Telling a secret can be transformative; it can change our relationship with people we know, and even those we will never meet. More than once, I have watched strangers inspired by a shared secret self-organize into purposeful communities of kindness.
One of those stories began years ago when I pulled a postcard from my mailbox made from a photograph of smiling friends. The words taped to the photo read, “I found your camera at Lollapalooza this summer. I finally got the pictures developed, and I’d love to give them to you”.
I shared the secret on the PostSecret Blog, hoping someone would recognize one of the young people at the table and we could return all the photos to the group. Messages poured in that week from the PostSecret Community, but no one was able to identify anyone in the picture. However, one of the messages came from a Canadian student, Mathew Preprost, who was inspired to do more.
Believing that everyday people can sometimes have a worldwide impact on the web with a good idea and determination, Mathew designed and built a website that would serve as a lost-and-found for cameras. He called it, “I Found Your Camera,” and when I helped him spread the word, we were both surprised by how many lost cameras there were in the world and how many people wanted to help return them.
A 21-year-old vacationing student lost his camera at Union Station in Chicago. He thought it was long gone when a friend of his girlfriend saw the couple smiling together on the “I Found Your Camera” website. “She went crazy when she randomly stumbled upon our picture at Wrigley Field.” He said.
Dozens, then hundreds of cameras were mailed to Mathew’s Winnipeg address. When they arrived, he would post some of the photographs from each camera on his website, and millions of people would visit virtually to see if they could identify anyone in the pictures so they could be contacted. “It was exciting for me to see strangers helping strangers return lost cameras to the people who were sometimes desperately searching for them,” Mathew told me.
The owner of this camera (in yellow) left it behind in Santa Cruz (not far from the background pictured) on a long bike ride . A month later, she was surprised and relieved to find herself on “I Found Your Camera”. She contacted Mathew and in two weeks she had all the photos from her California journey.
Mathew was being interviewed by USA Today, the CBC, and other national news services. One of the stories he liked telling was about the journey of George Metz’s camera. To get George’s Mardi Gras pictures back to him in Pennsylvania, Mathew coordinated an international effort involving good Samaritans in four cities across three countries and two continents. As the success stories spread, more and more cameras began arriving in his mailbox.
Wedding pictures, photos from family reunions, parties, and graduations all found their way back to those who had lost them – over 1,000 in all – and the thankful emails Mathew received revealed heartfelt gratitude.
“Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, my son’s birth was on that camera and he turns 4 next week.”
I have traveled to Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, England, Australia and throughout the US sharing the heartening story of how a single secret sparked the imagination of one student who united people around the world to help others they will never meet.
Every time I told the story, I shared the original picture of happy people sitting around a table that started it all, always hoping that one day I would be able to complete the story. Finally, it happened.
Here is a picture of the young woman from the table whose lost camera inspired so many other stories of kindness before returning home itself. She asked me to pass along her thanks to the community for her lost, then found collection of “slightly out-of-focus memories of a lifetime”.
And here is a picture of Mathew along with a quote he told a USA Today reporter.
If you haven’t read the “Bunsen and Beaker’s relationship” article on the Muppet Wiki you’re missing out on a great summary of how the two have canonically gone from “could be read as gay but probably not intentionally” to “we’re not even pretending these two are straight” over the years. these aren’t even half of the entries btw
68 icons from Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, Doctor Who, Xena: Warrior Princess, Reservation Dogs, Star Trek TOS, Heated Rivalry, Hazbin Hotel, Hellava Boss, What We Do In The Shadows + misc actors
my corner store guy is a 50 year old man who’s my best friend in the world and recently he was like “you’re too pretty to be single I have some nephews you should meet. very handsome!” and I was like “a niece might be more up my alley” and he just got more excited and said “ah even better! I was overselling my nephews but my nieces are very beautiful”
I've officially completed all my birthday activities for this year, so I can like, breathe again.
There was recreational axe throwing, joint TV marathons, dinners, gifts and hugs. I chose not to have any kind of party or gathering this year, so just saw friends individually or in small groups, and it worked out OK. I also celebrated roga's birthday (and will continue to tomorrow), so it all kind of worked out with multiple events.
How have you been doing, friends?
I'm feeling a bit better than I hoped to, at this time of the year.
ETA: I have cautiously started looking at social media again, in very very limited quantities, and as twitter seems like... not the place, I now have a bluesky. IDK IDK. But if you're on there I may also be on there sometimes too I guess.
My absolute favourite comic journal by Stevenson. Made me cry my eyes out. Even when I can’t articulate it, it gets to the core of what I think love is.
Description:celebrity20in20 is a 20in20 community dedicated to making icons of actors and actresses. You have 20 days to make 20 icons about a celebrity of your choice, based on a set of themes for the round.
Schedule: Round 19 sign ups are open NOW. Icons are due February 5, 2026.
fun fact one of the world champions in pepper-eating contests is a trans woman and she actually faced significant backlash because people somehow thought she had a biological advantage. to eating spicy pepper
update bc i went back and checked: her name is brianna “the chilli queen” skinner and she set a record in 2017 by slamming back 23 carolina reapers consecutively. she only stopped when told to by the referees, and the next year she stepped down out of boredom. queen
Here’s a picture of her, by the way
And her super supportive wife
The championship, it should be noted, is unisex. Apparently being a trans woman gives you an innate biological advantage over both cis men and cis women.
The innate biological advantage of being cool as fuck
i like when you meet a couple that’s a fun bisexual and her nerdy boyfriend and then you check in a few years later and now they’re a fun bisexual and her nerdy wife. hit with the transgenderism beam yet largely unaffected in the romance department. really living the dream.
Got any Follow Friday-related posts to share this week? Comment here with the link(s).
Here's the plan: every Friday, let's recommend some people and/or communities to follow on Dreamwidth. That's it. No complicated rules, no "pass this on to 7.328 friends or your cat will die".
some time ago (like 7 years) me & my brother got an olive garden gift card from someone. we had wanted to use it for these breadstick (bigger than normal breadsticks) sandwiches they had, but we ended up missing the boat on those & they never brought them back.
we went in for lunch on tuesday. it was busy, but we didn't have to wait for a table. the silverware comes wrapped up in a huge cloth napkin& i'm not sure if it's meant to be used, or just keep the knife & forks (2 of the same size for some reason) together. they have coke products so we both got cokes & ordered Lasagna Fritta for an appetizer because my brother really wanted it. he got the lunch-size eggplant parmesan (substituting angle hair for the spaghetti) & i got the soup, salad, breadsticks lunch. he was not impressed with his food, the eggplant slice was small & they must put oil in the water when they make the angel hair, because the sauce would not stick to it. he said the frozen eggplant parmesan from michael angelo's is better. my stuff was just OK. i had a bowl of the Chicken & Gnocchi and Pasta e Fagioli (both piping hot!) the gnocchi was little balls, not the pillows with ridges i'm used to. neither of us liked the Lasagna Fritta, it was hard to cut. however, the coke was some of the best fountain dispensed coke i've had in a long time. but now that we've gone, we don't need to go again.
this was our first time at olive garden & can now weigh in on the red lobster cheddar bay biscuits vs. olive garden breadsticks. my brother gives the win to the biscuts. the breadsticks had garlic salt on them and he doesn't like garlic. even less when it's garlic powder or salt. and he thought they had too much butter spread/margarine on them, which gave them an odd sheen. he said it was a good thing that we never got the breadstick sandwiches considering the way the breadstick were. i barely give the win to the biscuits, because they have cheese. both are kind of dry, but if the breadsticks didn't have the garlic salt, i'd give them the begrudging win.
and we have an opinion on the cheesecake factory rolls (despite never have been there) because we got them from wal-mart once. we are both of the opinion that it is a dressed up wheat bread & nothing special.
How did the decluttering of the hobby spaces go? Did you spend time looking for things that could go, move a thing or two, or have a wildly successful week? Or did you work on a different space instead?
For the third week, we are moving on to a work space -- just the one. Unless you have all the energy and all the time, in which case don't let me hold you back. But this was meant to be a gentle challenge to get started on the year. What decluttering a work space might look like
moving the cooking equipment you never use out of the kitchen
sorting through stuff in a work from home space so you have more space for you
looking in the laundry for things that have drifted into corners and become one with the wall.
going through the cleaning rag stash and getting it down to Just! One! Bucket! worth (for whatever size of bucket you keep your rags in)
throwing out old cleaning equipment--particularly if you have replaced it with one that you use!
Alternatively: keep going with the rest and / or hobby spaces. Get things out of the house!
Since the sun came out the garden has gotten quite a lot of love. The iris bed with the white irises in it got dug over, the irises lifted and divided. It has been at least two or possibly 3 decades since the iris have been divided and they were in a sorry state. There are great numbers of various iris plants sitting around waiting for new homes most of them quite small. The (few) replanted iris should thrive. They will be extra happy without the grass that was threatening to choke them out. Some of the white iris will be replaced with bronze/pink iris from Henry St, and possibly some other colors. Elsewhere in the garden; A couple of beds no longer have dying tomatoes in them which makes the fava beans, which were trying to grow in tomato plant shade, really happy. Tons of grass has been pulled out and dead sunflowers pulled out to add to the compost. Still have two big beds to go but things are definitely looking a lot better. Sadly there are vole trails all over. They love all the overgrown plants. Yesterday traps were set out to reduce the vole population. So far I've caught 3.
Today the new metal fence panels for Winter Quarters arrived. Dave and his son Grant came up to help. We removed the old beat up/broken panels that decidedly did not fit and put new ones in their place. It all fits and looks SO much better. Included in this order were several gates, one of which is now hanging from the front-center of the Winter Quarters run in shedrow. For months we have been using a temporary panel as a gate. This meant lifting it and hooking it on a hinge pin fitting that was loosely attached. It worked surprisingly well as a latch, but it was a pain in the neck to use. Today we replaced that panel with a nice gate on real hinges!
This afternoon I had an interview down at the local community radio station. I think it went well. Hopefully I didn't say "um" too many times! It was kind of fun: The lady who was interviewing me was using some new equipment; when she had trouble getting her sound levels right, my Stagehand training kicked in and we were able to solve them together.
My beloved wife has a coworker, a very beautiful girl, who snuck into the break room one day when my beloved was sitting alone. She checked the perimeter for any other people listening in. They looked up curiously as the girl assured herself they wouldn’t be overheard.
“Dr. So-And-So is just so beautiful. I don’t know what to say to her when she talks to me, all my thoughts just scatter!”
My wife smiled and agreed that the doctor in question was gorgeous. They chatted along this vein for a bit.
Another coworker drifted in and the girl clammed up. When they had left again she went on to say, “I like guys well enough, I mean. They’re fine,” she said, “But girls are just so beautiful!”
My wife deliberated then finally said, “Look, I’m not saying you’re not straight but uh. That’s the kind of stuff I said before I figured myself out better.”
I’m now very invested in this coworker. Cannot wait to hear updates.
This quote by Paul Eluard opens book #14 from the "Women in Translation" rec list, which continues to fatten up my TBR list. This is Empty Wardrobesby Maria Judite de Carvalho, translated from Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa. This novella, originally published in the 1960s, is about the ways in which women are subsumed by the men in their lives, or otherwise are buffeted about with less control over their lives than they ought to have.
The forward by Kate Zambreno is a wonderfully complementary piece. She talks about the anger she feels going to a woman's funeral and hearing the dead woman sanctified by men in her life who did nothing but take from her, who can speak of her only to praise what she did for others, and can say nothing about what the woman herself was.
Sometimes you can read a book and just know the author was angry when she wrote it. This is one of those. The book uses the phrase "discreet rage" about one of its characters, and I think that sentiment succinctly describes the whole book. The protagonist, Dora Rosario, is ten years into widowhood, and she has devoted her entire life to mourning her unremarkable husband as much as she had previous devoted her life to supporting his every opinion regardless of whether or not she agreed with it. Now, a decade on, her mother-in-law reveals something about Dora's late husband that changes her entire perspective.
I would like to believe we are moving away from the world portrayed in Empty Wardrobes (though not with as much success as I'd like), but this is a stark reminder of how even a few generations ago, in the Sixties, a woman's identity was so controlled by her husband's. There are only two men in this book--Duarte, Dora's dead husband, and Ernesto, the longtime partner of a side character--and they both, through social structures, exercise incredible control over the lives of the women around them without any respect or even knowledge of their impact.
The three main women in this book--Dora, her daughter Lisa, and the narrator--each take a different approach to the male romantic partners in their lives, and none of them comes out the better for it (well, perhaps for Lisa, but I personally doubt it will last), because the ultimate problem is societal attitudes about the way men and women are meant to relate to each other.
It's not a long book, and I can't say much more without spoiling things, but I also think it does some fabulous things with its narration and perspective, and the way it doles out information. Really an excellent framing that allows for a lot of fluidity and filling in gaps with your own visions while remaining clear in the nature of the story it's telling.
This book was only translated into English in 2021, which is a shame, because I think it would have struck a nerve much earlier, but we have it now! Costa does an excellent job with the work too; the writing is full of punchy phrases like the above, and she captures some realistic dialogue--characters repeating themselves, responding in ways that don't quite match up with what was asked, etc.--while keeping it natural-sounding.
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