All is not lost, my dear

Oh man, I've been feeling down for a few days. I don't want to call myself a "downer" however, for fear this name-calling would only plunge me back into ceiling-staring-land (or as it was last night, star-staring-land). And I don't want to be hard on myself, since the temperature plunged overnight, the holidays are fast approaching (oh dear lord), and the director of the CIA is embroiled in scandal. Then there's Hurricane Sandy, legalization of being a pothead in Colorado, and the neverending depression of Obamacare. Need I say more? How can a simple girl like me go on living in all of this chaos?

But then, a dimly flickering light in the darkness: lunch at the Armenian place across the street, filled with fresh pita, tzatziki, and the most wonderful falafel I've had in a long time. Suddenly, the world was right again, my blood sugar normalized, and my days-long freak-out ended.

Peace out mofos :)

Terracycle.

Over the summer, I found a company called Terracycle, and at first I thought, "this is a sham - after all, I did click on an ad from Facebook to get here". But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that, underneath the kitschy products that look like they were made for tweens (e.g. purses made of Fritos bags), there was a real campaign to eliminate waste.

At my school, in the copy room/mail room/supply room, there are easy-to-see boxes that collect receipts for a local grocery store that donates to the school, then there is a bag that holds those (what are they called?) Box Tops for Education. They're easy to use, and that makes me remember to use them.

Blah, blah, blah. The point I'm working towards (very poorly), is that our schools are places where kids are. And kids need things to do and be excited about. In my city, trash is a pretty big industry, and this program provides a way to both recycle things that would otherwise just sit in landfills, and helps to create and sustain a culture of recycling.

Milk Cartons

Vintage "Compu-Mug". I've found others, and they all have fun sayings :)

Cartons are recyclable, like juice boxes and milk cartons, but not all cities offer carton recycling. You can find out if your community offers carton recycling by going to The Carton Council's website. I'm considering starting a petition to my city (I don't know who I'd petition, the city council, perhaps?) to ask them to begin providing carton recycling. I don't know how much it would cost to add that kind of technology, but cities do make money off of their recycling programs.

The school where I work doesn't have milk cartons. They have milk bags. It's really amazing how school cafeterias work. If you're going to change the world, I think you have to start in a school cafeteria, because that's where you'll find the most people.

Anyhow, check the website and see if your city recycles cartons, and if they do, then recycle them!

Operation "Sell Car"

I just returned from the shop. It's my engine mounts, and front axle. $1000. I know I've said this before, but I am done. I am so done. I need a new car, like today.

Operation "Sell VW" commences today.

Is this the bottom?

I went to teppanyaki last night with coworkers for an end-of-the-year celebration. The place was packed, on a Tuesday, in an otherwise boring strip mall. It seemed odd to me. Good, even great (economy-wise), but odd nonetheless.

Last week, I went to my bank, and a young man was hiding outside, unseen from the security guards, selling M&Ms. He asked me if I wanted any (It was 102 degrees). I said "sorry". And it was in that moment that I thought, "this must be the bottom". People ask for money on cardboard signs on every corner, young people without shopping carts. Adults selling candy outside banks. Suddenly, I was transported to Peru, where children sell candy on the streets, and on the buses, where each car is accosted at every stop light, with people selling their wares, trying their best to survive.

But in happier news, my generic chocolate sandwich cookies have reappeared on their store's shelf, and I eagerly shared my joy with the first employee who seemed like she might care. And she did. It was a wonderful moment.

Money is nothing.

Vintage Tupperware measuring cups

If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.

~ Karl Marx

Be an activist...please

 

So this whole Occupy movement has unfortunately been stomped on lately, but now the battle against the banks and the foreclosure crisis is heating up. One example of this is Occupy our Homes, which works to keep people in their homes post-eviction by any [peaceful] means necessary. Honestly, I have some resistance to this, and I'd like to work it out a bit. Bear with me. I will get somewhere.

I was raised on corn-fed beef and "We Hate Clinton" yard signs, so "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is not so much a saying in my mind as it is an understood core philosophy of what every person should strive for. I also believe that evil exists, and that systemic evil is particularly powerful. Secrets breed more secrets, and power is addictive. We, as a culture, have operated under the guise of self-sustainability for so long, that we didn't even notice that it was a farce. We are owned, and not by something good and pure, but by banks and corporations.

I believe that there is enough money in the system to pay fair wages, but a lot of that money is in the hands of a few people, and we gave it to them. Yup. You and me. We gave it to them. We handed it over and said, "Here, I trust you." And now we're all sunk in a pit of confusion and despair, because we didn't know any better.

But now we know better. And as Dr. Phil says (or Maya Angelou), "When you know better, you do better." So do better. Move your money, out of Bank of America, Chase, J.P. Morgan, and any other bank that didn't either originate in your area, or directly serve the people in your area. My neighborhood has one bank: B of A. My neighborhood is the poorest of the poor: the undocumented, the refugees, the single moms on public assistance-lots of people who don't have bank accounts. Every one of them is trying to make life work one day at a time. But they're stuck in a system that tells them, "This is the way" and life is so hard that they listen.

I think that some of the movement in this area needs to be towards educating people who need to learn how to empower themselves. It needs to be credit unions making themselves known to local communities, and not just to those who have already heard. Stop preaching to the choir. If they've already heard it, and haven't acted, shake the dust off your feet, and move on!

Be an activist. But don't quit your day job please.

Who wants a Rabbit?

 

How does this sound for a Craigslist ad?

"How would you like to live the biodiesel dream in your very own vintage 1979 VW Diesel Rabbit? She needs someone who will treat her right, with the amount of respect and adoration she deserves. She's rough around the edges: rust around the windows, front dash that looks like it exploded, and a speedometer, that well, is nonexistent.

What does it have, you ask? Two doors, rockin three-year-old shifting levers, a new front axle, a sealed transmission, four working seat-belts, working hand brake, and an engine that has never once gone out on me. It's got some guts for the biodiesel (switch panel and gauges), but needs a few odds and ends to get it back to its once french-frying self (The tank got taken out to spare the children in the back seat, and it's been running on straight diesel for the past five years).

Fine print-You are not interested in this vehicle if you are not willing to do the maintenance yourself, or pay big bucks to have it serviced (and never at a good time for you, of course). I will be as honest with you as I can, with whatever information I have from my own experience and what I have from one of the previous owners.

As there are only 5 digits on the odometer, the mileage on the vehicle could be anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 miles.

Oh yeah, it gets 45 miles to the gallon. Always has."

Thoughts?

Where do you get your toilet paper?

I get my 100% recycled toilet paper at our local Fresh & Easy. I like to purchase 100% recycled paper products as often as possible. I get my mailing supplies from thrift stores, or reuse stores, and I use recycled materials from the recycling and trash bins for the stuffing. I know it sounds weird, but it's simple and clean (unless I make the unfortunate mistake of sending send old bread bags to a person with a wicked wheat allergy-that might cause me more problems than I'm willing to deal with).

An outbreak of shopping fever

I am not a "Black Friday Shopper". I think that the whole thing is bizarre, but there are people I love who celebrate it ritually, so I have had to decrease my negative feelings to a dull whine.

Honestly, I just hate crowds. I feel smothered. I feel invisible. I feel out of control. It's all disorienting, and for no good reason. A friend posted something on Facebook last year, to the effect of, "Avoid the crowds-Buy Handmade-Shop Etsy". So I enjoyed looking around at Etsy today, and adoring those vintage motorcycle boots (that I would look amazing in).

In spite of my "anti-consumerism" attitude, I am constantly managing my own drive to consume. And because of that, because even I struggle with it, I think we can all agree that people aren't anywhere near the end of personal consumption. I myself am somewhat in the business of selling, so I think rerouting is a perfectly appropriate way to manage the symptom (i.e. "Buy Local", "Buy Used", "Buy Handmade"). I have come to enjoy ordering online (and of course I recognize that it takes money away from my local economy, but I haven't figured out how to fix that yet).

Today, I have been happily sitting around in my pajamas, save for a brief obligatory trip to the post office. I slept until 11am, and it was lovely. Then I manned my shops, filled orders, and enjoyed the gentle hum of my space heater.

Now I'm watching Outbreak. A wonderful end to a beautiful day. I'm trying to figure out if I should go see Contagion this weekend. It's playing at the cheap theaters, but everyone I know who has seen it has not been impressed.

Enjoy the long weekend, if you have one. Hug a friend, if you're feeling lonely, or wishing you weren't with your family. Hug a friend if you aren't with your family and wishing you were. Hug a tree if you're none of the above.

Change for the better

 

Read this first. If you have time, after that, you can come back to me.

So I live in one of the most impoverished areas in the US. We actually have shantytowns. Yeah, they're small, and don't compare to any third world nation, but they're there, and they're real.

But add that to the startling heat of summer and unbelievably depressing fog of winter (the only two seasons we have some years), and the area doesn't appeal to the mainstream citizen (mostly the undocumented, if you really want to know). And why is this? Because we're lame? No! Because we began as a haven for sharecroppers and gypsies? Why yes! And it continues today (If you need background, just read Steinbeck's East of Eden).

So here we sit, a hole of depression and poverty; a big hole that sucks up all the smog from everywhere else. Yup. It sucks. So what are we going to do about it? Can we bomb all the prisons we house? Nope. Can we make everyone ride a bicycle everywhere? Too late for that (blame it on suburban sprawl). Can we make people happier? Probably not.

But we can do something: We can stay. We can commit. We can say "no" when we're pressured, both internally and externally, to flee the hell we grew up in. We can deny our human need for beauty elsewhere, dig our feet in, and fight for beauty here. We can choose to not ride the coattails of others and benefit from the creativity and vision of those who inspire us, and choose to be leaders here, in our own communities. We can choose the thing that has been thrown away by so many before us, that has been trashed by the media from coast to coast. Yeah, we're the Appalachia of the West. Do we succumb to that title, or do we defy it? Do we, as the educated thinkers and dreamers of our communities, leave behind the people and culture that have shaped us and made us who we are; or do we commit to returning the favor and reinvesting in our cities and towns who need people like us, people who care, in order to change for the better?

I choose to stay.

We've been downgraded

So, we've decided to leave some things behind in Iraq. You know, the usual stuff that's difficult to ship via the US Postal Service: guns, tanks, port-a-potties. This seems like a good idea to me, giving to those in need and all. Although, I do hate guns (hate them) and don't think it's any good to just pass them along to someone else. But Iraq is going to maintain a military, no? So it suffices to think that they might be aided by our leaving some essential supplies behind. Or maybe we don't want to bring the mess home, and we're trying to leave it behind for someone else to clean up. That would be a horrible idea. Don't make your problem someone else's problem.

Like I tell the kids when they're "so bored" and start following me around with puppy dog eyes. "Don't make your problem my problem. Don't pout in my face." Come to me for help, or go spend some time thinking about different ways to solve the problem. Don't dump it on my doorstep (Wow, so harsh).

Yeah, leaving things behind is often a difficult task, especially if you plan to do it well. We all have to move on at some point in our lives; change comes and we have to embrace it. I am in the midst of some pretty darn humongous changes right now in my life, and I'm not embracing them, no sirree. I am digging my heels in, hanging on to the past. I know what's coming after graduation and it is not pretty. After the excitement wanes quickly, the depression and unemployment will set in; the loan officers will start calling, and I will still have the rest of my life to be single and help other people with their marriages (Oh, haven't I told you? I'm planning on being single for the rest of my freakin life, or until I turn sixty, whichever comes first.). Yippee!

These are dark days my friend, dark days. I wish someone would leave a tank in my backyard. Not really, since I wouldn't know what to do with it, but all the same, it sure would make me feel powerful for a whole five seconds.

"Don't bogart that can...man."

So since I can't go out and do "people on the street" interviews in my neighborhood, this is essentially the state of things in my part of the city. And it's been this way for so long that it doesn't even faze me. This is life as we now know it.

I've heard on more than one occasion that this is ripping off the city. By stealing from recycling bins, people are essentially stealing from the city's income revenue. I doubt that this is a real issue, but am more than willing to take feedback on it. If you know anyone who can comment on this issue, I'd love to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about.