we knew her name was Michelle. She’s been to more countries and done more great things in her life than I could even think up. She has a ridiculously huge knowledge base of good music and good reads which makes anyone a cool cat in my book. Why do people from Singapore have such interesting lives? She doesn’t write as consistenly as Dooce but read this and you’ll be hooked.

Coren Astor-Furna.
Found this one randomly on blogger. Makes me want to surf it more just because I wonder how many like this are out there. Cripes this guy can write. I’m assuming it’s a guy. Coren? I have no idea who this guy is or what he’s all about. But his writing is good enough to publish. Everything is so real. I’d buy an Astor-Furna book– in hardcover.

Firefox Hero.
Blake Ross, computer programming prodigy. I’m a big fan of open source software and when I came across this post, I immediately became a fan. Interesting look inside the programming world. What can I say? I’m a sucker for geeks. I have always been and I always will be.

Tequila Mockingbird.
Come on. The name has to make you smile. The Blog Name alone won me over. And then I read it a little and it’s pretty good. Funny, down to earth, nothing too heavy. I honestly haven’t read too much of her but from what I’ve read she’s pretty good.

That should provide you hours and hours of great reading at work or wherever you do your blogreads. If you feel so compelled, return the favor! I’m up for any blog suggestions. Yes, even if it’s a Xanga. And even if it’s a self-promotion. After all, a good read is a good read.

She hated arts and crafts. She absolutely abhorred everything about it. She hated the way Elmer’s Glue smelled and the way it would wrinkle everything she tried to paste. She hated the way everyone had to share their rounded safety-tip Fiskar scissors and how there was no telling whether you were using the pair of scissors that the class nose-picker used last week. She hated the way crayons never covered the white paper completely and how easily they would break if you pushed too hard. She hated how markers made paper wet and soggy and how map pencils never stayed sharp for very long. She hated finger-painting because no matter how many times she washed her hands she could still see the blue, yellow and red circles on her fingertips. She hated seeing her classmates color in different directions and not even try to stay inside the lines. She hated how construction paper always made a jagged tear and how you couldn’t erase your pencil marks on it without erasing the color of the paper. She hated how teachers always swooned over dragons and stick-figure depictions of two dimensional families holding hands. Everyone drew ugly pictures and made ugly crafts but no one wanted to admit it.

Today was the day that she would set everyone straight. She had formulated the plan during the math lesson this morning while everyone else was figuring out how many apples they needed to buy if they already had four and wanted to have ten altogether. She knew the answer was six but she pretended not to know as she carefully peeled the laminated corner off of the alphabet strip that was taped to her desk. Today she would create the most hideous piece of artwork she could. It would be such a monstrosity that the ever-encouraging art teacher, Mrs. Winters, would finally declare an art project as ugly and unworthy of display in the upcoming art show in the library. She felt bad for Mrs. Winters because she really was such a nice person and she only wanted all the kids to love arts and crafts. But Mrs. Winters had to stop lying to the rest of the kids in the class. She wasn’t doing anyone a favor. They would realize their inadequacy far too late in their life and become insecure adults. The world certainly didn’t need anymore of those.

The art project today was a construction paper collage. Mrs. Winters had precut little 1/2 inch squares of construction paper of all sorts of colors and she wanted the class to paste the squares to make a picture. The bits of paper were separated by color into ten Styrofoam cups at each table group. She watched in detached disgust as the children around her grabbed fistfuls of colored paper and were squeezing Elmer’s Glue all over their paper and hands.

She sat staring at sheet of Manila paper in front of her. It stared back at her blankly. She calmly reached for a neglected Styrofoam cup and found squares of the ever-unpopular brown inside. She overturned the cup and started to tear the small squares into even smaller pieces.

When the formerly flat pile of construction paper grew to a good sized fluffy mound in front of her, she twisted open the plastic orange tip of her bottle of Elmer’s Glue and squeezed a long stream of white onto her paper. She kept squeezing until there was a pool of glue the size of her fist. She then took the scraps of paper and started to sprinkle them on top of the puddle of glue. She did this until she couldn’t see the white of the glue anymore. Then using only the tip of her index finger, she pressed the brown bits of paper down. Rivers of glue oozed out from underneath the layers of shredded paper. Careful not to touch the glue, she covered the rivers with more shreds of paper. Moments later, she sat back in her chair and admired her work. It was easily the ugliest construction paper collage ever made. There was no way Mrs. Winters could say otherwise.

“Oh my. I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Mrs. Winters exclaimed. The class huddled around the table looking at her collage. Some of the children were giggling and chatting amongst themselves.

“What is it?”

She hesitated. She wasn’t prepared to answer questions. She bit her lip and avoided eye contact. Telling them would make her vulnerable. She hated being vulnerable. But she couldn’t help herself.

“I wanted to make something as ugly as possible. So that Mrs. Winters would finally say something was ugly.”

The classroom fell silent.

She took a deep breath and continued. “I didn’t know what it was at first, but now I know. It’s a picture of my heart.”

She looked around at the puzzled faces staring back at her. She absentmindedly scratched a mosquito bite on her elbow. The silence was deafening. She looked at the collage and smiled. “I’m not afraid to say that I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mrs. Winters widened her eyes. She forced a smile and said, “Well, it certainly is unique. Why don’t I give you a new sheet of Manila paper? This time you can try to make something else. You could make a rainbow or maybe a nice sunflower just like the other girls.” The children started to lose interest and returned to their seats.

With tears in her eyes, she returned to her seat. She hated arts and crafts.