SECONDHAND NATION

The Green Year: Voicemail

 

One of the last posts I made before I went on my long, unintentioned hiatus was a review of Jodi Helmer's The Year Green:  365 small things you can do to make a big difference.

It was a good way to go out, had I decided not to return.  The Green Year is a great practical guide for people who want to make small changes that help the planet.

It's like a daily almanac or devotional - each day has a small idea or tactic to try out and includes facts about the various environmental concern addressed.  A truly simple, genius concept.  One I plan to use in guiding me as I plunge ahead into this blog.

Which brings me to March 11th's tip:  Upgrade your phone service to include voicemail.

In other words, shit-can your answering machine, Luddites.

Now, I'm biased because I absolutely loathe talking on the phone.  I have bad hearing in the first place, so it's just not a technology I am drawn to naturally.  I also hate how it interrupts me constantly.  It rings and I have to find the damn thing, then put on my happy voice and interact or deal with some issue I'm not interested in tackling at the moment.  

Whereas emails or texts do not interrupt me.  Both allow me to respond - eloquently, I feel - in my own time, with the particulars right there in print.  No message to transcribe, no blathering to suffer through, no waiting for the damn beep.  

So I will expand on this, and propose that not only should you upgrade to voicemail, you should get the best data plan you can afford and stop leaving people voicemails.  I HATE voicemail.  Everyone hates voicemail - getting it or leaving it.  

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away, where people didn't believe in evolution and considered the universe 6000 years old, I had a job with an old-fashioned push button phone with an evil blinking light that indicated I had voice mail.  Needless to say, this was a job that gave me a damn ulcer and the people responsible for the blinking light were but one voice in a mighty, incoherent choir of idiocy.  

SO.  To sum up. 

Recycle your answering machine (info here and here.)

Read The Green Year. 

Don't leave me messages.  

Secondhand Pets, Part II

First, there was the heinous Basenji.

Then there was Gonzo.

Then from the people at the CARES shelter in Wyoming, MN, came our very own Pablo:

 

Rescuing a mutt is never a wrong move.

Get Mobile and Stay Home

Figure 1: Boring. Beige.  Business Wear. 

One big reason I have resisted working in a traditional job is that I hate dressing up.  Especially if the word "appropriately" enters the conversation. 

Business casual, skirt suits, hosiery, shoes that clack?  I can't stand them.  I feel like I'm wearing a costume.

It's one of the many reasons I relish working from home.  And why I'm so glad to live in an age when wireless connectivity makes it possible for me to wear thrift store rags 7 days a week.

The Economist has a special report on The New Nomadism, and how people are increasingly leaving the traditional workplace and flying out on wings made of wi-fi. 

The report goes into great detail about how our gadgetry does threaten some social linkages that are important, but I could only think of the bright side when it comes to staying at home:

* eating your own home-cooked meal, from food sources you are aware of, that involves less packaging

* not driving (and at upwards of 3 bucks a gallon, the planet AND your wallet will breathe a sigh of relief)

* not sitting in traffic, which is a huge, boring time-waster

* taking refreshing breaks in your own garden or neighborhood

* being able to maintain home tasks like switching loads of laundry and or rising bread

* spending less on cubicle couture and wearing consignment rags or jammies to your heart's content

Some of us won't be able to work like this.  If you work in a restaurant, retail store or factory, you kinda gotta be there.  But for those of us in the knowledge-based industries, spending even one day at home reduces your consumption and stress level both.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Deconstructing The Grocery Store

 

Figure 1: Grand Grocery Co, Lincoln Nebraska by John Vachon.  Source: Library of Congress.   

Thanks alot, Micheal Pollan.

As household errands go, I used to really enjoy a trip to grocery store.  Now my nerd ass can't even pick up a few groceries without internal dithering over the offerings of each aisle.

A few days ago, I visited my local Rainbow, which I normally don't visit (I prefer Cub Foods) but it is close to my daughter's preschool and gas ain't cheap.

I went in to pick up some fruit and cereal and spent 45 minutes contemplating the astonishing array of ludicrous food products that come boxed, packaged, canned and stacked, marketed to our hungry famine genes and sure to make us fat. 

Once you've read Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma:  A Natural History of Four Meals , every single motherfucking choice in the grocery store is freighted with politics.  (And Pollan's gone and written a new tome called In Defense of Food:  An Eater's Manifesto, which I tremble just thinking about.  Jesus, man!  Can't you let the ramparts of my fragile world stop shaking before you unleash more?) 

Oh, don't throw out that "Just Go to the Farmer's Market!" tagline to me.  I live in the heartland, where we grow corn that gets processed into fruit roll-ups and fattening syrupy fillers, where our farms are currently under 2 feet of snow.  Ain't nothing local to eat right about now, cepting twigs and dogshit supplied by my annoying neighbor's bug-eyed Basenji, who've we've renamed Silent But Deadly.

Among my ponderings:

• To buy bananas or to let growing leg-pain-having child suffer the liver-crushing wrath of ibuprofen every night, when bananas help relieve these torments of youth?  Those feminists were right.  The political truly is personal.  And it's waking me up every night screaming in pain.
• Frankenfood?  What the fuck is this?  Toaster strudels, Disney-embossed fruit leather, instant pasta bowls, pesto-flavored crackers - what would  my great-grandmothers think of all this shit?
• Why must everything be fortified with something else?  Breakfast cereal made from whole grains and enhanced with decaffeinated white tea extract - why not just drink white tea and boil up some oats?  Granola bars fortified with Omega-3 acids?  We've gone totally crazy with our ideas of what food should be and that's why Americans have no national cuisine to speak of.  Instead we're bereft amidst the legions of marketing campaigns for foods that don't taste good, don't resemble food and usually end up making us unhealthy.
• Dieting experts have been recommending recently that we shop around the perimeter of the grocery store, eating "whole foods" like vegetables, fruits, cheeses, meats and grains.  Shocking, isn't it?  That what keeps you fit are actual plant and animal products that are more resistant to the greedy clutches of marketing campaigns?  The majority of the store is dedicated to food products that are bad for you, that are packaged wastefully and that line the pockets of Big Ag. 

Figure 2:  Negro Grocery Store, Black Belt, Chicago, Illinois by  Edwin Rosskam.  Source:  Library of Congress.

I often think about Cargill when I grocery shop.  When I worked there, looking at the directory of departments was sickening.  For example, here are some department names: 

Sweeteners.  Sauces, Oils and Dressings.  Juice. Cocoa and Chocolate. Texturing Solutions. Animal Nutrition.  Meat Solutions. 

I don't know about you, but personally?  I have never had a problem that requires a "meat solution." 

Insert dirty penis joke, I know.  But really, the only "meat solutions" I can think of would involve avoiding BSE, E.coli, and the exploitation of workers.  None of which Cargill, with its global approach to food distribution, can fix for me.

And texturizing?  Ugh.  That just means, hey, let's stick some of our surplus corn product into your yogurt/cracker/ice cream and thus stretch it out further and change the mouthfeel so you'll slobber down larger quantities.  Saves us money while you get less and spend more!  Woo! 

What this means to me is that there is a huge refrigerated case full of yogurts I don't want to buy.  They are covered in Disney characters and packaged in non-recyclable plastic and filled to brimming with high fructose corn syrup, starches and other junk that has nothing to do with milk.  In fact, all I want is the plain yogurt, please, and that is the most expensive one, even when compared to the brands that brag "Enriched with Vitamin A" or "Live Acidopholus Cultures!" on the container.    

Figure 3:  New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  Stairway with display of a sample of the foodstuff collected by one household Uptown from Red Cross food distribution in October.  Source:  Wikimedia Commons. 

So go live in California, some might say, where you can pick oranges off trees and live the good life.  Quitcher bitchin about grocery shopping!

I don't think there should be an end to refrigeration or survival in cold climes.  I just think it's a damn shame that 95% of that building we know as the grocery store is full of shit that makes us unhealthy, fat and/or sick. 

Food that we can afford, that is free of chemicals and unhealthy bullshit, is nothing less than a human right.  Bugger off, Big Ag, with your grandiose notions of "Nourishing Ideas. Nourishing People."  You're making a shit load of money because you're making us sick. 

Secondhand Pets

Getting pets from a gross pet store or some snuff-chewin hillbilly trying to make a quick buck is a crappy idea, especially when there are so many good animals that need homes already. 

While nobody want a biting, peeing, furniture-chewing, four-legged problem, you'll go to heaven extra fast if you get your pet through an animal sanctuary organization, which rescues strays and finds foster care for pets that have been lost or mistreated. 

Why break the bank buying some fancy-schmancy purebred that's gonna need a hip replacement before its second birthday?  Chocolate labs?  Way over-rated, plus all the ones I know are fatso counter-surfers. 

Go to places like Pet Finder that let you search for animals near you that need new homes. 

If all that doesn't convince you, meet Gonzo. 

I rest my case. 

The Thrift Shopper: A Web Forum for Thrifters

   

If you haven't visited The Thrift Shopper yet, go there now!  I'll wait.

Dee dee dee... Humina, humina, humina...La la la...

What?  Firewall won't let you see it?  Just too lazy?  Fine, I'll give you the Cliffs notes version of the site and then you can go visit it with highly enriched expectations!

The Thrift Shopper is a website jam-packed with content and fun for the thrift enthusiast. 

Run by Michael and Cookie, a thrift-savvy husband-and-wife team, the site features:

• a monthly webzine
• a nationwide nonprofit thrift store directory, where you can rate your local stores and see what's worth checking out for your next road trip
• a thrift news section, where you can read headlines about the latest developments in thrift culture
• an interactive online forum for shoppers to mix and mingle (and also create blogs of their latest thrift adventures)
• an interactive online forum for thrift industry professionals, who can track trends in their business and get feedback from others in the same line of work. 

Whoa.  Besides maintaining all that web content and working with advertisers and other thrift partners, this fabulous thrifting duo also are regular contributors to their online forums  - Michael is Good Buddy and Cookie is Cookie -  plus they both have day jobs, too!  (Cookie is a court reporter and Michael repairs car stereo systems.) 

I highly recommend the Thrift Shoppers forum.  You can chat it up with like-minded collectors and thrift-lovers, as well as post pictures of your latest finds.  And it's an exceedingly friendly forum, too - don't worry about running into crabby know-it-alls or elitist meanies - everyone is welcome at the site and I can't stop gabbing about how great it is. 

Which is why I caught up with them recently and to ask about the The Thrift Shopper site, their thrift-world musings and forecasts, and even their definition of the perfect day of thrifting. 

_______________________________________________________________________________

I'd love to hear about how each of you started your thrifting habit.

Michael:  An ex-girlfriend got me into it, and since then I've just really gone nuts with it.

Cookie: I remember my mom taking me to a thrift store when I was about 7 years old and I really loved it, but I didn't get serious about thrifting until I lived in L.A. in my early 20's.

How long has website been operational?

Michael:  TheThriftShopper.Com went online in January of 2006, but the national directory of thrift stores and the magazine weren't available until that August.  So we've officially been up for a year.

Tell me a little about the visitors to the site – where are they, what motivates them, what kinds of things do they collect, what kind of community has evolved from the site?

Michael:  Our visitors are from all over the U.S.  We even have users in Holland, Australia, Canada and Great Britain.  Our thrifters collect everything you could possibly find in a thrift store - from record albums, ashtrays, barware and dishes, to more obscure things like Chipmunks records and dog rabies tags.

Cookie:  I think a lot of our visitors love the thrill of the hunt, the idea that something really great is out there waiting for them. The thrifters on our site are always friendly and welcoming to newcomers.  They’ll pop in and say hi before we even get a chance to sometimes and immediately start a chat with them.

I'd imagine it's harder to run a business that has the word "thrift" in the center of it.   What kinds of partnerships, advertisers, and revenue are you looking to capture?   How is a thrift-centric business different from other businesses?

Michael:  We’re only planning on seeking advertising revenues from companies that our visitors will be interested in, like individual thrift stores, vintage or retro businesses, or companies that recycle unwanted goods.  We don’t want anyone to buy advertising from us if it won’t benefit them, and our slogan is “National Thrift Store Directory Advertising at Thrift Store Prices.” 

Running a thrift-centric business is not that different from running any other kind of business at this level.  Until computers replace cash registers on the front counter of every thrift store, I think there will always be people who are afraid of the Internet.  So in that way it’s more difficult to get thrift store managers to see the benefit of what we’re doing.

You have an industry section on the site  – how's the response been from people who run thrifts?

Michael:  The response has been slow, but we’re always trying to generate more interest in it.  We feel that it will be more popular in the future as our site gains more interest from the thrift industry community.  Our future plans include publishing an online book about how to start and run a successful thrift shop.

What's the impact of eBay, in your opinion, on the resale market?

Michael:  It’s been drastic.  Unless you’re the first of five people at the thrift store to see an item that’s worth putting on eBay, it will be gone before you know it.  Twenty years ago you only had to compete with people that owned their own vintage store in your town, but now one out of every five people in a thrift store would sell something on eBay.

Cookie:  I agree with Michael that things are really picked over now, but I also think that the gems are still out there.  It just depends on how much knowledge you have and how good you are at identifying the gold.  You have to thrift smarter, faster and better now.  It’s a pain.

Do you ever worry that by raising awareness of the joys of thrifting, you might be decreasing the available pool of good stuff out there for you?

Michael:  eBay has done that more than we will ever do.  I’m not ripping on eBay at all.  I’m just speaking the truth.  We’ve sold thrifted things on eBay in the past.

Cookie:  More good stuff will always come in, though.  It just will.

What's the future of thrift culture?  Will it go mainstream or is it by definition a fringe movement?

Michael:  I think by definition it will always be a fringe movement. There are legitimate charity organizations now that are trying to steer away from the word “thrift” and won’t advertise their stores as “thrift stores” in their local phone books.  They prefer to call themselves re-stores, second-hand stores, and resale outlets when thrift shoppers are looking for “thrift shops.”

Cookie:  I think it’s gotten more mainstream in the last ten years, for sure.  It seems like it’s really become a cool and hip thing for teenagers to do, especially if they redesign the clothes they thrift.  I think it probably won’t be fringe in ten more years.

Can you tell me your idea of a perfect thrift outing?

Michael:  Waking up at a 7:00 AM on a Saturday and going to a really great breakfast, relaxing over a cup of coffee, and then hitting all the thrift stores until 3:00 PM, after going to lunch and not being able to even stand looking at one more thrift item!  We'd have a carload of stuff that we didn’t even know we wanted before we left that morning.  But that’s why we do it.

Cookie:  I’d rather wake up at 10:00 AM.  And then ditto.  Plus, I’d like to find some things I DID know I wanted.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Get connected with more a-thriftianados at The Thrift Shopper.com and say hello to me over in the forums!

Cradle to Cradle? The Reincarnation of Junk

 

It's been said that you shouldn't shit where you eat. 

Though Derrick Jensen might think otherwise, I think that most of us realize this. 

Perhaps that's why we're increasingly sending our shit - that is, our unwanted junk, trash and scrap metal - to China.

I mean, why not just send your refuse far, far away and have it come back to you to poison your child or take out Mr. Whiskers after his morning trip to the food bowl, not to mention the lovely steel imports that collapse in a strong wind?

Christ on a crutch.  Recycling is great and reusing the material we've already dug up, processed or only partially consumed is what I whole-heartedly endorse.  If I didn't, why would I be cruising corners for yard sale signs like a depraved lunatic and salivating and giggling like a megalomaniac over half-price day at Value Village?

So why does this news -  to paraphrase Tyler Durden - of China taking our fat asses and selling it back to us upset me so much?

I just dunno, man.  I gotta go think this through.  If you need me, I'll be in the corner stabbing my daughter's Polly Pockets with a fork and muttering curses to myself. 

A Fairer Fair: Minnesota State Fair Goes Green

The Minnesota State Fair is one of the largest state fairs in the nation.  Inaugurated in 1859, the Fair is a place where Minnesotans gather each summer to eat fried food on a stick while admiring prize-winning livestock and home-grown or canned garden products, stopping by info booths for free swag bags, listening bands way past their prime (Def Leppard featuring Styx and Foreigner - no shit!) and enjoying chintzy games and rides on the Midway.

I haven't been to the Fair since I was 13 years old.  Not even when we lived just a few blocks away from the fair grounds, nor when one of my editors kicks me free tickets as a thank-you gift for writing for her. 

See, the end of August typically doesn't feature mild, temperate weather and I'm not wild about the idea of walking around in the sweltering heat to stand in long lines and dodge the sweating throngs of people noshing shamelessly on things like deep-fried Snicker bars or Coca-Cola cheesecake dipped in chocolate (both of which are available on a stick, by the way.)

Despite my nonattendance, from a distance I must admit that our Fair is rather bitchin.  If you've never been, you probably should give it a whirl.  The variety of junk food available is legion and you're sure to enjoy gawking at folks with face tattoos and other dramatic sartorial choices, as people-watching remains the unofficial (and free!) activity for all fair-goers.

This year, the Fair is hopping on the green-consciousness bandwagon with even more fervor. 

In addition to Eco Experience in the Progress Center and numerous recycling receptacles throughout the fair grounds, compost bins are now available for the over 50,000 cobs of corn expected to be crammed into fair-goers' pieholes this summer and some of the vendors in the Food Building also volunteered to compost food scraps.

Kudos to the Fair's planners for integrating sound environmental practice into a tradition that has deep roots in agriculture as well as our precious natural resources. 

Blah blah blah - enough with the press release-y junk!

The fact is, trash pile-ups at public gatherings are gross. 

The more the Fair can do to reduce waste while raising ecological awareness to the heavy-breathing summer hoards, the better.  When you combine the August humidity, the hundreds of sweating armpits, the ubiquitous swarms of bees trying to cram their asses into discarded soda bottles AND too much garbage, the result is much more foul than fair. 

(Yes!  Puns!  I'm totally clever! *air guitars*) 

photo:  Lots of People Enjoying the Minnesota State Fair by Amy Mingo

The Original Secondhand Nation

 

Want to find out what happens to some of your trash after you roll it to the curb?

Listen to a recent report from National Public Radio's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro about how the tiny island nation of Haiti makes lemonade with our tossed out lemons.

photo:  Waste Dumping in a slum in Cap-Haitien by Remi Kaupp, courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Radical Confessions...Or Not?

Hey Zine-Readers!  Have you ever read Doris?  It's one of the most popular and longest-sustained zines out there.  If you like zines, yet haven't heard of it, you're not paying attention - its creator, Cindy Crabb, is a prolific punk DIY super heroine. 

In any case, Doris discusses anarchism, permaculture, environmental degradation, politics and feminism, and living green through squatting and dumpster-diving.  I've been on a total Doris kick lately, absorbing all her words and ideas and comparing them to my relatively tame hetero life in a first-ring suburb where I pay the mortgage and power companies, while living in my square wooden box made out of ticky-tacky...

While going through the compilation book of her zines that was recently published by Microcosm, I started wondering:  am I getting more radical?  Or will what I'm doing to live greener soon become the bare minimum?

Sure, we recycle diligently in my house and we kitchen compost and we buy farmer's market food when we can.  That kinda stuff's in vogue and in the pages of Martha Stewart Living. 

Also, I do many things that are somewhat out of the mainstream in the name of reusing or conserving resources. 

Signs I'm just one step out of the mainstream:

I take great pains to buy resale over retail.  Out of cheapness AND easing the burden in the landfill AND the thrill of finding unique things.

I let it yellow if it's mellow.  (Sometimes my husband bitches about this being gross.  I try to drink more water so my pee goes undetected...sneaky, I know.)

I use reusable maxi pads, if I bother to use anything at all. If you'd like more details on this, let me know.  I don't believe there's such thing as Too Much Information, but I'm probably in the minority

I line dry all our clothes.  I even plan to try this in the winter.  (Shh.  My husband thinks I'm already crazy. )

I use old lace doilies or dampened dish towels to protect food in the refrigerator.   Plastic wrap gives me fits.  I don't plan to buy more when we run out of it.  (Shh.  Again, don't let the husband know.)

I am completely content without a dishwasher - honest!

I don't water the plants I don't plan to use.  This means the herbs or vegetables get the H20 love, but the lawn is almost completely brown, because I refuse to water it out of spite for its boring monoculture-ness. 

Certainly these are small things, though they might seem weird to others.  But I'm wondering if they will become more and more acceptable as people get more comfortable with sustainable living? 

(Long Rambling Aside:  Though I preach the gospel of thrift, I do fear that yard sales and thrifting pleasures will become cutthroat, competitive affairs and prices will be driven up higher.  I don't let it keep me up nights, or anything, but just saying...)

Signs I'm starting to become a radical lunatic:

Whenever I see the little bundles of sticks that people set out for the trash hauler, in the regulation length and size, I secretly consider stealing them all and composting them or mulching my yard with them.

This morning while showering, I decided to make natural potpourri from lavender, mint and bee balm in my yard.  Potpourri, people!  Potpourri is inherently crazy. 

My husband's ideas to build a greenhouse off the garage and power everything by bio-diesel are starting to sound reasonable.

I'm wondering if I can compost used q-tips and cottonballs...any ideas?

In my backyard, I tried to combat creeping charlie with creeping mint.  Guess who's winning?

I've considered whether we should install a bidet when we remodel the basement bathroom - no more toilet paper!

I have been researching home-made conditioners that won't necessitate bringing more plastic bottles into my home.  I'm talking egg whites and honey, people. 

Pretty soon I'm gonna start blasting the Buffalo Springfield, I know! And trying to make holiday gifts out of my composted turds.  My family will walk around with frizzled hair from our low-flow showerheads like that one Seinfeld episode and the trunk of our car will be held on with a bungie cord and we'll all be wearing dashikis made from newsprint. 

Do I seek help?  Or is this the future? 

Eco-therapy: bullshit or boon?

A study from the University of Essex is now claiming that taking walks in green spaces helps alleviate depression much more than taking walks in urban centers or shopping malls, prompting mental health organizations to start flogging "eco-therapy" as part of a new solution to better health.

Since my entire family is riddled with depression and anxiety from stem to stern, I'm a bit worried. It's always studies like these that allow clueless laypeople to get loud in bars and holler, "Ya see there!  Get the hell out of your house and you'll feel better!  You don't need a pill for that!"

Actually, Beer-Swilling Genius? I do need a pill for that. 

Because while riddled with anxiety, I was unable to LEAVE my house.  So fuck you, dummy.   I hope no one you love has to deal with these issues, since you're about as sensitive and informed as a used condom.

The longer you don't take medication for brain disorders like depression and anxiety, the longer your neural pathways get nice and familiar with those grim backroutes of the cerebrum which lead you to believe that people hate you and are out to get you, that the world is unfair and mean and hopeless and there is no purpose for anyone, including yourself, to continue inhaling and exhaling. 

So, while Big Pharma is awful and money-grubbing and everything, I admit that I ain't gonna be able to take them on, much less tie my shoes and take a walk, unless I regulate my brain chemistry.  A terrible double bind if there ever was one, yes. But I am not going to waste one more minute of my life being crippled by mental illness, so the anti-corporate principles?  Out of the lifeboat.

I take prescribed mood-stabilizing drugs.  They keep me from losing my mind.  This I believe in as deeply as Stephen Hawking believes in gravity. 

So studies like the eco-therapy one that tend to arrive at these common sense "no shit!" conclusions bother me because I want people like me to feel okay about seeking out drug treatments if they are interested.  I don't want the Beer-Swilling Geniuses to carry the day.  There need not be more stigma about depression or anxiety or bipolar disorder than there should be about diabetes or asthma.  I worry that this type of facile conclusion will inhibit others from inhibiting their serotonin re-uptake. 

But I can't totally knock eco-therapy, either.  It's a cheap supplemental treatment, for sure, and one available to most of us.  And while it rides on the heels of the latest "Carbon Offsets for Leo!" hype, I'm not really surprised that walking in a green space, versus the food court or the mall, makes one feel better.

Whenever I walk in an urban center or go shopping, I am attacked with the "Gimme! Gimmes!"  My thoughts scamper around hysterically - "lookit how cute everyone else is dressed!" and "I really need this! Oh, and that!  And that, too!"  The next thing I know, I am obsessing about my least favorite thing - MONEY.  Nothing like retail shopping for bleakly underscoring one's own dreary economic status.   

Conversely, when I walk around the park by my home, my thoughts are still and very limited: "Don't step in the goose poop" or "look, a heron!"   Perhaps these pedestrian thoughts are so dull that they create a tranquilizing effect on the body.  Whatever.  I'm not complaining. 

Walking around is good for you, in general.  One of my favorite parts of taking a walk is the realization that I cannot do anything else while I am there.  I move my legs, I look at green stuff, maybe I listen to music or the radio. I don't call people on my cell phone or try to cram in any other chores or tasks that need attention.  I walk.  I look around.  I say hello to people who pass me.  I don't compare my wealth to that of the turtles sunning themselves on logs or wonder how that heron keeps herself so slim.  My body moves, my brain does not.  And I never have to open my wallet for any of it.

Got a take on ecotherapy, Big Pharma, mall-walking, the physiques of herons?  Leave me a comment!

How to Set the Bedroom on Fire with Sexy Recycling Tips...Tonight!

I'm worried that the concept of "recycling" has lost its cachet.

I know, I know.  Grab the ripcord, everyone!

photo credit:  William W. Hinkley Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management

But I feel sorry for boring old recycling.  Now the sexy eco watch words seem to be things like "carbon offsets" and "biodynamic wine"-- these are the alluring, cleavage-revealing lipstick lesbians of the sustainability movement, while "recycling" has become the grouchy, unsmiling militant separatist butch with a shaved head.

It's too bad, because for most people, recycling is one of the most direct ways to help the environment every day.  And a recent report from The Economist (an old unsmiling butch of a magazine itself) suggests that recycling is happening globally, though with some fits and gaps one might expect.

photo credit: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, LC-USE6- D-001549, 1940-1946.  Photographer, Alfred T. Palmer

The photo above is from the Library of Congress American Memories Collection and was a part of the Office of War Information's effort to promote conservation during wartime.  The photo's title is: 

"Waste paper. Destined for destruction, this household rubbish heap contains waste paper so badly needed today for conversion into the paper packing in which defense and lend-lease goods are shipped. Paper is one of the materials with which Americans have been most profligate, only now they are beginning to conserve paper along with many."

Quite the knuckle-smacker, huh?  Especially since it dates back to 1940.  This means our great-grandparents and grandparents were being told to recycle more than half a century ago.  (And knowing my grandmother, frugal pack-rack she was, she didn't have to be told at all - she even saved the elastic waistbands to my grandpa's briefs when the rest of them had blown out.  Hardcore!  Also, eww. ) 

So, this week, reinvigorate your dedication to recycling.

Visit the Reduce Your Rubbish website to get yourself all pumped up again about recycling and its benefits. It's a New Zealand-based site and they use the word "rubbish" constantly. (Long Rambling Aside: I love the word "rubbish" so much! I'm going to start sneering and sputtering "Why, that's rubbish!" every chance I get.)

Anyway, what's really got me lately is reducing waste. I'm sick of buying things and paying for the container they came in, which merely gets tossed when emptied. I mean, I'm somewhat creative, but how can I re-use a tube of toothpaste or squeeze container of St. Ives body scrub? There's only so many macaroni-and-empty-toothpaste-tube art projects my kid can make.

And dammit, why should the fact that I like apricot exfoliator become the planet's problem?

One way to deal with this is to let the manufacturer know directly. Look on the back of your favorite product that comes in this type of cradle-to-grave-designed container and email, call or write them a letter. Tell them that you'd appreciate a container that could be reused or made out of quickly biodegradable materials.

photo credit:  Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection,LC-USE6- D-001550.  Children dumping garbage into one of the incinerators. Ida B. Wells Housing Project, Chicago, Illinois, 1942.  Photographer: Jack Delano

If you've got extra nerve, ask the manufacturer's to tell their design team to pull their heads out of their heinies and read William McDonough and Michael Braungart's paradigm-smashing book Cradle to Cradle. Tell them you are tired of paying to haul away junk that pollutes and will happily do without their products until they provide you with a waste = food alternative. 

Another way to put pressure on companies to minimize their packaging waste is to give direct feedback to the retailer. Target is constantly putting feedback surveys on the bottom of purchase receipts that invite customers, er, I mean, guests, to respond to surveys about their shopping experiences. While I don't feel it's necessary to explain to them the inner workings of my tortured human soul, every chance I get, I fill out  these surveys with the following requests for:

• Less packaging on products I like to buy, including the specific brands I like
• Re-usable bags or a discount for reusing bags (always name-dropping IKEA's reusable bags just  to be a dick)
• Locally-produced food versus organic food that's traveled across the globe ten times before it crosses my plate, always mentioning the better deals to be had at area farmer's markets

These big box retailers are a huge pain in the ass, but they sure pay attention if enough customers, or uh, I mean, GUESTS, bitch about things.  These behemoths understand one thing - the cha-ching - so bring the wallet smack-down and perhaps we'll get somewhere.  

eBay: Eco-Economy Superstar or Capitalist Pig Supervillain?

Let's talk about eBay, baby!

Here's an interesting article about the "rationality" of consumer behavior on eBay.  I find it hilarious that anyone would use the word "rational" when discussing online auctions.  Everything I've bought in an online auction has been kooky, quirky shit like hobnail milk glass butter dishes or Hawaiian lava art -- bizarre, unnecessary things that I had bought in a frenzy that was anything but rational. 

Anyway, that's probably not the meaning of 'rational' when applied to economics and since I hated Econ in college, let's don't discuss it. 

More interesting to me is whether eBay really is about re-using items.  The commercials for eBay suggest that it's the only place in the world you can find special childhood mementos - indeed, my husband recently bid his way down memory lane with a purchase of The Speedy Little Taxi, his favorite childhood book (that was also a record!)  - but it seems that Ebay has also become an enormous marketplace for all kinds of new garbage, too. 

What's your stance on eBay?  What do you go there to buy?  Is it a new revolution that's cleaning out closets across the globe or just more of the same junk-peddling nonsense?

Fuck Your Junk

A while back, my mother came up for a visit and we all drove out to the hinterlands of Long Lake (this is where red-state babies are born, for those of you who aren't local) so we could check out a sale at this place called Junk Market.  Needless to say, I was inspired.  But not in the way one might think.

If you're addicted to that ubiquitous type of Surprise! Home Remodel Porn television programming, perhaps you've heard of Junk Market. Founded by Sue and Ki, two scrappy, bottle blond extraordinaires, Junk Market is featured regularly on HGTV and has a column in Country Home magazine. They are also often featured on daytime TV talk shows (like the unfortunately cancelled Tony Danza Show) or radio programs where they preach the gospel of junk to people who have never had the privilege of awakening their own creativity.

Sue and Ki, both former hockey moms with a "passion" for junk, began their Junk Market enterprise by scouring flea markets across the country to come up with decorating ideas for bored rich people who have all sorts of leisure time but no brains and whose pre-fab decor in their pre-fab homes was just so...um, what's the word?

Oh, yes. Soulless? Lifeless? Dull?

Well, thank the deities for brave souls like Sue and Ki! They are willing to branch out from the Galleria, Pottery Boring, and Gabberts and actually, you know, buy icky things no one wanted before and make them, like, into vases to hold dried flowers! Or kitschy retro umbrella stands! Or candleholders! You know, the kinds of items that the public cries out for because what will we do with our excess dried flowers, umbrellas and candles!  Oh, thank you, Jaysus!

So to those poor, exurban souls wailing in empty finished basements with wall-to-wall carpeting and overstuffed sofas, do not despair!  Sue and Ki can find old vintage signs and discarded metal gears and broken cake stands and make you shit out of them! They also write about how they did this! (For money!)  Have a burning desire from deep within to make this lovely bench?   Buy their new book for project details!

Best of all, they have big sales where they mark up flea market finds for you so you don't have to, you know, have your own individual experience at a flea market! Oh, no! They bottle up this flea market experience for you in Cozy Long Lake, just a quick jet from your home in Edina or Orono, and you don't have to deal with any unsavory types who live out of their conversion vans and may not have all their teeth.

Intrepidly, in the spirit of Rachel Ashwell, Britney Spears' decorator of choice, the Junk Market gals have a Junk Bonanza  where they sell you all kinds of chipped paint and rusting metal in the hopes that their experience will somehow contribute to the character of your life. (Don't fret about the fact that you didn't have the experience, don't know where the junk came from and have nothing to do with it! You can keep living your same routine life without bumps or scrapes and have everything LOOK rilly rilly cool! Perfect!)

But say you can't find anything amongst their marked-up wares?  No worries.  You can always buy the "retro" signs they make that say "RESORT" or "COTTAGE" on them. You know, weatherbeaten painted letters on beadboard! It'll make your ugly McMansion house living room look like RESORT! Woo!  Then everyone will be fooled into thinking they are in a resort, when really they are just in your basement!  Sneaky! 

Just remember to inoculate guests for tetanus before they get too close to your rusty astrolabe and keep an eye on the children so they don't start licking the flaking paint on that Hoosier cabinet you keep your TV in. (Hide the TV. Even though you had to watch HGTV to get the fucking idea about hiding the TV.)

You wouldn't want your home to actually HAVE character, remember? That might not go with the white sofa. HAVING character would involve thinking of your home as art, as the canvas for your life. You might have to actually acquire or make your own tchokches which would involve, perhaps, thinking.  Or at least, taking a class at the nearest Micheals. But that's really not necessary, provided you have a wallet and have left your brain in a dish by your bedside.  Because Junk Market Stylists Sue and Ki are here, they are white and blond and upper class. Put down the smelling salts -- you won't have to leave the herd after all -- and psst!  It's not really junk if we can charge it on our AMEX cards, right?  Hee hee!