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I went to a very lovely event last night. It was a potluck, concert, and dance following the wedding of some friends. The food was scrumptious and plentiful. The music brought tears of joy to my eyes. The dancing was fantastic as usual. The only downsides were that it was extraordinarily muggy for early May, and I got entangled in a little tiff between some friends, such that my feelings got a little hurt briefly. But I kept dancing, and started enjoying myself again, and by the end of the event, felt wonderful. I learned from this that even if something “ruins” your good time, you can get back on your feet and recover your wonderful night. How? Here’s what I did:

• I acknowledged my frustration internally and quietly expressed it to another friend.
• I kept on doing the fun thing I’d been doing (dancing).
• I asked to dance some people I was excited to dance with, and dancing with them boosted my mood back up to the previous ecstatic level.

Have you had something “ruin” a good time you were having recently, only to bounce back and continue your good time in spite of it?

Saturday morning around 10am, a “catastrophic” leak in the pipes that bring water to the Boston area instigated a “boil order” for all the city’s residents. That means, before drinking water or washing dishes or food, it is advised that we boil our water to kill potential bacteria. This reminds me of the 2003 blackout that plagued much of the northeast: it shows us how very delicate is the electrical, convenience lifestyle that our culture has made us accustomed to. I will be thankful when we have convenient water again. Until then, let’s try not to scald our fingers in our haste for cleanliness!

Last night I resumed a practice that has gone dormant and forgotten for years of my life: reading for pleasure. It is such an amazing, mood-realigning activity. I get sucked in by the story, and resurface for air hours later, not knowing the time, mind abuzz with the peculiar characters and plot twists. I feel so much more complete when I read. Do you feel that way too?

The book to rekindle my passion is American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, the first item of a meticulously constructed reading list designed for my upcoming cross-country train trip. I may share that list with you at some point. In the meantime, what are you reading?

[In other news, David Byrne is not angry with you, nor are most people whom you encounter who are grumpy. They’re just tired or stressed or distracted. They’re actually really nice if you get them in the right context.]

This is the first installment in a series of posts about ideas I have. I would love to do them myself, and may, but you could take them and run with them as well. They will be ideas about all sorts of different things, mostly about how we can provide inexpensive health & happiness for the most people. Today there are three ideas.

• Last night I watched a documentary episode at the Amherst Cinema called Unnatural Causes: Place Matters, about the effects of our surroundings on our health. Specifically, the film addressed how poor neighborhoods create reinforcing conditions for bad health in their residents. It was fantastic, and just one part of a longer series. There are many awesome documentaries like this, on all sorts of topics. I would love to host regular screenings of films like these, either in my home or in a larger venue like a local cinema when they’re not showing their normal films. There are honestly enough good documentary films to show practically every night, because it’s fine to show films more than once. Screenings could be free, cheap, or donation-supported. Costs might include rent of the space, rights for the films, and any refreshments (I like the idea of water or tea as refreshments). I might try to start something like this in Boston. You should start something like this where you are!
• One of the best ways to solve community issues is to bring all the community stakeholders together to work through things. This is a method used for all sorts of problems, but I’m most familiar with it in comprehensive planning projects. One difficulty is that it’s hard bringing everyone together physically due to differences in schedules. Surely there are electronic tools available to mitigate this issue. I hope to learn more about what some of those tools are. It’s vital all stakeholders participate in solution-building for such initiatives to work. Another related thought I had during the film was to simply ask people a small number of questions in a survey, such as “What sucks in your community or workplace (or school)?” and “What used to suck, but is now better?” I believe asking people to list two or three issues for each of those questions can provide valuable insight into problems they’re facing, and you can’t fix problems if you aren’t aware of them. Also, including the second, more positive question helps get people thinking hopefully about the progress that’s possible on their community’s problems.
• It’s lots of fun having friends over for dinner and talking about interesting things. I think I would like to institute a regular practice of that once I have my own home, inviting over a different one or two people almost every night, and having interesting discussions over supper. Such practices would strengthen social bonds, stimulate thought, and be an excellent networking opportunity for those invited. One challenge to such persistent social interaction, though, is becoming exhausted by it. Perhaps we could resolve that by having a firm time limit after several hours, after which we would end the discussion and send everyone home to rest and have creative thoughts on their own. I’m interested to give this a try, and if you do something similar, I’m interested to hear how the logistics of it work in your case.

That’s it for today! These posts apparently will run longer than the average post. Hope you find them interesting enough that the length isn’t an issue.

When you pay attention to the news, a lot of it is really depressing. But there are a lot of hopeful stories as well, and I like to observe those days when I feel the day’s news is more good than bad. Those days make me happy. Today is one of those days. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the Cape Wind project, which is a major hurdle to its realization. Goldman Sachs continues to dig its hole deeper. Arizona’s awful new immigration law may be unconstitutional. Senate Democrats are forcing an all-night session on Wall Street reform, a publicity stunt designed to bring more attention to Republicans’ anti-populist stance on the issue. And there’s no major stories of bad news. Today is a good day.

One practice that unquestionably causes happiness is completing tasks that are hanging over your head. When I was at my last job, failing to do that was my biggest cause of anxiety. Leo Babauta has a post today on Zen Habits on the topic, where he advocates having a One Thing to-do list. Just having that one looming task to do forces you to do it first, instead of procrastinating with other less important items. In my training for PIRG, that exact advise was one of the biggest messages of their productivity workshop. Do the thing you’re most dreading first thing in the morning.

So today, my One Thing is calling Amtrak to figure out the cheapest way to get tickets for my cross-country trip. Then I can buy the tickets and not stress out anymore about the price going up. What’s your One Thing today?

I just got back from a fabulous weekend at the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA). One of the most memorable events for me was Julia Nickles’ discussion called “Calling All College Students“, the purpose of which was to connect with college-age festival-goers and find out some of the issues they face related to the festival. It was very successful for the limited audience available to it.

But it got me thinking. Why isn’t there information on the internet about which colleges have good contradance scenes? When I was applying to college, there really weren’t any resources for applicants interested in folkdance. I liked Bates because I saw that they had a contradance club, but that was about the extent of it. I think there should be more information available. So yesterday I decided to make a guide to contradancing at universities. I know a lot about young contradancers in the Northeast, but there are many areas of the country where there’s contradancing that I don’t have much knowledge of. So I’d like your help! If you know about the contradance scenes for college-age folks outside of the Northeast, I’d love to talk with you.

Some factors I’ll be thinking about:

• Whether a school has an active folkdance student organization.
• How long such an organization has been going on, and thus its likelihood of persisting.
• The approximate number of members of such an organization, total as well as percentage of student body.
• The proximity and frequency of off-campus contradances.
• The number of alumni active in the contradance scene.
• Faculty who help students find folk dancing.

For example, I know Oberlin, Swarthmore, Bates, Marlboro, Hampshire, and Brown all have good folkdance communities, but I’d like to quantify that, Nate Silver style. So let me know if you know things that I don’t! This will be a collaborative process.

(Scene: Harvard Square, in front of Au Bon Pain. A white-haired man playing hurdy-gurdy stands facing the street. Another man, younger but scruffier, is sitting with his back to the street ten feet further up the sidewalk, with a guitar plugged into amps and CDs on racks around him. The hurdy-gurdy man is playing vigorously, while the guitar player plays softly, with a distant expression on his face.)

Guitar player: Hey, spread the love a little!

Hurdy-gurdy man: (stops playing, perturbed) What?

Guitar player: You heard me! Let a guy play a little!

Hurdy-gurdy man: Look, we talked about this, and I told you that you could set up there. Doesn’t mean I have to stop playing for you!

Guitar player: (now on his feet, walking toward the other man aggressively, talking over him) I sit down in a place to play, people need to be able to hear me!

Hurdy-gurdy man: What, you own the sidewalk? Peter here owns the sidewalk!

Guitar player: I don’t–

Hurdy-gurdy man: Y’know what Peter means? It means “lion” in Russian. Are you a lion?

Guitar player: (returns to seat, still perturbed. Starts playing Katyusha, a Russian folk song.)

Hurdy-gurdy man: …It means “lion” in Russian. (recognizes tune and starts playing as well.)

(The two men are now both angrily playing the same song. It sounds quite nice.)

In brief: go read society, reimagined by Leo Babauta on mnmlist.com. It’s a great vision for how we might redesign our society to be more focused on people and community and less on money and consuming.

Everett Bogue has an article following up on Babauta’s post, which is great, but as usual for Bogue, it’s very long and self-congratulatory. I skimmed it. If this idea excites you too, you might read it.

There’s a lot that’s wrong with our current society, and it’s a worthwhile pursuit thinking about what sort of societal structure we would prefer. Go read them.