stringing myself along

i had an image today. making food and feeding the fairy folk, for lack of a better term. seeing the unending recession of being in the making of something. crafting is weaving the threads of light that feed the beings that exist in a parallel/ alternate/ diagonal reality. they are dependent upon us for flourishing but not for existing. things can be better or worse, for them as well as for us. every time we stop an make a new, ferment reality and feed ourselves well we also feed that which feeds us, the wee folk that live beyond our vision, the ones that understand subatomic particle physics. the ones that are subatomic physics. we must learn to communicate with them, play with them and make them offerings. that is what i am doing with my food. that is the unknowable that makes a better world. namatase.

holiday blues

if you have children then you to have seen it happen. the change. the first big change. the reaching out to the outside world and watching with awe and wonder as the small being realizes that things are gotten, not by growing, harvesting, killing, and working on making things, but by buying them. my charming son, often with an eager, “i love you mommy” and a penchant for all things boy: swords, guns, dragons, snakes, spiders, sharks, and all the adorable sound effects that go along with such “eventures” made this developmental leap the other day. he realized that mommy can buy the things he sees in stores and on gradma’s t.v. he now gives me the rundown of all the things he wants me to buy him on the way to town. a dinosaur with wings. a black shirt. a black pair of pants. black boots. a black car. a black house. (bad guys are the dish du jour around these here parts...)

not yet four, but getting closer every day, the developmental leap of the consumer has been made. a store does not go by nor hardly an item now without the attachment need-greed extending itself. i read a calvin and hobbs the other day explaining how our consumeristic society fits the dreams of six year-olds. well, i guess i have seen those seeds planted and sprouting. the idea that you need stuff to make you happy starts early.

but my son is happy without them and quickly forgets all the lists of things that he wants and doesn’t get. and yes i am still a mommy sucker and i do get him a toy in town...but i am drawn to realize how little we as a society have gotten past the toddler stage. why do we seem to live on this visceral i want it, i need it, give it to me level?

in the true fashion of little kids, we want what we want, and if nobody tells us no, then we will just keep on stuffing the toilet with whatever we can find, or buy on credit, because it is fun. and hey, when you are three you don’t have to deal with the flooding or the plumber. and yeah, there might be some noise, and some people will get angry, but you probably won’t see the mess and certainly not the bills. but boy, doesn’t that plastic superhero look cool swirling around the vortex?

how am i any different, succumbing to society’s pressures, when i buy that plastic toy (which i know to be evil from beginning to end) just so that my boy will love me just a bit more for the moment? aren’t we all headed for the toilet if we can’t see the dangers of our lifestyles, let alone change them? is there any reconciliation between my views and how i live? am i destined to be the hypocrite i crave not to be? is there any way to live without internal conflict with external reality? if i focus my mind enough, cant i change reality? can i change myself?

i have. ironically, it is having children that has led me down this path of action. i want a world for them in the future that hasn’t completely gone to shit, yet i want them to be happy now. it is for this happiness that i cannot completely change. me thinks i must try harder to find things for them that don’t compromise my values. me thinks i still have a long way to go.

the evolution of bread waste

the evolution of bread waste

i started out buying bread in a double layer of plastic.

throwing away two bags of plastic almost daily really bothered me so i started making my own bread.

i used packaged flour and butter in the beginning and lined the bread pans with parchment paper.

as i threw away the parchment paper with each creation of bread i was crushed to realize that i was making close to as much trash as buying bread, though this at least wasn’t the horrid plastic kind.

i realized i could keep the parchment paper till it got ripped, several bakings later.

and moved on to getting locally grown and ground flour in bulk.

next i really went the step that many people would probably call too far when i made my own butter from the raw milk i got in my own glass container.

i ran out of parchment paper one day and realized i put plenty of butter in my bread and tried baking them dear loaves without any parchment on a flat pan, not a loaf pan.

to my delight and surprise, they just popped right off the pan!

so now the only trash that is being produced when i bake my bread is the plastic bags that i use to freeze the bread in when done. those i try to reuse as often as possible until they break or my husband throws them out. not perfect, but nearly so, especially when we enjoy my cakey loaves.

not only has my bread gone from good (i still like plenty of store bought brands...) to absolutely delectable, but my families’ nutrition is greatly advanced by my culinary offerings, and i do create nearly zero garbage in my food production. however, i do have to spend a good 5 hours (at least) every two weeks making my 4 loaves. it is time well spent. i get a good workout kneading the dough too and i know that i am hardly producing any waste. my family jokes that i have gone off the deep end, but still they love the food... i feel so lucky that i can afford the time to spend doing this. truly though, it is a shame that in our fast paced, churn it up and spit it out society, it is actually a luxury to have the time to make my own food.

progress report

when i write this i feel like i am writing a progress report. and if i am not progressing, i feel i have nothing to say. after all, if you have nothing good to say, say nothing. but there is so much to think about in this crazy mixed up world. my main issue is my feeling of powerlessness. i was hoping that this message in a bottle was going to hit some shores and i was going to hear from others trying to achieve a zero garbage lifestyle, or a more naturally oriented one. and the truth is that my focus has helped me find others that are as passionate about living closer to nature and less consumer oriented. let’s just leave it at that...

so, progress report:

my failures: buying meat, cheese, and crackers. and going to the movies. at the movie last night, i tried to be environmentally conscious, making a fool out of myself telling my daughter she could drink from the fountain, repeatedly, apparently to her utter disbelief. so then, after we sit down, my sister goes back to the counter and gets no less than 3 Styrofoam cups for convenient water consumption. which of course, we never even use... so then i finally went to the car and finally got out my aluminum water bottle (man i can be slowww...). a fiasco for sure. then i thought i had left it there... but at least that wasn’t true. i just forgot to refill it and return it to its rightful place, my car. really, my failure list extends, far, but i will hide the rest for now...

my successes: my dairy department is developing. i have now made ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, butter, chocolate pudding, quiche, and my own milk... well i have been doing that for years now... but it never made anything other than more content people... i have a cheese book and am seriously contemplating getting a cheese press. though i might share one with my friend first. next, my goat is going to try to get pregnant... and then i really will be “producing” my own milk, at least the kind i can cook with and not just calm an overtired boy with.

my thoughts have been leading thusly: i am driving. i drive to prevent waste so that i can buy this or that in bulk. i drive to the bridge and take a magnificent walk across the hudson. my daughter has a birthday and wants candy. my son wins tickets at the arcade and wins plastic wrapped candy. certainly i should say no to some of those things? i look around and even in my own family, our consumption, though slightly slowing, is not really diminishing. i want to do natural dyeing. i need to buy mordants. nice exotic natural dyes come nicely packaged in plastic. my cheese book came in plastic bubble wrap. a new laptop? birthday presents? to live these days means to make waste, often of the indelible plastic poison type. to achieve zero waste means to completely change our lifestyle, our society.

i would love to see the sea of change that has to be happening, the move to alternative fuels, the move to zero garbage. but the changes are so incremental, i fear that real drastic economic collapse is the only way people are going to change. we aren’t going to change unless forced to. i know that even for my efforts, i am only slowly inching towards getting in tighter with mother nature and reducing waste. otherwise i am still caught up in a society that is going to condemn me if i don’t get these goodies for my kids (not to mention my kids themselves...). if i were a fundamentalist, i would have to limit my own exploration in my science, art, and culinary worlds. not to mention my kids joy and our own mobility. (or maybe that is the problem?)

i perceive that i am blocking truly changing my world view. real change will begin with a change of perception, values, and orientation towards things.

i guess it is two inches forward and one back. conscious, aware, trying.... just a beginning

mad mom

today i am not the softie, the fantasy filled mom flying around the room in her imaginary cape and wand. today i made ricotta cheese and i am high. actually i am probably just feeling my chocolate and coffee in combination with my miraculously sleeping kids, while alas, i am not cleaning or cooking or asleep myself.

i am thankful that i have found motivation to live the slow food life. (next, fresh pasta to go with the fresh ricotta.) attempting to avoid the evil plastic drives me to be more creative. i just wish that i didn’t feel so strongly when plastic tubs or wrappings enter our lives, because, of course, there is no avoiding them. well there is, but i am not so severe, strict, or disciplined to say no to chinese food takeout when we pass by and my kids are hungry, or my mother-in-law kindly offers chicken soup for my flu-besieged hubby (and she certainly isn’t making it herself...). no to lollipops or cheese i can't yet make myself (i haven't made it that far yet) and sadly, the list goes on. so many times a day, it seems, i touch the devil's resin.

now many must think i am crazy and here is the sort of rant that my humor was hiding before:

according to Elizabeth Royte’s, Garbage Land, plastic is “toxic both to make and to dispose of. on the front end, says the EPA, the production of plastic emits the toxins tichloroethane, acetone, methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, styrene, toluene, and I, I, I trichlorethane, as well as sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, methanol, ethylene oxide, and volatile organic compounds. plastic manufacturers use copious quantities of benzene and vnyl chloride, which are known to cause cancer in humans. ingesting other ingredients of plastic production can lead to birth defects and damage the nervous system, blood, kidneys, and immune system. many of these chemicals are gases and liquid hydrocarbons that readily vaporize and pollute the air; many can cause damage to ecosystems. in an EPA ranking of the twenty chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste, five of the top six are chemicals commonly used by the plastics industry. not surprisingly, plastic resin factories tend to be clustered in low-income communities of color (mostly in the Gulf States, which have easier access to gas lines). OHSA health studies have shown that people who work in and live near plants that manufacture plastics and the chemicals used to make them experience higher incidences of some kinds of cancer than other populations.” pp.190-191.

wowowowowow ow ow ow ow.......

it is rare that reading something changes my life anymore. there is so much wrong with the world, and i have felt that am contributing to it all by continuing to live without serious protest, without words against it all, but worse, without action. so much of it i feel is bigger than me. but the evil of plastic i touch and feel all the time. and it gives me the creeps. every time i throw a plastic wrapping away i think of the growing sea of plastic in the pacific ocean, or the time bombs of landfills that my waste will be going to. for there is no good end of plastic; it can’t be food for anything. toxic to make and toxic to waste. why is it ok to make it? because people make money from it? (the creed of the 80's, greed is good, plasticizes the world) are people amenable because more products can be sold ever more “safely?” ironically, we seem to need ever smaller packages to counter our "super-sized" world. in our quest for an ever more perfect world we will find immortality in our plastic embalmed world. me thinks for halloween i should be the world covered in plastic. hmmmmm ..... maybe next time i will be in the mood to joke about it.

a note to my readers: as i said, it is rare that i read something and it changes my life. i don’t think that i would have taken all this to heart for so long (and this is only the beginning) if it wasn’t for actually writing about doing it, because my intention to try to reduce my contribution to plastic proliferation would probably have faded with so many other grand ideas if it weren't for actually writing this blog and knowing, dear reader, that there is at least another human being out there reading this. You help to give me the power to drudge on...

eco-warrior on the loose

what does it mean to be an eco-warrior? i will tell you. i wake up every day in the middle of the night. i stealthily slip out of my organic, hypo-allergenic bed, past my sleeping pile of homeschooling family bed, to don my felted wool mask and union made in the us, cotton cape. sliding down my responsibly harvested wood stair railing, i flip into my fluorescent lit kitchen to hatch a few eggs, i mean lay them, no, i mean to make yogurt, or is it granola this time? or maybe decadent chocolate pudding... hmmm. yes that is what i should be doing now.

i quickly whisk all that together while humming no, not kumbaya, but, what’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding. all the while radiating the white light of aforementioned elvis costello’s (or nick lowe’s if you want to get picky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7txCdLCP9U )... i might as well be doing this with my feet as my hands mend old blankets and my brain plots new projects for the other bodies i have brewing in the basement.

so, perhaps you have figured out by now that this all is not an accurate representation of how i actually live. well, ha, i have you beat. i am dreaming!

living purposefully (trying to reduce our waste and rid my family’s life of plastic) is great, thinking that there are many others out there that are nearly as interested as i am is, well, nearly as realistic as actually being able to live as though i can do this thing. that is, living as though i am alone when i am actually the mother (read responsible for their happiness) of two minors and a husband. but still i dream, and work.

my next project: eliminating the tea bags. that requires researching where i can get the bulk products i want and building an infrastructure of tea buddies. i guess the nature of tea parties keeps changing.

balancing change

i haven’t written in over a week now. i am having trouble with my cause, my religion, my commitment. i refuse to say that it is wavering, rather that i need to find balance in my life. balance is key. unfortunately, as we all know, passionate people are rarely balanced.

so, do i want to be balanced, or imbalanced? i do have passion for living cleaner, for knowing i am doing the best that i can to reduce the waste that my family produces, for trying, oh dear, trying to live without the sin of plastic. or do i want a happy family? (a false dichotomy, i know, but many times the heads do butt).

my gains: my kitchen is now filled with mason jars that have been bulk purchased thus creating 0 packaging waste. i have been connecting more with people who are excited about living similarly (yay!). this week i made my own seitan, pumpkin pudding from scratch, made more granola, bread, and finished my first small bag- sewn from found fabric. the most exciting development is that i have gotten my gas mileage up to 46+ miles/gallon!

how do you do that you ask... well, i drive a honda civic hybrid and have been disappointed with my mileage, i have only been getting about 42. and then, this past week, i had a revelation. i changed my driving habits. i realized that it was more important for me to save gas, because gas, (plastic’s parent) is evil and has caused major environmental and sentient damage... so i started driving a little slower. and my gas mileage started to go up. when we took a longer trip, i set the cruise control on 58 (yes, this was on the thruway and others were hating us, but they managed to simply pass us). it seems living in an environmentally sensitive manner is merely considered a speed impediment to many. it did seem so on the road....

which makes me think of this week’s mantra: change. all this effort to reduce waste is all about changing behavior. how do i affect my world? can i do anything more powerfully than live the example i am trying to set? well yes, but it has to begin with living the reality, walking the walk,... and then i can join with others. but truly, living it is the best aphrodisiac, (opps, that belongs on another post...) really, it is exciting to begin to see some change.

in the latest issue of The Sun magazine, there is an interview with Janine Benyus. she is a biologist whose specialty is biomimicry. in the article she talks about our relationship to nature and explains how we are moving from an immature view of nature where we just extract what we need and move on, to one that has set down roots, needs to become more efficient, and “develop cooperative relationships....Now we are .... in a crowded world with limited resources. Our strategies have to shift. We have nowhere else to go.” this made an impression on me because this week the world seemed to whisper to me, “it’s all about changing behavior...” , “it’s all about changing behavior....” but i like the sound of “shifting” better, because it implies a softer, subtler movement, one that doesn’t require as much effort as change- earth shattering, mind altering, brain splattering, heart palpitating CHANGE....

writing helps me realize that i am getting somewhere. i know that my recycling bins are not filling up so awfully fast. my fuel intake is going down. all good stuff. but making that paradigm shift where prioritizing the sacredness of resources over the fun and tastiness of now... at times it seems herculean, but i see a SHIFT has begun. altering behavior needs to be done in increments. at least that is the only way i seem to be able to manage change without getting completely imbalanced and turning into some kind of right wing talk show host.

the spinning wheel

last i wrote i was supposed to be getting on my sewing horse and flying. well it ended up that the week brought with it a lyme attack on my husband and daughter, of which we were hoping the antibiotics were finally working their devious magic. and a bizarre awareness alighted upon me: i hadn’t ever worked my sewing machine before.

thusly i bravely started down two divergent paths at the same time: reresearching lyme and caring for their symptoms while learning how to use my forty year old sewing machine. attempting this subatomic particle-like maneuver, i discovered that in my earlier efforts not to waste food and can, can, can, i had ignored my files which were now overflowing and the laundry was towering towards the ceiling, threateningly. forget actually taking care of the dogs, cat, goat, chickens, oh and yes did i mention that i have two kids and a husband? occasionally they might require some attention as well. so it is that over a week has passed an i have missed my self-imposed deadline for sewing my bag and thus for writing. i hang my head in shame.

so i have been frustrated this week. i didn’t finish the project i wanted and feel the need for support for this effort in living righteously. i joke not only because i find religion hokey, but because despite that, i find respecting my environment has become my religion, it informs my art. it gives me form and function, something to laugh and live about.

often it seems, especially with so many serious issues out there such as insane people fighting not to have health care reform ( i digress- having been convinced, now that we have a black president, that all things the government touches is bad and destined to control our lives. but seriously folks, doesn’t your health insurance carriers decide what they will cover or not now? i know, we have the lyme to put the bill in our hands. our bills are sky high, and empire, seemingly randomly pays some but not others. ) but i digress some more...

so there are real other issues out there. many seeming even more pressing than living the way we should. our culture has gone so far astray that trying to live a sustainable lifestyle, one without poisons, plastics and a consuming passion- seems like a pipe dream. seems impossible. you have to live outside the loop, in a bubble, isolated from all. it makes trying to live, and yes i am finally going to say it, living the right way, feel like naval gazing.

so i finally i do it, i ask for support. anyone out there in the same boat? anyone trying and getting frustrated? or just trying and would like company? maybe right now it is just naval gazing. but the truth is that it is the culture of the mass consuming society is what got us into so many problems. if we were able to live sustainably by demanding accountability from the manufacturers to create goods that are not toxic and are reusable made by people with fair wages, how much more peace would there be in to the world? how much cleaner would our air and water be? if we were not oil dependent, how many wars would be diverted? if the health of the people and the planet were held in higher esteem than that of profits, wouldn’t we have more time to focus on being able to get along together?

taking responsibility for the way we live is really taking the bull by the horns. you get tossed about and bruised. and there is a lot of bull out there, let me tell you. i tell myself, it is the only way.

crisis of faith

* our first sunflower of the year!

i feel as though i have been separated from this blog. it has been a few days, but not that long. i feel as though it has been weeks, months, years since i have written you. illness has been a barrier to my cause here (a stomach virus running virulently through my house and my father’s subsequent heart problems have distracted me).

but it feels like more, oh no, it feels like i have had a crisis of faith. i have had moments when i have felt weak. initially, i had a great moment, a revelation. i saw the light and all was clear. the church bells were ringing and my head was screwed on straight. the light streamed down from the heavens and the almighty smiled upon me with streaming rays of fractured light broken through the clouds. he spoke to me, “you shall not indulge in the disaster that is the modern world, this plastic, consuming, wasteful society.” and the earth shook and so did my knees. this powerful vision lifted the polyester veil off my eyes and revealed to my heart my mission and gave my fists the power to lift up in defiance against the mad, speed driven, hungry, angry world. and i gave my howard dean scream....

my focus was so clean and clear, (especially when my daughter wasn’t here). i gardened, i cooked, i canned. then i started getting deeper into it. cant waste food. cant waste food. must save... so i bought jars and started canning. made butter, yogurt, some cheese, granola.... and more. more time and energy was put into preparing food. more research done. now there seems to be less time to spend with my family. when i die, just pickle me then landfill me. the refuse of our great society will entomb me and i will last longer than Tutankhamen.

fun, fun, where did the fun go? the truth is i really enjoy cooking and being mindful and poking fun at myself for trying. but then a day comes where there is so much plastic being used and dumped that it feels like an avalanche burying my faith, suffocating my passion. today i wanted to take a picture of all the plastic that my family threw away, but i thought it would be too depressing. we went to see my father in the hospital. in the name of cleanliness, to stem the spread of any vaguely potential disease, plastic cups were disposed of left and right. and here goes my mea culpa, my liberal guilt, my lash myself on the back with plastic pokey things till i feel the flush of pain. i didn’t have my cup, and i didn’t even try to make sure everyone even kept their own or tried to mark each one. nothing. i did nothing as cup after cup went in the waste basket, filling up faster than you can say armageddon. (ok, so i like hyperbole, shoot me with a nuclear missile.)

but really, i felt so glad my father was well, (and a little shell shocked at the thought of his demise), i seemed sideswiped by this new chain of events. i realized how my own lack of preparedness lead me to this place. why didn’t i even have a cup with me? if i can’t remember, who can?

i talked to my husband and told him that i was resolved to hook my cup to my pants. he said it would be unwieldy. i said so what? he said, i would like to have a bag with a plate, cup and utensils in it. and just have it all the time, like a pocketbook, handbag sort of thing. wow! the lights lit brighter, the angels started to sing in my ear again.

of course i had tried an earlier version of this, but i kept the bag in the car, and only took it out when i knew i was going to eat. that put the guerilla eating events on the attack. i was often unprepared for such events, just as the hospital visit had derailed me.

but now i am newly excited and motivated (and have a new lease on life along with my father). now i will be sewing and saving some fabric from the landfill and making my own bags with pockets for dishes and silverware and a cup. i must get on my sewing horse and fly now.

help! can't get there from here... with images!

Today was an exciting day. my daughter returned home from camp. she was glowing; gorgeous, young, healthy, full of life and exuberance. it filled my heart to be with her again. we went out to eat to celebrate, and had to take food home rather than waste it. which, of course saved the food but generated the wrapper. then my partner gave the food to the dogs any way... (oh happy dogs).

later i had to go to the supermarket to fill our empty cupboards. my food procuring pattern had been thrown off by poor planning (ever my culprit) for my bread making didn't get done and my going to the farm to buy milk didn't get done. and i realized i had a long way to go before i could make the prefered household cheese: monster. so i broke down, i bought plastic wrapped cheese, which i hadnt for weeks, packaged milk, juice, nutella (also in plastic), bread (also in plastic, twice over!), i even (gasp) forgot my bags and most ashamedly, head down and fingers fidgeting, got a plastic bag. aaaaarrrrggggghhh.

my daughter who is working on being a conscious (let alone conscientious) consumer, said tonight, "you have to enjoy yourself too." so you see, i am roadblocked, derailed, despoiled, and depressed. time for me to sit on my plastic pile and pout again. tonight was my worst night in two weeks. i had cut down on my purchases at the supermarked so much so, i was actually only spending around twenty dollars when i went in there. today i spent seventy, and then i had to go back for more.

but it isnt all her fault, i cant blame her; i do love nutella too. and if i really had it together, i would have made the nutella (how hard could it be to make)? and i definitely should have made the bread (which i really usually do do) rather than have had to buy it. and the shopping was so expensive because my new hobby seems to be canning. saving the bounty of now for later, including the shrink wrapped cases.

so my not so new discovery, was that in order to cut down on purchasing, need to make food. need to make food. must make food, mmmust mmmake fffood. of course it doesnt help that it is 3:30 am. and i am waiting for my canned tomatoes to cool.

so far this past week i have made: mozzarella cheese (yum!), a supposed goat cheese like cheese that came out like little rubber balls (eh?), butter (yum), granola, cucumber salad (half gallon), canned bean salad, canned tomatoes. those are just the things that are out of the ordinary for me to do (read new adventures in cooking). dont ask me what else i do, i dont remember now.

ah, but the point, the point was that after all this industriousness, i have not yet, nor do i see in the near future, me being able to be a waste free product. i mean, what would life be like if i were to can, and bake and cook and butcher and tend the animals and the garden and my family. i wouldn't have time for this luxury of writing, now would i? would there be an I left? i suppose that might be a good thing. sometimes sleep is even a luxury. next week i have to buy my daughter back to school stuff. hmmmmm, i'm sure there will be no garbage generated with that sanguine experience. hmmm, no time for sarcasm, i am only compost waiting to happen. and that is supposed to be an uplifting thought.

despite my inablity to get there from here today, the glories of the summer days and the deep rich smell of compost are hypnotic. dirt lives and we thrive of her bounty. enjoy the photos of my not-quite-off-the grid farmlet.

Advice for Reducing Waste

what advice do i have for those of us who want to reduce their waste?

change your focus. send your kids to camp (my favorite). stop eating. stay home. don’t go anywhere. don’t vacuum (also my favorite). don’t wash anything (another favorite). and certainly, don’t throw anything away! just sit in a big pile and cry.

seriously though. i have been buying much less of everything since i realized how dangerous plastic was and decided to boycott it. i notice how so much of everything i had been buying is in it. wow! plastic rules! plastic is everywhere! and wow! my cupboard has been getting pretty bare.

what i noticed was that my point of view has shifted. i no longer go to the store thinking, what do we want to eat, what do i want to buy, or what would make my family happy? but rather, is it in plastic and can i/we do without it? are there glass or metal container equivalents? what would make my family really miserable?

thusly, i have been able to reduce my waste and plastic consumption a lot. my lovely mate is supportive as he notes that we can easily see the back of the fridge now, on every shelf too. and i clearly see how much it needs to be cleaned. the good part is i seem to be losing weight too.

also, my concentration is being improved by the need to think a head more. i need to remember and prepare more for outings in the real world. do i have my bags with me? do i have any containers that i can use? what route do i need to take to buy locally most efficiently?

the truth is even if i don’t plan on shopping, i might think of something later on, or be distracted enough to just find myself walking around in some market chasing my 3 year old as he drives away from me in his car-cart.

really, it takes focus and dedication. looking at that great free ranged ham and controlling my impulse to buy because i don’t want the plastic, is definitely making me skinnier. spending much more time preparing food than it is to eat it, i realize how difficult life used to be before all these conveniences, and understand better why plastics and the tv dinners were embraced to begin with. sometimes i even want to hug a garbage bag, i mean a good hot dog, but then i want to shower.

boringly, i recognized that it would help the most if i just kept my bags and jars into the car. that means putting them there when they are emptied or washed. but that is me because my planning ahead capacities are limited to making sure my son has a snack and i have directions to where i am going. and since i try to limit my driving as well, i need to try to remember that my shopping will be done during the day while i am otherwise out and about.

changing my focus is changing my lifestyle. i go to the farm for milk and am working on making my own cheese. mozzarella, here i come!

a digression and explanation of my lack of capitals

why I don’t use caps or e. e. cummings and me

this is funny, as i write this, my computer automatically corrects me (caps my i’s and beginning of sentences). usually when i use word i am happy that it will do all this work for me. but now i will have to go back and fix all of these mistakes. you see, when i don’t use this program and i write the old-fashioned way, with a pencil and paper, i don’t use caps. when i email, or write directly onto something like this blog, i don’t use caps. why?

well, it all started back when i was a kid and i was introduced to the idea of democracy, an egalitarian society, one in which everyone is equal. i fell In love with the idea. then i noticed something interesting in our language use. mainly that I, I, I, seem to be so much more important than you, of course also, me. which is quite funny because logically, why should I be honored with caps but not me? because I am the subject and me is the object? is it all really all about me? (stoke the ego, stoke the ego, build up steam, power the I) hmm, that sounds egotistic, selfish, indivdualistic. it also seems so patriarchal, and visually is rather phallic as well. why shouldn’t i honor my subjective self with special caps, an attention getting, grown-up capital letter? it is simple. i do not identify with the I- the artifice of the capital empowers the subject, it elevates the individual who is talking over the ones He is talking to. just as standard english is gender biased, it is also speaker heavy. i do not believe that i am any better, any grander, deserving of any more attention than you or them, he, us, we, or she.... you see, my identity is precious, but it is still just a name, just me, just another i, like so many other i's out there...

janet or job, bob, or bill, rachel or susan or rose. a name is still just a name. i believe we all are equal, well in theory anyway. my title and name is not so special. i will pass on; my essence IS no greater than animated dirt. the I is a false elation of the ego; the I is an artifice to extol my power. on depressed days i might just grasp at that dollop of grandure.

the details of our language choices do count for something. we send messages with, not just our word choices, but the format we choose, the font we choose, and the use or misuse of punctuation. it all tells a story. as an english teacher i had a hard time teaching grammar because it really is superfluous. it really tells, more than anything, how much the writer accepts the rules of society (or at least appears to). so do i reject the rules of society? (apparently). are appearances crucial, or misleading? a false dichotomy or a conflicting reality? a koan or a power play? frivilous or substantial? or just a dance between the writer and the reader?

why do we have caps at the beginning of sentences? i do not necessarily want the emphasis to be at the beginning of every sentence. a period seems strong enough to me. eradicating the period has occured to me, but i don’t want my readers to work so hard at deciphering what i have to say that they have to ferret out their own sentences. (though I might if i were writing poetry.) i still like the cohesiveness of thought constrained to a unit. i will not deconstruct so much that the pieces need to be puzzled back together on such a minute level. not too much, not yet, anyway.

so, in the email world of the younger generation, this probably seems silly. caps? why think about it? who evn nds whle wrds? do u? i fear i am conservative and old school. but still, my point is not convenience, as is the shorthand of a multitasking plugged-in youth, but the political point of equality and poetry. if i were not so confined by the space of the page, or were so inclined, i could with the computer really work this into visual art. that point i have yet to get to. but to simply not give the power of the cap to any words but those that i chose, that is taking some punch from predesigned rules and making them my own.

so really i am saying i am no better than anyone else, yet i draw power from that.

interesting compelling action Artifice

today i feel like i am spitting into the wind. my daughter came home from shopping for camp and school with untold number of plastic bags, a plastic container of leftover salad, a plastic cup of leftover mocha. i enjoyed seeing that at least the cup was #1 pet and recyclable, but cups are not accepted in our recycling center anyway. i saved the bags, washed out the containers and put them in the recycling bin, even though i am not sure they are recyclable and tried to reclaim the power i felt when i was conversing with my dad the day before:

"there is a new technology that allows you to put all your garbage into one machine and everything but the plastic is burned or somehow spit out and plastic building materials can be manufactured."

"yes, but the problem is that these plastics are degraded, the polymers shortened and their life span ends with the construction materials. once the building is no longer used, then the plastic has to go into the landfill. and plastic is just so evil; it shouldn't be used at all."

talking to my father always brings out the fighter in me. in truth it is he that has brought me to this point. i continue knowing that my argument isn't all that strong. there is a point to being able to make something concrete with the garbage.

"look, i know that people aren't going to stop using plastic. i don't even know how i am going to. i just know that it is wrong and the production of it is poisonous, the use of it is generally fleeting, the lifespan in a landfill nearly immortal, and its slow demise and disintegration poisonous as well. just look at what is happening to the oceans. all the garbage that has been and is being dumped and the plastic degrades and attracts oil based poisons and becomes food sized poison pellets floating around the ocean."http://www.good.is/post/transparency-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch/

i take a breath and look at my father's face, "that becomes food for the fish, that eat each other and eventually become food for us. our immune systems will just eventually break down."

he nods in agreement, eyes slightly glazing over. my mother comes into the room, "so you are advocating boycotting plastic?"

" i don't expect people to stop using plastic anytime soon. it is too much a part of the system we live in. but buying plastic is something that i do that i know is wrong. it is something i can grasp and battle with. not buying plastic is the right thing to and it makes me feel strong to make a stand. "

i felt the power of one in me. i am doing this. i am influencing my family. i am following my passion. i am doing the right thing. then today came, and the long string of polymers that hold us together through the legacy of the disposable society feels strangling and inglorious. i tried going to the supermarket to buy dinner sans plastic. i realized i needed to start making my own cheese and butchering my own meat. (i do buy meat that is grass fed and free ranged, but it is packaged in plastic!) now i have to change my source. am i ready for this? man, this really takes conviction. next, i need some cheese making materials.

http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-waste-management/

my critique :

(in a mostly cap free environment)

1. single stream recycling often makes the material too messed up to use and so cuts down on the actual material that can be recycled, especially paper and plastic. but it is more convenient and so people appear to be recycling more because more goes through the process, but more simply goes back to the landfill.

2.how long does it take for plastic to decompose? will everyone find a different answer if you look in different resources. the truth is that anything, even an apple can take hundreds of years to decompose if compressed into and airtight sack and left untouched by the elements. which pretty much describes the landfill environment. plastic, however, is a different story.

it doesn't break down in the normal sense of biodegrade. it's chemical structure doesn't change, it can only get physically smaller and smaller and eventually the plastic pieces are eaten or choke the unfortunate animal trying to eat it. in a landfill where there is no sun to photodegrade it, its life is really inestimable.

to get to the heart of the matter, recycling is a great idea, but in the case of plastic i feel that it legitimizes that which shouldn't even be. according to the EPA, from Elizabeth Royte's Garbage Land, "the production of plastic emits the toxins trichloroethane, acetone, methylene chloride, methyl ethyl ketone, styrene, toluene, ...sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, methanol, ethylene oxide, and volatice organic compounds. Plastic manufacturers use copious quantities of benzene and vinyl chloride, which are known to cause cancer in humans... In an EPA ranking of the twenty chemicals whose production generates the most total hazardous waste, five of the top six are chemicals comonly used in the plastics industry. "

when you wear polar fleece, the plastic will abrade and eventually particulates will be released into the environment. when our children are swimming with those cute floatation devices, their shrunken skin is particularly vulnerable to the pvc that is being abraided into it. when we eat out of styrofoam or plastic utensiles, styrene is easily leached into our food.

guilty as charged

I am very excited to announce that I have applied to be a board member of HVME, a non-profit organization dedicated to removing reusables from the waste stream. I have decided to do this because I needed some concrete action to follow up on my convictions and rantings. I highly recommend that anyone who needs arts and crafts materials, building materials, and or, anything in between. Really I recommend that you just visit the next time you go by- there are so many cool things. It also is a great resource for teachers. It is located in the trailers behind the New Paltz recycling center.

I am so happy that I went to visit the operation because I realized a few things. The first is that New Paltz recycling center takes electronics- even though you have to pay to have it taken care of (I don’t know how much). The second thing that I realized was that this resource is here (though newly relocated from Stewart Airport) and I have never taken advantage of it. I realized with dismay that I have never used this great resource.

There are so many more ecologically friendly things that I could do and I wonder why I have resistance to doing many of them.

In my defense, and hopefully to inspire, I do drive a hybrid, reuse and recycle when I can. For our remodeling jobs I have chosen bamboo and marmoleum for the flooring, I even get my milk from payne’s farm in New Paltz with glass ball jars. We put in a fuel efficient wood stove this past winter to cut down on our fuel oil use. I almost never throw food scraps away as we have dogs, a goat and chickens.

Yet there always seems so much more to be done. What I can do better: I buy lots of stuff new and don’t always take the time to consult a green buying handbook, or search for good used ones. I also don’t always buy bulk because I don’t think I can use my glass containers at the health food store, but I haven’t even asked. I drive lots, I throw tons of garbage away, and I, I, I, don’t know, but I feel trapped in a lifestyle that forces me to purchase and discard, purchase and discard. Lather, rinse and repeat....

Some of it is me, things I can change just by being more aware of it. For example, at a friend’s house the other day, I found out that rather than recycling, the paper went into a reuse pile so that the other side could be used. This itself was interesting. I didn’t do this, I just recycled. I tried using the other side for stuff, and occasionally do, but was put off of doing this because of, well, fashion, is one way to put it, or perhaps, one could say peer pressure. I never saw anyone else but one friend other of mine that did it, years ago. I didn’t want to be seen as weird or my papers as “dirty.” I do it for notes and art with little ones, but nothing professional.

A huge part of this is social reality. If we all help each other with hints and support for living ecologically correctly, then it will be easier to build a movement. The flip side of this is that there is a social perception problem here. Poor people reuse, rich people buy new. It is a status thing. What are the best ways for changing this? I would love to hear some ideas...

talkin' trash

I have come to realize how paralyzed I’ve felt about not acting politically. How harmed I feel by the helplessness that has ensued because I have not acted on the many convictions that I have. The last eight years has compressed the very air I live in with perfuse and overwhelming sentiments that seemed to oppose all that resonated as good in me: regime change, promoting torture, gutting funds from education and welfare, gutting the effectiveness of the EPA, rolling back of environmental stewardship, support of financial recklessness in the name of economic growth, censorship of scientists, presidential and vice presidential lying to and manipulating the congress and thus we the people. And, to seal the lid on the pressure cooker: no one seemed to care or notice all these things, or notice that these things were, well, evil. The prevailing message was: don’t notice people stealing the very air you breathe or the water you drink or the earth we all depend upon for sustenance. Just keep buying, buying, and buying. People appeared to be only concerned with making a buck, or buying things cheaply and not caring about the consequences of their actions (including me). The power of stuff: cheap, fun goods are a powerful narcotic, not to mention the ability of easy money to spin your head.

I started armchair activism... I sign so many petitions every night, I risk carpel tunnel. But the issues out there are so overwhelming, rather than feeling I am doing something I come away with the feeling that these problems are so much bigger than me, so overwhelming- can I stop world hunger? Congo rape of women and children? Destruction of the rainforest? Clear cutting? Mountaintop removal? Destruction of salmon populations? Bludgeoning of baby seals? Puppy mills? And the list goes on and on. The depravation of humankind seems to know no boundaries. As Mark Twain said, “I am quite sure... I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices, nor caste prejudices, nor creed prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being- that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.”

Alas, with the election of Barack Obama, the political tide seems to have turned. Our efforts at turning our society from one of consumer madness towards some sort of social/environmental responsibly one seems at least possible. From the ashes of my soul rises the phoenix of political will to participate in and initiate change for the better.

How did this happen? I have found a route, a pathway that resonates for me. I need to feel connected to my cause in an everyday tactile sense- I am bothered by so many things, but they seem so far away, so out of touch for me, so overwhelming. Yet everyday, in my own life and in my own actions, I am bothered by how I live. I am saddened and frustrated with making dinner because I have to throw away the plastic containers my “natural” chicken comes in, the plastic bags my frozen veggies come in, the bag the rice comes in, the empty milk container. Then washing and placing my recyclables in a container knowing there is only a small chance that they will indeed be recycled. I go to the bathroom and valuable nutrients for the earth are washed away with now wasted good water. Toilet paper, even if recycled, is bleached using dioxins and created using other toxic chemicals. Dental floss is thrown away. Cabinets full of medicines that cannot be returned. Throw away that old carpet, the old nasty dog chair, throw away those Styrofoam take out containers. Throw away the bags that the dog food was in, throw away the bottle caps, create mounds of recyclables. I find every time I go to the garbage and put something in I feel as though I am desecrating the earth, spitting on our ancestors that worked so hard to bring us here. In the natural world there is no trash. We are what we eat, experience, and been discarded. We like to throw things away because it appears that it then is not us. It “goes away.” But that is not true. The waste never goes away. It gets packed away for future generations to be poisoned by. We are creating dripping time bombs with our disposable lifestyle. We are blinded by the invisibility of the source and final resting place of our stuff....

What can be done? Well, we need to band together. We need to recognize that even though the advertisers, the manufacturers, the financial wheelers and dealers, tell us that buying, buying, buying is what is good for us because it is good for the economy, we need to realize that by buying incessantly without substantial change in manufacturing and waste management practices, we are destroying the world. We must stop this flow of garbage. What can be done? I have ideas, but it cannot be done alone. We must reject this lifestyle and seek out others. Does it have to be about stopping buying? Not necessarily, it has to be about forcing change to the options we are given. A choice between coke and pepsi is no choice at all. I have ideas. Many ideas.

Here are some ramblings my ideas:

We must seek out each other for ideas and support. Boycott bottled water or bottled anything if possible. To put together a coalition or non-profit that will create actions to return the garbage to those that created in and demand accountability. People must be responsible for the garbage they create and it is not the consumers fault. It is not our fault. To live outside the garbage stream is to live outside of society at this point. It is the major corporations that exploit our human frailties, exploit labor, exploit materials, and exploit our desire for ever more and cheaper stuff. The consumer culture was created by the manufacturers for profits; we must see how it is all connected. The destruction of our resources, the creation of more people with less money and less people with more money, the lack of political will. We are mesmerized by our toys. We must fight back against those that would steal our world in exchange for a few trinkets; we are all natives to be exploited by industry. Congress does not have the will to fight it. They are bought. We the people must fight back by returning the trash from whence it came. The new mantra: be responsible for your product.

for a limited time only

i am undertaking this new task- i wish to begin to change the world. tis ambitious, but i am tired of being tired and feeling all tied up and helpless. here is a new tool and political action at our grasp. the following is the beginning of an adventure in which i explore my own ideas about where i have come from and how i come to be where i am now. i reach out and hope to find others interested in sharing my ideals.

When I was in my twenties I had a stint as an activist. The time was the first Gulf War and surgical strikes were all the rage. I was infuriated and horrified that killing could become so antiseptic. But that issue wasn’t the only one that has captivated me. from the time I was little, it was not just the threat of nuclear war, or nuclear meltdown of three mile island but rather the slow poisoning and raping of our planet that has gripped my consciousness and led me to, I would love to say, a whirlwind of actions that have culminated in a dramatic shift in the way the world works today. But alas, you know that my name is relatively unknown and my activist self, after two events was bound up tight.

I recall my partner at the time being way bolder than I and set out to protest the 1^st Gulf War in a huge protest that was to shut down the Brooklyn Bridge. I was busy and nervous, and so I stayed home. I thought he might not return from this particular adventure. However, he did finally return and with the most fantastic story. This part was on the news- they did manage to shut down the bridge and greatly disturb traffic. It was a raucous affair with cars honking, some for and some against the protest. But what was not on the news was this event: a rouge car freaked out and sped into the crowd of protestors. In the ensuing melee, my partner saw someone go over the side of the bridge. This was so disturbing to me that I don’t really remember any more of the particular details. But what was even more disturbing was the fact that I never heard about this painful development from the news. Not only was this particular disappearance was not reported by the news, but the whole event was only a small blip on the media page with hundreds of protesters reduced to a handful of mischievous disrupters of the commute. In fact, all the protests that I have ever attended have been grossly underreported. Most of the time, if it is stated that hundreds protested, it was usually closer to thousands. I was dismayed that the news people decided to only include a tiny blurb about the protest that temporarily shut down the Brooklyn Bridge! And that was true for the TV news and the print media. However, I felt traumatized and abandoned when there was no mention of the protestor who went missing. Up until that time, I had actually believed what I read in the papers and saw on TV was somehow a semi decent representation of what actually happened out there. Now I was mortified that the representation clearly only vaguely approximated reality.

The other event was one where I attended a meeting for organizing a march in NYC, around the same time. The city had been cagy about giving protest permits. The official places to protest were very circumscribed, say a corner of one block. And we wanted to make more of an impression. At this meeting there was a guy who looked different from the rest, and had never been to a meeting before. He had really short hair, but was wearing a fireman’s shirt, thus explaining the cop-like short hair. We talked about our plans for our various actions but the leaders were cagy about discussing what we were really going to do, (ideas that had been developed in different sub-committees). I didn’t really get it. So when this short-haired guy asked about our protest route, I told him what it was. I was glared at by the group leader. I thought he was being prejudiced against the short-haired guy. Well, we went to the march and were arrested right off the bat, at the appointed starting place because, well, we had a mole... guess who? Man, did I feel stupid.

These things should have been simply learning experiences, but my soul was more fragile. It was hard to swallow that simply letting your opinion be known by marching and protesting, you were viewed of as enemies of the state and people would actively try to stop you. It was really frightening. I became more involved in my personal life and let my political self languish in the prison of my fear.