no impact FAIL

just when i was beginning to think this whole thing was too easy (of course most of my food is local! of course i recycle more than i throw away!), yesterday turned into one of those days. and i broke every single rule of no impact week.

1. i completely forgot to bring my re-usable coffee mug. bought coffee and later, a water bottle (!).
2. yes, i drove to school. and i will probably drive again tomorrow. i have a MWF parking permit and it doubles my commute time to ride the shuttle (i do ride it on days that start with T though).
   
3. major lunch disaster (spilled a burrito all over my white shirt) resulted in two more violations. first, i tossed all the napkins i'd used to wipe up straight into the cafeteria garbage. then, i rushed off to the bookstore to buy a $10 UCSD logo tee. yeah, classy, i know. but i had to teach section after lunch and wanted to look decent... if not professional, clean.

today is turning into a fail too. i was supposed to "go off the grid"... heh. i did get to school on a bus powered by biodiesel, so that counts for something, right?

no impact week: day ONE

my one week "carbon cleanse" started today. yeah, it's a gimmicky environmental movement thing, but it's not going to be as easy as i thought -- especially on friday, when i am supposed to replace my 30-minute hot shower with a "sponge bath". ick! (**dear friends who have served in the peace corps, forgive my only-in-america sins).

i signed up for no impact week without really knowing what it was. i thought it was just a commitment to not buy anything for week (except food, and even that is supposed to be non-packaged). seemed like a great money-saving idea for a pathetic grad student swimming in credit card debt. i found out about it because i was searching grist.org for an article about a woman who gave up corn products for a week (the article is actually here). umbra, the stalwart eco-advice columnist, was promoting no impact week, and heck, i had to click on it.

so here i am.
day one was all about stockpiling your garbage (i decided there was no need to stockpile my recycling: a water bottle and some sheets of paper). at the end of the day i only had two items in my garbage bag: a used lint-removal sheet and an empty bag from those delicious snap pea crisps. success? well, i had already cheated, and in a really embarrassing way. i did not stockpile my feminine hygiene-related trash. i'm not going to apologize for this. end of story.

i also failed in the consumption department. after biking to the farmer's market to buy ethical eggs, i stumbled upon a booth full of art by this artist (spenser little) i have been trying to track down for months. i "bought" a relatively expensive piece as a gift for k.'s birthday. i say "bought" because i made him pay for it, with full promise that i would pay him back next week (not so much because of N.I. week as because i didn't bring my wallet).

if you want to participate, you can sign up here.

move over, sunscreen song

another special transcript FOUND (via bklynjenny). this is from one of our commencement speakers (the other was boring old hillary clinton) -- may 14, 2005.

Women of the class of 2005, as you no longer have to sign up for
Physics, French, or Field Hockey, I offer this charge to you,

Sign up for FRIENDSHIP, for it is women who have seen to our survival on this planet.

Sign up for FAMILY both born and created, lost and found, dysfunctional and crucial.

Sign up for FAITH TO WORK MIRACLES, for FLYING IN THE FACE OF TRADITION, for FESTIVE OCCASIONS and FAVORITE FOODS.

Sign up for HARD WORK AND FREE TIME and FREE THOUGHT and FREE WILL. For FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and EXPLORATION AND ECSTASY.

Sign up for A HAND MADE LIFE, for HOLDING HANDS, young and old.

Sign up for CHALLENGES MET, RESPONSIBILITIES HONORED and HERITAGE PASSED ALONG.

Sign up for UNEXPECTED TRIUMPHS, MYSTERIES EXPLAINED, BIRTHS AND DEATHS, MUSIC IN THE MORNINGS, and AFTERNOONS WHERE NOTHING HAPPENS AT ALL.

Sign up for LONG CONVERSATIONS WITH PEOPLE WHO LISTEN, and LONG WALKS LISTENING TO SILENCE.

Sign up for PEACE IN OUR WORLD and COMPASSION IN OUR HEARTS.

Sign up for WOMEN PRESIDENTS and the PRESENCE OF WOMEN IN THE WORLD.

New Graduates of Agnes Scott, I wish you Godspeed and good fortune in your new course of study, YOUR NEW LIFE. May you love what it has in store for you, every golden day of it starting now.

--marsha norman, asc class of 1969

twitter lexicography

him: ooooh, good idea
i am starting a trending topic with it
me: no no no
vetoed!
him: sorry i cannot untweet what has been twat
how about twat as the past tense of tweet? pretty good right?
me: oh yes
i was just about to tweet your twat
him: that sounds painful

even cowgirls get the blues

all of my favorite authors are (or were) dirty old men. sots. swillers of liquid wisdom. so why does robbins' sloppy lesbo-pastoralism surprise me? maybe because this is the same guy who writes elsewhere about goddess religions and sexually powerful female characters. i assumed he was one of the more "evolved" (this word is so perfect -- i always think of the mom in running with scissors using it to describe her new boyfriend) writers of the 70's. now the trope is "attractive women will have fantasy sex with each other if given the opportunity"... bleh. i wanted to stop reading after the first sex scene, but somehow i made it all the way past the love letter from jelly to sissy (what is this, x-rated jane austen?). think i'll call it quits on page 180. this is not to say that the book is not otherwise good, just that i want to kick robbins in his babymaker (yeah, i said it).

here is a rather innocent passage from p.49:

the author isn't altogether certain that there is any such thing as exaggeration. our brains permit us to utilize such a wee fraction of their resources that, in a sense, everything we experience is a reduction. we employ drugs, yogic techniques and poetics--and a thousand more clumsy methods--in an effort just to bring things back up to normal.

how to navigate a menu

advice from nytimes restaurant critic frank bruni:

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you’ve seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef’s heart isn’t in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef’s vanity — possibly too much of it — spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.

cosmic perspective

this episode of NSN (july 30, 2008) aired just a few months before we elected our first black president. i finally found the transcript!

NEIL DeGRASSE TYSON: And now a birthday greeting from me to NASA.

Happy birthday, NASA! Did you know we're the same age? In the first week of October, 1958, you were born by an act of Congress, while I was born of my mother in the East Bronx.

I was three when your first astronaut orbited the Earth. I was 10 when you landed on the Moon. And I was 14 when you stopped going to the Moon altogether.

I was happy for you and for America. But the thrill of the journey, so vibrant in others, felt out of my reach. I knew that my skin color was much too dark for you to picture me as part of this epic adventure.

Of course, I shouldn't blame you for society's woes. Your conduct was a symptom of America's habits, not a cause. But I want you to know that I became an astrophysicist in spite of your achievements in space rather than because of them.

You've come a long way, though. Today, you look much more like America, from your senior-level managers to your most decorated astronauts. And when you're at your best, nothing on Earth inspires the dreams of a nation the way you do. All in the greatest quest there ever was, the search for our place in the universe.

NASA, as we both enjoy our 50th trip around the Sun, I look forward to seeing you back on the Moon. But don't stop there. Mars beckons, as do destinations beyond.

And that is my cosmic perspective.