"This is just one aspect of seeing ourselves differently." A photography exhibit offers new ways to think about people with disabilities.

Feed your soul (and dress your walls): Free downloadable art, every day.

Mustache bleach is not an accessory. 5 beauty etiquette do's, don'ts, and honey-how-could-yous.

It's a birdhouse! It's a dollhouse! It's...a tiny library! How Little Free Libraries are promoting literacy and a sense of community.

The Life-Lifter: “Just because you’re hurt doesn’t mean you’re broken.” Scuba diving provides unprecedented healing for veterans suffering paralysis and PTSD.

 

"We are all the spark and the fulfillment": Museum-worthy street art inspires kids at a struggling public school.

After this Japanese newspaper lost its printing press in the catastrophic earthquake, editors continued to publish the paper...by hand. How they did it...

If it gets sprayed out of a can, don't eat it--and 11 other ways to make your favorite recipes more healthful.

The most adorable literary beginnings ever. Tiny books made by tween Brontes.

The Life-Lifter: "It's time...to repay him for all he's done for me." A disabled man is rescued from a house fire by his best friend.

Who needs a gallerist? Artist JR takes his art to the streets. His large-scale, crowdsourced Inside Out project takes photographs sent from people around the world, prints them as posters, and sends  them back so that locals can create site-specific exhibits in their own communities. The resulting works are striking to look at while also giving voices to unrepresented communities. In a world where creative people spend a lot of time waiting for corporate approval, you have to love a project like this one, where you (yes you) can participate by visiting InsideOut.net   JR and his army of local artists inspire us to, in the wise words of Guy I Once Overhead at a Brooklyn Cyclones Game, "Stop talkin' about it and start bein' about it."




Check out Good's gallery of JR's work and many more gorgeous photos at JR-art.net.

More ways to be creative today:
Summon your defiant inner artist.
An outsider artist on how to be creative.
15 inspirational dreamers, thinkers, and doers.

One thing that distinguishes life from the movies or even books is that, in reality, people never do what they're supposed to do. They yell at the people they love when they're deathly ill (instead of tenderly thanking them for their care) or laugh like maniacs during their marriage vows (instead of solemnly swearing their devotion). The video below is no exception. Watch how this 29-year-old deaf woman reacts when she regains her hearing.
What makes this moment so moving and true—even for the nurse, apparently—is the woman's spontaneous burst into tears instead of the standard leap of joy. But note also, what she says—and she only says two things. "I'm listening to myself cry," and "My laughter sounds so loud." Of all the things in the world that she could have heard for the first time—a door bell, a keyboard tapping—her own emotions aren't a bad start.

My idea: Let's all try to listen to our laughter today. Maybe it be as overwhelmingly, infectiously, and unexpectedly noisy as you can make it.

Read More:
There will be tears: even in Korean
Dr.Oz on the power of laughter
One woman's story about raising her deaf child

More than a few times, I've wondered what it would be like to wander around the world with a sack of chocolate coins. Every time I met somebody, I would give them a coin and they'd feel great and I'd feel great (save for when I had to explain myself to terrified parents who might question why a weird, stranger-lady is giving their kids candy not on Halloween). It'd be like handing out money, only affordable.

Now I can see my plan is all wrong. You can eat and enjoy a piece of chocolate, but not laugh about it. A balloon artist named Addi Somekh from Los Angeles California (the kind of guy you find at birthday parties, making balloon swords and dogs—only about one zillion times more creative) has taken to trotting across the globe, making hats—and connections—with everyone from Vietnamese tribesman to Floridian retirement-community residents. As you see in this video, his reason for doing so goes way past a quick chuckle or photo op:

universality from retainer media on Vimeo.

What struck me was not just how talent Addi Somekh is at balloon hats, but how talented he is at communicating his message of joy and human understanding, as if he were writing as he speaks Case in point: "We are on this blue and green ball floating in the middle of what seems to be infinite darkness...Laughter is the one language everybody speaks." 

Read More:
31 Ways to Get Happy For Free
90 seconds to a Better mood

Photo: Think Stock

I have a little game I like to play at the grocery store. As the cashier tallies up the milk and eggs and cereal and more cereal (i have 2 boys), I bet her how much the final total will be. I either pick $175 or $136 or $111, depending on the way I think I shopped that particular Sunday. She picks what her experience tells her.  When we arrive at the real number and I'm closer,  I try not to rub it in and run around the aisles doing victory laps and stopping to moon various onlookers—but it's hard. First off, I rarely win anything so when I do I'm impossible. And second off, if I named the right number, I paid attention and shopped intelligently and the bill did not reach $375 as it did once dark, horrible night at the Stop N Shop off Route 210.

The joy of being frugal is a lot like the joy of eating one illicit grape while wandering the produce section—everybody experiences it, but nobody wants to talk about it. Two days ago, however, ABC news did a story about the cheapest family in America, who buy almost expired meat, freeze on-sale milk and hit the grocery store with walkie-talkies so they can talk to each other about deals while in different aisles. It had me laughing my head off and taking notes as to how they do it (hint: they prep for 4 hours before going to the store), because, let's face it, their total for 4 kids and 2 parents was $120 dollars—and that was for food for the WHOLE month!

Read More:
Watch the ABC video clip
Saving ideas from the Coupon Mom
Suze Orman: the emergency stash.

The Pay-it-Forward Pillow: How one single mother makes life a little more comfortable for people in pain.

The U.S. (just barely) made the list! The ten best countries for women.

Clear your financial clutter and build your wealth, all while watching "Dancing With the Stars."

The Life Lifter: After five years of living in the woods, this once-homeless grandmother was given an apartment of her own--and a way to find meaning in her ordeal.

Here are some things I know how to draw: Stick figures, the sun, clouds, flowers, boxy houses, boxy cars and actual boxes. Trust me, these skills are very impressive to a three-year-old cousin who's still working on the motor skills required to hold a pencil. Not so much when it comes to a Pictionary team of competitive, adult friends who have 45 seconds to use those clues to guess Sense and Sensibility (Emma Thompson version). Enough evenings like that and a person might bolt for the nearest exit at the mere mention of Pictionary.

So I was surprised to find myself giggling at my desk this morning as I sketched "Sleep with the fishes johnny," a prompt from a complete stranger on the site Teledraw. Like Pictionary—or Telephone, from which it borrows part of its name—the game starts with a phrase provided by one player that is then drawn by another. But here's the twist: instead of an angry mob relying on my ability to accurately sketch a Godfather quote, my doodle was turned over to a third player who described what he saw ("man on flotation device while goldfish wait to devour him") that then became the clue for another player to interpret. And so on. Once you've submitted your work, you can trace the chain back to its source or forward until people are stumped by it.

"I'm both a homemaker and a home-wrecker." This Brooklyn artist lends new meaning to the phrase "house painter."

Why didn't we think of that? Downloadable cash envelopes—a simple, smart, and free way to stay on your budget.

"Maybe I'm a little wrong for lying to her and falsifying the pictures, but I don't care." This father Photoshopped whimsical creatures (and a sense of wonder) into his family vacation photos.

Newsflash: Sometimes it's best to give yourself (and your kids) permission to do nothing at all.

The Life Lifter: In his last days, an Army vet struggles to fulfill his dying wish to legally adopt his little girl. Please have a hanky ready.

Men! What are they thinking? We can't always answer that, but we'll be posting our favorite glimpses into their world in this space every Thursday.

Photo: Courtesy of Men of the Stacks

* A group of rather studly male librarians (like Mario, left) has assembled a pinup calendar to bust stereotypes about their profession. (The Men of the Stacks; mildly NSFW)

*In case that doesn't satisfy your Thursday handsome man craving, perhaps you would be interested in this gallery of George Clooney and Ryan Gosling goofing off on the red carpet? (BuzzFeed)

* Did you watch last night's baseball insanity? Bill Simmons, a.k.a. The Sports Guy kept a running diary while watching his beloved Boston Red Sox epically lose to the Baltimore Orioles. (Grantland)

* "The problem was, as with most things in my life, I turned something that should have been a sweet memory into yet another self-generated humiliation."—Paul Feig, director of Bridesmaids and creator of Freaks and Geeks, remembers his first kiss in the delightful essay, "A Super-Classy Gentleman’s Guide to Being a Classy Fellow." (Rookie)