i'm not one small atomic bomb
despite that i know i should go do pilates on my living room floor or clean the kitchen, i'm writing an update after spending ten minutes choosing a fancy new layout! looks like i'm back to livejournal!
lately, i've tried to make a serious commitment to living green - i got rid of our harsh, bad-for-the-environment-and-ground-water cleaners, i turned an old kitty-litter bin into a compost bin and have been putting anything remotely biodegradable into it, i'm turning lights on and off as i leave and enter rooms like a fiend. part of the motivation is selfish (i really secretly want al gore to show up and share his nobel peace prize with me), but it feels really good to conciously be making choices that are good for the environment.
yesterday i went to walmart for the first time in a month and a half, and stopped mid-sentence in what i was saying to kevin because i just felt so overwhelmed. i swear, the place pumps "stupid" through their speaker system, because i couldn't hold onto a single cohesive thought or the list of four things that i needed (bleach because of a mildew-related crisis under our sink, notebooks, bandaids, and shampoo). instead, i found myself going, "oh, i could do with some chocolate! i've already got eyeliner, but is that a new style? wow, look at the variety of bandaids! do i want extra padding or extra strength? which of these is going to hold neosporin on the cut that kevin's bad cat gave me this morning? clearly, only the extra strength will be able to hold up with my active livejournal-ing lifestyle...but is that too much strength?"
i am not joking about this. it took me seven minutes to pick out bandaids. i couldn't concentrate, i couldn't really think, my mind was in this haze and filled with christmas music and people yelling at their kids - seriously. seven minutes of my life that i will never get back.
i vaguely remember the first step in the recycling cycle (recycling cycle? really?) being "reduce." and, oh my god, no wonder we're in the state we're in - it is so, so easy to overbuy at superstores like walmart, because there is so much there! and it's all so inexpensive! and convenient! and that hershey's commercial is playing over and over again! it was seriously all i could do to get out of there with the things that i went for, and even then i ended up buying a bolthouse farms drink because i walked by it and it looked good and my mouth was dry from panic.
walking by a lot of people who clearly haven't ever thought about why they're buying the things they are was just sad. we really do have a society of mindless consumerism, and the line between "need" and "want" has been really expertly blended - or, rather, the word "want" has been eradicated in favor of "need." so, i'm taking an orwellian tactic and trying to eliminate the word "need" from my personal vocabulary - we need food, we need water, we need to be warm enough. here's what else i think we need: walmart needs to back off. and i think i need to never, ever hear that hershey's jingle bells commercial ever, ever again.
lately, i've tried to make a serious commitment to living green - i got rid of our harsh, bad-for-the-environment-and-ground-water cleaners, i turned an old kitty-litter bin into a compost bin and have been putting anything remotely biodegradable into it, i'm turning lights on and off as i leave and enter rooms like a fiend. part of the motivation is selfish (i really secretly want al gore to show up and share his nobel peace prize with me), but it feels really good to conciously be making choices that are good for the environment.
yesterday i went to walmart for the first time in a month and a half, and stopped mid-sentence in what i was saying to kevin because i just felt so overwhelmed. i swear, the place pumps "stupid" through their speaker system, because i couldn't hold onto a single cohesive thought or the list of four things that i needed (bleach because of a mildew-related crisis under our sink, notebooks, bandaids, and shampoo). instead, i found myself going, "oh, i could do with some chocolate! i've already got eyeliner, but is that a new style? wow, look at the variety of bandaids! do i want extra padding or extra strength? which of these is going to hold neosporin on the cut that kevin's bad cat gave me this morning? clearly, only the extra strength will be able to hold up with my active livejournal-ing lifestyle...but is that too much strength?"
i am not joking about this. it took me seven minutes to pick out bandaids. i couldn't concentrate, i couldn't really think, my mind was in this haze and filled with christmas music and people yelling at their kids - seriously. seven minutes of my life that i will never get back.
i vaguely remember the first step in the recycling cycle (recycling cycle? really?) being "reduce." and, oh my god, no wonder we're in the state we're in - it is so, so easy to overbuy at superstores like walmart, because there is so much there! and it's all so inexpensive! and convenient! and that hershey's commercial is playing over and over again! it was seriously all i could do to get out of there with the things that i went for, and even then i ended up buying a bolthouse farms drink because i walked by it and it looked good and my mouth was dry from panic.
walking by a lot of people who clearly haven't ever thought about why they're buying the things they are was just sad. we really do have a society of mindless consumerism, and the line between "need" and "want" has been really expertly blended - or, rather, the word "want" has been eradicated in favor of "need." so, i'm taking an orwellian tactic and trying to eliminate the word "need" from my personal vocabulary - we need food, we need water, we need to be warm enough. here's what else i think we need: walmart needs to back off. and i think i need to never, ever hear that hershey's jingle bells commercial ever, ever again.