just pick one thing

the world is big.

there's a lot going on in it. even in this mostly empty house, there's me sitting at the table, typing, stretching a bit of css out over a half-built website skeleton, scribbling a few what-ifs, listening to Radiohead. and I made banana nut muffins this morning.

the other day, I listened to this garrulous photographer talk about his work, in an interview I was transcribing. one of his many ambitious projects is called Envision the World. it's going to be a massive compilation of photographs from every nook and cranny of the planet. (I'd link to the site as it stands today, but it's suffering a little from broken links and missing images. someday, I expect, it'll be a bit cooler.) the internet can do things like this. almost like magic. it feeds us visions of places we may never have otherwise seen or even known about. it makes the big, big world seem much less big.

the other day, I drove out to a little elementary school and read books with some third-grade kids. I guess you could call that one of my resolutions for the year. there's not much I, in this mostly empty house, can do to really shake things up in the world, but I figure if I pick one thing that's really important to me, and do everything I can to teach, encourage, and inspire people in that, I can at least do that. reading is my thing. I know it's not important to everybody... but maybe it should be. I read with three kids: Mia, Candace, and Dallin. they're reading The Chocolate Touch, book one of Fablehaven, and A Time for Andrew. it was pretty cool being in an elementary school. made me feel almost tall...

the other day, I finished a book called American Fuji, by Sara Backer (look, she has a blog too). it takes place in Shizuoka, Japan, a place I have never been. a place that is just about on the completely opposite side of the globe... but it doesn't seem that far. you could fly there in sixteen hours. could be fun. at the end of the book, they hike Mount Fuji and watch the sun come up over the ocean. that would be pretty marvelous.

the other day, there was an earthquake. and it wrecked this little island that isn't very far away at all. I'm sure earthquakes happen all the time, although I've never been in one. but this one was massive. and everyone's talking about it. talking about what we can do about it.

we can't do much. but we do what we can. these people are having an auction. cool stuff. and I'm sure lots of other people are doing things too. everything will work out.