The Seven Days of Goodness: Day Five

This evening I stopped by Boulder's Sunflower Market to grab a couple things on the way home. I had really forgotten what an awesome grocery store Sunflower is and was pleasantly reminded of their selection (ideal for chefs of every skill level, including the incompetent), prices (signifcantly lower than the average Boulder boutique supermarket), and generally jolly ambience. They have a neat holiday donation a special friend told me about where you can buy a bag of food for the food bank, so I did that.

I had some good ideas for the second deed involving a few different special friends and tried to implement a couple of them, but was sort of stymied. I'll have to get to those later. Instead, I ended up giving some money to the Volunteers of America to battle homelessness.

So far my deeds have been weighted towards cash donations, which certainly wasn't the impetus of the project. It's harder to find service-based donations on short notice than financial ones, but that's the long term goal: a consistent, mutually beneficial, service-based situation where the altruism won't be forced, where the giving will feel like receiving.

The Seven Days of Goodness: Day Four

This evening I went up to Black Hawk with two special friends and donated a bunch of cash to the locals in the 1-2 no limit hold em game! It was wonderful!

I had planned to donate my winnings to my favorite charity (more on them in a future post) but I had no winnings to speak of so I am going to have to double up on the goodness tomorrow.

Week Fourteen Observations

My observations on the most exciting week of the NFL season for Football Nation

The Seven Days of Goodness: Day Three

Today I went to Bonfils and donated blood. My blood is extra special AB+, making me a universal plasma donor, so I simultaneously donate platelets and plasma.

I started giving blood earlier this year. The second time I went in, they had a hard time pinning the vein down and basically stabbed the crap out of both my arms until they finally made a clean connection. After that I horribly dreaded returning, but Bonfils hounded me like Von Miller coming off the edge, and I reluctantly agreed to go back in.

It gets better every time. Today was the smoothest so far. Donating platelets is the ultimate activity for the lazy philanthropist. You basically lie there for two hours clutching a comforting bag of warm water, watching movies (I've been watching The Lord of the Rings movies at Bonfils and am now halfway through The Two Towers), drinking juice, eating goldfish and being pampered. It hurts at about a 2/10, more a vague unpleasantness than any real pain. After that you get to hang out in the cantina drinking and eating (ice cream sandwiches in the summer!) and feeling good about yourself. And today someone told me that when they tell you not to drink alcohol afterwards until you've eaten a full meal, that really means "one drink will get you hammered, try it out." I'm telling you guys, it's a dream scenario for the faux altruist.

The Seven Days of Goodness: Day Two

I delivered ibuprofen, lotion, q-tips, disposable razors, shaving cream, deodorant, toothbrushes and toothpaste to the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless on north Broadway. I had never been there before, and was struck by its urbane environment. It seemed like the kind of place I could spend some time volunteering - in the idyllic vision I have for the Future Life. It's a vision I've had for a while, but most of the time, it's been merely a vision.

If I was truly altruistic, I would naturally volunteer at places like the homeless shelter and I would have been doing so for years. And I certainly wouldn't feel the need to blog for a week about what great stuff I was doing. I'm not that person and never have been.

But I want to be that person. I don't have a clue what I'm doing. If not for the ingenuity and guidance of a special friend whose knowledge and experience in the altruistic dwarfs mine, I wouldn't even be able to come up with seven different things to do this week. I really do want to make the world a better place. Whether that's legitimate altruism or the unsatiated frustration of my own parasitic tendencies is up for debate. In any case, I want to learn. That's the premise of this stunt - learning to be better, even if the method isn't organic. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Frankenstein's Monster Lives

My thoughts on the flickering playoff hopes of the Philadelphia Eagles

The Seven Days of Goodness

Zack & I had grand plans to do some good for the world Saturday night, but were so inept that our best intentions turned into Old Speckled Hens and Boddingtons at The Hungry Toad within forty five minutes. There, we discussed our fail and made an agreement to atone for it by performing a good deed every day this week - "good deed" defined as something we wouldn't carry out in normal everyday life. Zack also had the bright idea I could blog the event, to breathe some life into its moribund, pigskin-encrusted annals and make us look like gracious, non-degenerate members of society.

For the first day, I donated a few items to the Boulder Humane Society from their wishlist on Amazon. I went to the Humane Society seven times (and scanned their website every day for six weeks) before emerging with Bailey, so I've always felt indebted. That's not to mention how that seventh trip forever changed my life for the better.


Here's to the Humane Society and all the wonderful people who work and volunteer there.