craigslist – EcoSalon

Sex by Numbers: Secrets and Lies

Mallory Ortberg — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:00:40 +0000

A weekly look at sex and culture, by the numbers.

It may be that you can hide things from your partner and even from yourself, but you can’t hide from the relentless and elite team of sex researchers here at EcoSalon. We found them. All of them. And they’re downright embarrassing.

1 in 10: number of single British men who admit they hide their teddy bears from their girlfriends

1 in 3: number of Americans who admit they have lied to their partners about money even after combining finances

359: number of men arrested for soliciting sex workers in a “National Day of Johns” sting on February 5th

1: “Very discreet” pilot per private flight on Flamingo Air, Cincinnati’s “most outrageous airline”

32: Age of a Georgia man charged with posting Craigslist ads under other men’s names soliciting anonymous sex

161: Number of the Senate bill that would require sex offenders to register on social media sites like Twitter

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The Insider’s Guide to Life: The 10 People You Meet on Craigslist

Sara Ost — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:21:20 +0000

ColumnRead it while it lasts, no reasonable offer refused!

Fact: Every job I have had in my professional life I have found on Craigslist. I’ve sold a Volvo and bought a Jeep on Craigslist. I’ve rented apartments on Craigslist. I’ve furnished apartments many times over thanks to Craigslist. I’ve even sold furnished apartments for friends on Craigslist. I’ve found housekeepers, movers, interns, writers and staff on Craigslist. Tired of an electronic? Off it goes to Select Neighborhood/Bypass This Step. So over my latest fashion acquisition? Have I got a deal for you, sfbay.craigslist! Just about the only thing I haven’t done on Craigslist is date. Somehow the idea of finding true love in the same domain I can pick up Slightly Damaged goods lacks the romance I require.

I’ve moved house four times in four years, redecorating each time, meaning I’ve become exceedingly skilled in the art of “Why the hell did I buy this?” and “How fast can I get rid of it?” The most foolish purchase was a vintage lightbox I bought last year for no other reason than it seemed like a vintage lightbox would be a pretty cool thing to have. After it sat around looking stupid propped against my fireplace for a few weeks, I sold it for more than it cost me. Hey, I cleaned it.

But far more fascinating than mid-century modern knockoffs, remarkably excellent vehicles, the endless Ikea, and questionable camping accessories are the owners who come with such transactions. There are 10 kinds of people you’ll meet on Craigslist, and I’ve met them all. Why buy new when you can buy used and study the rich insanity of your fellow man, I mean, tread more gently upon our fine planet?

To my disappointment, San Francisco has presented far fewer specimens of forensic interest than Los Angeles did, which will reaffirm what San Franciscans already know about themselves while going unacknowledged by Angelenos, because, like. Still, I’ve managed to learn a lot in my years with Edit/Post/Delete. Herewith:

Nervous Guy

And I’m talking disconcertingly nervous. Coughing, trembling, flash-bout of halitosis nervous. He will definitely want to use the bathroom. Someone this new to the internet should really not be purchasing from it. Like, relax, Guy, you’re buying a pack of blank CDs still in the impenetrable wrapper. I promise they are completely clear of any and all data and have also been screened for Homeland Security bugs. Why am I selling? Maybe I think CDs are ugly. Maybe I feel like a chocolate croissant from Tully’s and was too lazy to get up and go to the ATM because my computer was in my lap.

Knock knock, it’s your New Best Friend!

She has lived, oh sweet Jesus how she has lived, and you are going to hear every last leftover morsel of it. Including the part about the boyfriend in prison. And the unemployment. But thank God for everything every day, because life is wonderful! Yes sirree, even with the poisoning because the landlord didn’t replace the carpet. You know there’s a law and they still won’t replace it. And the troubled son. And the pregnant daughter. And the contagious airborne infection but I won’t cough on you or anything, I’d have to lick your silverware! And could you maybe take $10 off the asking price, because there’s this scratch here? Ha, it looks like I did it with my keys, doesn’t it! Oh, heavens. Hey: Never stay with a man who hits you, honey. You trust your friend Tracy on that. I should charge for advice, let me tell you what. I picked the wrong line of work, honey, the wrong line of work. Hoo, boy did I ever. Do you have a boyfriend?

And did you ever pick the wrong email inquiry to respond to.

The Hi-Mai

Voicemail: “Hi, Sara, this is Trish. [Long sigh.] So, I just got home and looked at the cabinet again and while it’s really, really beautiful, and I totally get that it’s an antique, so it’s not going to be perfect, I noticed a small smudge and it’s probably something that would come off with cleaning but I don’t want to ruin the varnish and the ad said the cabinet was ‘impeccable.’ I’m sure you can agree with what I suggest. [Sound of keyboard clicking.] I think it’s fair for you to refund 50% of the purchase price because of the smudge which you didn’t note. I know the smudge is underneath the cabinet so people won’t see it, but I just think you should honor what you advertise because I was sold the cabinet under false pretenses. [Sound of man mumbling in background.] The smudge is located in the inner left underside corner and it’s basically like a sort of dust? And I’m sure it would be very costly to have it professionally cleaned because it’s at least as big as a dime, or maybe even a nickel. My Paypal is trish@highmaintenance.com, so I’ll just look for the refund today. If I don’t hear from you in the next thirty minutes I’ll bring the cabinet back for a full refund. Thanks for your help! By the way, I really do love it!”

You Think That’s Hi-Mai? Ha!

“Hey Sara, it’s me again. Trish. So, great news! The smudge came off when I touched it! Yay! I am so excited. So I’m just wondering if you could tell me what you think would look best: my Tiffany tulip vases or the Eames birds? Jeremy hates the vases but his mother gave them to us for our wedding, and I feel like it’s rude not to have them out somewhere, you know? And since it’s in the hallway, it’s not like a really prominent place. They used to be on the mantle in the great room and he didn’t even mind! Anyway. I just emailed you pictures of the cabinet with both the vases and the birds. Let me know which you think looks better. Oh, I took a lot of pictures, so you have to add me on Drop Box to get the file. I’m TrishHiMai on Dropbox. Don’t you love the cloud? K, talk soon!”

Visual Voicemail exists for a reason.

The One You Never Meet

As in the flake who never shows up, or bails ten minutes before meeting, or reschedules three times and still cancels. Sub-genre: The One You Never Meet Who Gets Mad at You About It. Very special.

The Negotiator

This isn’t the garden-variety negotiator who wants to skim a $20 break on your asking price. Anyone with any sense will try to low-ball. The Negotiator takes it to the cement. Example: I have literally had a man show up to buy an eighty-dollar item, shake on the purchase, look me in the eyes with a straight face, and say, “I just have a five dollar bill on me.” He went to get cash but never returned. I later discovered he had helped himself to my screwdriver.

The Negotiator is also exceptionally skilled in the bait-and-switch. You show up for a chair and next thing you know you’re arguing for nine minutes about why you don’t need a table. You’re literally reduced to justifying the table you already own, which you thought was a stable thing in your life in the sense that you’d never have to really defend it, that’s probably on some level why you bought it, but here you are standing up for your table like it’s the Constitution. Which is hard, because The Negotiator has a plan for how you can buy hers and sell yours and it will not only save you money and time, it will make your life vastly better because didn’t you say it’s pine? You know how pine doesn’t hold up. It wouldn’t be her choice, is all.

The One Who Has Read the News

Craigslist is dangerous. A craven den of perversion. An abyss of theft. A chasm of death. You get it. Craigslist is so dangerous, Sue (not her real name) insists on meeting in an extremely crowded and inconvenient public place like Union Square’s north corner or perhaps the Moscone Center at 4:30 p.m., Howard Street side. No bigs, you think, makes total sense. But Sue also has set up a Craigslist-only email, and refuses to give out her number, which makes the whole process of giving her money a little difficult, but you’re accommodating, because after all, the girl thing. Sue will only text you directions of the meet-up location thirty minutes before said meet-up via web-based SMS service, and if you make eye contact or touch her pepper-spray-clutching hand with the cash, let alone your own actual, living hand, she will call the cops on you. Or her boyfriend/lesbian friend with the bushy haircut. Who is hiding behind the tree. Watching you. With a camera.

The Guy Who Makes You Want to Duct Tape Your Soul Shut

Somewhere along the line, this bloke either contracted Asperger’s from one too many TV dinners or simply determined blinking was irrelevant to his interests. You show up and he just…stares. He will at some point inform you that he has Googled you; he really likes that poem you wrote when you were 19 as an undergrad, so, do you ever talk to your friend anymore? And did you ever find out about the Native American symbolism thing when you were 15 and Jesus Christ the indexing goes back that far? That’s if he hasn’t called you directly after you emailed him to tell him the item has already sold. You reprimand yourself for not removing your phone number from your email signature. You realize you’ve done this aloud. “Oh, that’s not how I found it,” he says.

The One With Absolutely No Clue Whatsoever

“Divine velour cushions on this deluxe oversized stuffed armchair, bought in 1984, just $400! Ottoman sold separately! Beautiful pastel pink, coral, gray, and teal floral pattern with swirls on a faded blue background with ivory dots. Only a few worn patches on the sides. We have loved sinking down into this designer piece from Levitz for decades.”

“Take a look at this AMAZING!! Shabby Chic style end table. Originally bought at Target six years ago!! Good and sturdy, I think it’s made of wood? I painted it white a while back, but I like how you can still sorta see the black through it!! Very vintage-y!!! Asking $60. NO LOWER OFFERS YOU GUYS.”

“Selling my black leather sofa because my GIRLfriend thinks it looks like a bachelor pad LOL. My loss is your gain. Buy the engagement ring while you are at it LOL.”

“Shelving priced to move I don’t have pics really nice style very cool and goes in any apartment really great kinda modern no calls you pick up.”

The Good One

The guy who takes your apartment in a flash who turns out to be really cool. The walking buddy who is a soul mate of the highest order, holding all your darkest secrets safely in her heart, year after year. You didn’t even want a walking buddy. You don’t just…walk. That’s not something you were in the market for, and yet, you did it and she showed up and that was that. The girl who buys your lamp who ends up writing for you. The one who rents out the place next door but really nurses you through a breakup, a move, and the meandering anxiety at all the strange and strangely good things of your life. The dude who knows everyone in the neighborhood and perennially has your back, or your bill.

Which perhaps makes me The Collector.

The Insider’s Guide to Life is back from summer hiatus, exploring topics such as media, culture, sex, living, and anything else, including Craigslist. Cheers and spellcheck!

Image: blvesboy

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Where Cities Are Taking Us: 10 Urban Eco Trends

Mike Sowden — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 18:38:13 +0000

If you want a glimpse of our world in centuries to come, stroll round a city. Dystopian-mongering pessimists will now be holding their heads in their hands and groaning. Can we blame them? Urban areas are too commonly associated with poverty, pollution, neglect and a brutalizing of the environment for the sake of a fast buck. Pretty? Only from high up.

But that’s the old model of city life. Crocodile Dundee wasn’t too far off the mark when he said cities must be friendly because so many people want to live together. They’re the biggest physical expressions of our social nature on this planet. They’re filled with people, every one of them an individual – and so in these eco-conscious times where everyone can step up and contribute, cities are where things happen.

Here are 10 urban trends that will shape of the cities of tomorrow.

Keep The City Buzzing

Bees are on the wane, and we have no idea why. Entire populations are dying or disappearing as part of the baffling phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bad news in itself, but the sting in the tale is that without bees, many of our staple crops are doomed. While scientists search for the answers, the urban backyard remedy is obvious – and here’s how it works. Bee hives only need a little land to thrive – and you’d be following in the footsteps of committed enthusiasts like Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L Jackson. Further incentive needed? One word: honey.

Urban Growth

Escalating food prices, and all that land out back? Put the two together and turning your place into an edible garden is a no-brainer. But even if you’re squeezed into a concreted corner or you’re halfway up a towerblock, there’s still room for some horticultural creativity. Agricultural skyscrapers are on the rise (as it were) but while city-planners develop a coherently green strategy, it’s all about self-expression. Snake some vines over your balcony or up the wall. Let your potted plants grab onto windows and railings. Make your city come alive!

Up Where The Air Is Green

But whatever is done in the vertical is being done tenfold in the horizontal. Green roofs have captured the urban imagination like no other eco-craze, and it’s not hard to see why: they’re beautiful, they have a deeply practical element, and…did we say how beautiful? Of course there are new architectural challenges that come with having tons of topsoil and greenery piled on your ceiling – and there’s the usual amount of half-hearted bandwaggoning. (Yes, Astroturf is cheating). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less of the “concrete”, a little more of the “jungle”? I bet the local wildlife would think so.

Seed-Bomb It Back To The Stone Age

If you’re heartsick of seeing drab, neglected patches of municipal land blighting your neighborhood…you could be a guerrilla gardener waiting to join the green revolution. “Fighting the filth with forks and flowers”, these law-skirting folk are on a mission to bring budding life to every corner of our cities by any means possible. They sneak out at night with seeds and trowel, beautifying furiously before daylight exposes their efforts to the cops, or they plant greenery while hidden in full view. Sound like your kind of thing? Sign up here (you rebel, you).

Cleaning The Streets: Electric Cars and Friendly Rides

It’s been on the horizon for years (far too many of them) but now the electric car is starting to make headway in the place it’s best suited for – the urban grid. Where else is it practical to build recharging stations at the kind of density that suits the electric car’s shorter range? Ah, but that’s changing too – some of the models on our 2009 roundup hold enough juice to compare favorably to their gas-powered counterparts. These admirable advances aside, do you really need your own car? If not, and if braving the public transport isn’t an option, grab a lift with someone else – because urban carpooling is here to stay.

Commute Yourself Slim

In the convenience-drugged city of tomorrow, the only sweat you’ll break is when you’re deciding which button to push. Utopian dream? We say: urban nightmare. We spend our day in the thrall of convenience technology…and then heads straight to the nearest super-expensive gym to compensate. With modern life in full swing, who needs The Onion? Luckily there are architects who recognise the danger and, like Nintendo, are sneaking gyms into our lives without us realising. Their thinking is: why consume electricity when calories can be burnt instead? So the urban fabric gets a healthy makeover, like the much maligned stairwell. Cars are zoned out of existence and replaced with their human-powered counterparts (saving you cash in all sorts of ways). Parks and paths are expanded, and everywhere can be reached by a sidewalk. Healthy commuter, coming through. For specifics, check out the New York City Department of Design + Construction’s Active Design Guidelines.

One for Me, One for You…

My mum has a logistics problem. Thanks to some absurdly prolific fruit trees, her freezer is permanently half-full with surplus she has to freeze or it goes to waste. What she needs is a local fruit exchange – a social network (online and offline) that collects and distributes surplus produce for the good of the neighborhood. Take San Francisco’s version, Neighborhood Fruit, working like a foodie’s version of Freecycle – the goods are there for free, you collect them yourself, and first come is first served. If you like free food (ie. if you have a pulse) or want to reclaim your freezer, find your local fruit exchange…and if there’s none at hand, why not start one (pdf)?

Serving the Needy (With Servings)

Gone are the days that it’s acceptable for shops to chuck unused food away at closing time (and having worked as a barista for a certain worldwide coffee chain, I’ve seen my fair share of that). While up to a third of household groceries still go into the trash, restaurants are acting rather more respectably by offering up their output to local charities and nonprofit organisations, or directly into the hands of the homeless on the street. Check out the National Restaurant Association’s food donation work, and their guide to doing it (PDF).

It’s Cheaper Online (or, How We Killed The High Street)

Here’s a phrase to fill a shopkeeper with dread: “No, I won’t buy it here, I’ll get it on eBay / Amazon /Craigslist”. Online retailing is gargantuan business, simply because it’s usually the way to pick up the best goods from anywhere in the globe at the best price. Is it green? With minimal packaging and low overheads, you’t think so – except it’s also the quickest method of wiping out profits for urban retailers and for killing small traders. (Even the big ones aren’t safe – take the fate of Borders UK.) However, counter that with the fact that they’re billion-dollar recycling machines that often do a lot of good.

No matter your view, the bottom line is that online retailing is on the rise – and shopping is changing forever.

Neighbors are a Big Deal

But why spend money at all? Before money there was bartering, and thanks to the people-connecting power of the Internet, it’s firmly back in fashion (although we wouldn’t say “money is dead” – merely looking a bit peaky). If it fits through the post, it’s being swapped: books, DVDs, clothes, gadgets, plant seeds and tons more. Yet cities are where this is taking place in person, exchanging goods and services and reinforcing social bonds. Bartering binds people together.

And for the more intrepid barterer – why not trade homes with a complete stranger?

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: telmo32, NNECAPA, axiepics, bbjee, ubrayj02, frankh, emrank, Alex E. Proimos, eHow and paul(dex) busy @ work

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