“You’ve got an emergency. Who would you call at four in the morning, knowing they would get out of bed and do whatever they could to help you? Those are your friends. That reduces your Christmas-card list a lot.”

Piers Morgan

Damn.

I’m curious, do you have a metric like this around friendship? How does a friend become a friend?

Thanks to everyone who participated in Go Mighty’s I Made This challenge. The winner of the prize pack is Amy Rood who has spent the last few weeks making everything from her own clothing to a stiff drink. Congrats, Amy! (Check your email.)

Hello! Remember last year when I was doing my charity:water fundraising for Camp Mighty? If you donated with the notation “Maggie Mason finds me attractive” and sent me your address, you should have received a letter from me — or a package if you donated over $100. A reader mentioned that she hadn’t received hers in comments, and I want to make sure no one else fell through the cracks. If you should have received something from me but didn’t, will you please drop me a line (and include your address) at maggie at mighty girl dot com? Thanks.

For the third year, Camp Mighty attendees, including me, are raising $20K for charity:water before we meet up. If you’d like to donate this year, you can do that here. Just add “Mighty Girl” to the notation field so we know where you came from. And thank you, nice person.

Hank: You know why I like this picture?
Me: Why?
Hank: Because it looks like the angel is farting.

The door to our balcony is open. Church bells, violin music, the smell of baking bread, and I got one of these.

Thanks to Bonnie for sharing photographs from the celebration in Oakland following last week’s Supreme Court decision to reverse DOMA.

Susan Hall is traveling to Afghanistan this fall for a really interesting photo project.

Dog hair sticks to polaroid photos and other wisdom shared by my friend Anna Beth who just reached the end of a six month long project.

Sara’s Craigslist purchase would make Gutenberg proud.

Annie is bringing her childhood sketches to life.

Congrats to MacKensie, the winner of the $500 grant from Rivet And Sway. MacKensie is an archaeologist who wants to participate in a dig on every continent. She’s crossed two continents off of her list already: North America and Asia.

If you’re not a member of Go Mighty yet, come hang out. We’re still technically in beta, but invitations go out within about 24 hours after your initial request, so don’t be shy.

 

This is me eating salami and tiny pickles on my balcony in Barcelona.

On the taxi ride in from the airport, I kept thinking, “I’m in Spain. I’m in Spain!” Then I got to my apartment address, and it didn’t exist. And my phone didn’t work. And my laptop was dead.

So this guy in a shop across the street from the pretend address sees me with my suitcase and pre-cry face and waves me over. He helps me get online, then call my landlord, who has mistakenly listed an address one number off.

Everything is cleared up, and I’m so relieved! So I grin and thank the shop guy profusely, and he hugs me and kisses my cheek, friendly style, then tries to kiss my mouth, friendlier style. Ah man, why you gotta go creepy, creepy shop guy? Please stop being the worst, when you were so recently the best!

I twisted away and ran-walked out of the creeper shop, and after I got into the apartment I went for a walk on Las Ramblas street. Every few feet there was a toy vendor shooting these glowing helicopter toys into the sky.

They look like giant, futuristic fireflies — an effect enhanced by their tendency to stick in the tree branches arching over the street. And if you look up the avenue, you can see dozens of them shooting into the branches or floating back down.

Miyoko Shida Rigolo‘s feather balancing act just gave me full body chills.

Also, Ryan Gosling refusing to eat cereal.