A Thoughtful Gift

"Everyone has a gift for something,

even if it is the gift of being a good friend."

-- Marian Anderson

Bicycle with red blinking light 8-23-14

"May it be a light to you in dark places,

when all other lights go out."

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

My farmer friend Bob is one of the good guys.

I ride past him nearly every day, him in his truck, me on my bike.

Bob always sticks an arm out the window and waves to me.

Bob is a very friendly farmer.

Yesterday when he waved, he motioned for me to stop. 

So I looked both ways, did a U-turn and swung over to the his side of the road.

Bob had a gift for me -- a little clip-on, battery-operated blinking red light that flashes on and off, on and off, on and off.

He clipped it onto the back of the tool bag under my bike seat and switched it on.

"It's just a cheap-o," he said. "But it's better than nothin'."

He hugged me there on the roadside, even though I was all sweaty and gross, and sent me on my way.

Bob's gift might seem like a little thing -- just a small, inexpensive item from the hardware store. 

But it was a very thoughtful thing.

And now, I'll think of my thoughtful friend whenever I switch on my new blinky taillight.

It's always a good thing to know someone is looking out for you.

And I was touched that my friend thought enough of me to give me a thoughtful gift that will help protect me and keep me safe out on the road.

They say it's the thought that counts.

I say the friend who thought the thought counts even more.

Getting A Package In The Mail

"Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things."

-- Rodgers and Hammerstein, 

"My Favorite Things," The Sound of Music

Paper heart box 7-22-14

I get packages on my doorstep all the time, but they're typically full of stuff I've purchased online and sent to myself.

I know they're coming.

It's no big surprise when they arrive.

Hell, I can even track them minute by minute until they get here.

But a surprise package, sent from a friend, loaded with special items selected just for me? That's a whole other kettle of fish.

My birthday was over a week ago, but I got a birthday package in the mail yesterday anyway.

It was from my friend Kelly. She sent me a box of really great stuff all the way from Rhode Island.

Kelly is always sending me little surprises through the mail, even when it's not my birthday -- everything from Lego mini figures, to skull bandanas, to books, to t-shirts to pastries from her hipster Providence bakery. (She is still trying to crack the code on how to ship her delicate, fragile meringues without the USPS reducing them to rubble.)

I can tell at a glance if a box on my doorstep is from Kelly, because she usually seals them with cupcake duct tape.

Even though I'm a big kid now, the thrill of getting a surprise package in the mail never gets old. It still makes me as super happy and super excited as it did when I was small. And there's something about knowing someone thought of me when we weren't even together that feels, well, really good.

And so ...

Ding! Ding! Ding!

In honor of my awesome thoughtful friend, I'm introducing the One Good Thing "What the Helly-Kelly Surprise Package Challenge."

Think of someone you love, or like a real lot, and shoot them a li'l sumthin sumthin through the mail. You can make it, or buy it, or find it. And it doesn't have to be their birthday either. It doesn't have to be their anything. And don't tip them off that it's coming. Just send it and see how super happy and super excited you'll make them.

In fact, I'll bet it'll make you both feel pretty good.

(*Cupcake duct tape is totally optional, but is definitely a nice touch.)

A True Friend

"The more you try to crush your true nature,

the more it will control you.

Be what you are.

No one who really loves you will stop."

-- Cassandra Clare, City of Fallen Angels

For Jill, on her birthday 1-16-14

"To be one's self, and unafraid whether right or wrong,

is more admirable than the easy cowardice

of surrender to conformity."

-- Irving Wallace

For the past couple of years, on her birthday, I have created special photographs for my friend Jill.

It's my way of saying, in the most personal and expressive way I can think of, how much I love this quirky, kinky, hilarious, courageous, intelligent, wry, adventurous, multi-talented, traveling, against-the-grain woman.

Jill came into my life 10 years ago, and sometimes I wonder how I survived all those years before we met. You know how there are some people who just "get" you? Who seem cut from the same cloth? Cast from the same die? Who don't make you feel stupid for crying at the end of Black Swan, but who cry along with you, and then sit with you in a coffee shop for hours afterwards talking about why it was so goddamned beautiful? Who will eat her weight in your homemade rhubarb crumble? Who'll travel all the way to Australia and buy you a Devil Bride Doll ("with Jellybeans!") in a creepy deserted candy shop because it made her think of you, and because she figures you might be able to "use her for some kind of art."

Which is exactly what I did. I used the doll Jill sent me (stripped of her sassy pink capris, but still wearing her red t-strap pumps), along with one I found at the thrift store (which came naked, except for the pink fetish boots), as well as a bunch of naked Barbies, to illustrate our friendship as I see it. (Note: Jill and I don't actually look like these dolls. I'm being figurative here, not literal. It's an illustration. Although I wouldn't be surprised if Jill has those boots.)

Anyway, Jill isn't like anybody else I know, which is an enormous part of her charm. She inspires me to be as fully and completely and unapologetically myself as I can possibly dare to be, because that's exactly what she does. And I wouldn't have her any other way.

Now maybe you can see why a Hallmark birthday card would be way too ordinary.

All I can say is, knowing Jill is not just a good thing, it's one of the best things. And if you're lucky enough to have a friend like her, then you're lucky enough.

How come whenever it's her birthday, I feel like I'm the one who got the gift?

Kelly

"A hatchling, that is what you are.

A hatchling struggling into the world ...

Do not worry about these things.

Find peace in where and what you are."

-- Christopher Paolini, Eragon

Cracked Barbie head with a raw egg 1-15-14

"I am not a dime a dozen!"

-- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

Barbies in an egg carton 1-15-14

Ever notice how the girl's dream job in every romantic comedy is to own a bakery?

Every pretty little girl with an Easy Bake Oven wants and to grow up and bake exquisite pastries all day.

I hate to break it to you, but bakery dreams are a dime a dozen. Achieving them is the fictional stuff of movies. Nobody ever really gets to do that for a living, do they? Only the really lucky ones, right?

Wrong.

My good friend Kelly gets to. And it has nothing to do with luck. She's baked her ass off to get where she's going. She's chased her dream from Ohio, to Rhode Island, back to Ohio, to Chicago, and back to Rhode Island again.

Kelly is a professionally trained pastry chef with the education, experience and moxie to actually be living the dream.

After plenty of years working for other people, in other people's bakeries, taking other people's shit and cleaning up other people's messes, Kelly is currently in the midst of a move from the shores of Lake Michigan to the Atlantic coast, where she'll finally be running her own place. She'll be calling the shots. She'll be the boss. She'll be the head bitch.

Except she isn't bossy or a bitch, at all. Which is what makes her so great.

She's beautifully lovely -- an adorably pretty, nerdy, non-blonde bookworm-in glasses who wears cute dresses as easily as she wears her tattoos (of cakes and cupcakes, of course!) She is the kind of friend who never forgets your birthday, always shows up with treats, and will stand in the Lego aisle in Target feeling up the Lego mini figures bags until she finds a Medusa, because she knows you really, really want the Medusa.

But she's also tough as hell. And brave. And courageous. And she doesn't take anybody's shit.

I've worked in a bakery with Kelly, and she makes it look effortless. But pursuing her dream hasn't been. She's made tough decisions and difficult sacrifices. She's had to leave behind jobs, and cities, and people and friends that she really loves.

As they say, you've gotta crack a few eggs to make meringues ... and cakes, and cookies, and pretty much all of the good things that Kelly makes.

So go get 'em, Kelly! Keep living your dream.

Break an egg! I mean a leg!