Plastic is Bad, m'kay?

Plastic creeps me out. The more I think about plastic, the more it bothers me, and the more helpless I feel in the face of it. Our modern world pretty much depends on plastic, and on the petroleum it is made from. There's a documentary on Netflix called Plastic Planet, which just confirms what I already knew:  plastic is convenient and handy, in some forms, durable and dutiful; but it's also disposable and deadly. Microscopic bits of it are in the ocean. Fish eat it, we eat it, and who can say what it's doing to us at a cellular level.

Take a moment to take stock of the things around you that contain some form of plastic. I'll start: laptop, iPhone, iPhone case, speakers, water bottle (BPA-free of course), the dress and shoes I'm wearing, planner, calculator, lampshade, office chair, fake succulents, textbooks, walls, picture frames, carpet, purse, raincoat, nail file, stapler, pens, scissors, medicine bottle, lotion bottle...

You get the point. Plastic is literally everywhere. I'm not denying that it is an ingenious invention, without which our modern lives would not be possible (thank you, Science). What I bemoan is the sheer waste of plastic that happens at the most basic levels of life, everyday, by everyone. Our keen desire for plastic goods is unquenchable, and so is our ineluctable disdain of it.

Plastic bags--we know they're bad. Bringing reusable bags to the store makes you feel like you're making a difference, but for every one of us who brings reusable bags when they shop, there are countless others getting a plastic bag for that single quart of milk at Walmart. Recycling--we do it mindlessly, but does it help if not everyone has to participate? It's not the law in some states--my mother chooses not to recycle in Louisiana (and it kills and exhilarates me to just throw stuff away when I visit her). And what's the big picture here--does recycling help at all really anyway? And what's up with all of the plastic stuff that isn't recyclable? Like all the stupidly useless blister packaging that you get when you buy batteries, a toy, or an electronics item? Thinking about this stuff makes me crazy!

Toys are the worst. They are all made of plastic, all of them have a 'do not throw away' (trashcan with a line through it) symbol on the back--but they're not recyclable, so what can you do? The only thing you can really do to stem the tide is to have garage sales and donate items once you're done with them. My abhorrence of plastic goes hand-in-hand with my belief that you shouldn't pay full-price for all kid toys, especially when you KNOW that perfectly good used ones are out there at consignment stores or through Craigslist. Why would I willingly pay top-dollar and generate more plastic in the world, when there is plenty of used plastic already in the world that I can partake of cheaply? I just don't get it people.

But as a parent to a toddler, I'm becoming increasingly aware of how not just much plastic shit people buy for their kids, but how much shit they buy for their kids, period. Playhouses and other yard toys, toy kitchens, pools, water tables, sandboxes, plastic dinner sets, plastic food, plastic vehicles, plastic blocks, etc etc. I get wanting to provide your kid with toys, and hey, it's not your fault that everything's made of plastic! What I don't understand is why everyone has to have their own versions of everything in the universe. We take our girl to a public park to enjoy swings, slides, and whatnot. We have two nice parks about 5-10 minutes from our house by car. I see no need to get my own swing, or slide, or jungle gym. We have a small yard, so acquiring lots of yard toys is not in our immediate future. But even if I had an enormous yard, filling it with plastic lawn toys would most certainly not be in my plan.

Utilizing shared public resources used to be more of an ideal than it seems to be today--maybe it is the whole city versus suburbs thing--but it seems to me that sharing of resources is a good idea, but suburbia generally has a different mindset. Instead of creating public parks that many people can utilize, we must all shoulder the burden of individually acquiring exactly everything. Nevermind that your neighbor has a swimming pool and has given you an open invitation to come swim anytime--you too must spend 70K to acquire your own pool! No one wants to share or be forced to interact with others on any level for any reason. Need I point out that this is not sustainable behavior for the human race?

My daughter likes to swing, so my sister-in-law thinks that we need a swing, like yesterday. She's currently trying to foist off her old rusty backyard swing on us so that we can use it as some sort of frame for the Jerry-rigged baby swing that she thinks we need to build so our child isn't deprived of swinging for one minute. My SIL is of the mindset that if your kid loves it, you absolutely MUST have one of your own. First of all, I don't think we need to buy or reverse-engineer a swing just because our daughter enjoys swinging. I never had a swingset as a child and I never felt deprived! However we have seen my SIL's theory in practice as her own kids have grown up. They once had a giant blow-up bouncy castle that filled an entire room, and now, they have a giant blow-up outdoor water slide with its own electric air blower (cost: $400). She keeps saying that it will be ours next year because her kids will have reached the weight limits on it. How do you tell someone that you don't WANT their giant yard toy/monstrosity?? It would easily take up half my yard. I do kind of need to live in my own house, thank you very much. I already know that our refusal of this 'gift' will end with, 'but you can store it deflated in your already-filled garage until such time as you move and have a yard big enough.' Or, my translation: Just take our shit and shut up!

Kid toys really exemplify what I believe is the fundamental oxymoronic point I want to make about plastic products: they are something that people are willing to pay top-dollar for when new, but since plastic goods quickly become devalued, there is potentially a ton of plastic kid crap lurking around in landfills. But instead of stemming the tide of plastic waste through our own power as consumers, our consumer culture is so screwed up that it thinks, why would you get that used plastic playhouse when you could buy your kid a brand-new one for $150? Plus, don't your kids deserve a new one, as if used things are automatically worthless because they can't convey value the way brand-new items can. Everything in our consumer culture is all about the honorifics of being able to pay for something, no matter how senseless it is, and the ostensible guilt that comes from not being able to afford lots of new things. I call bullshit. I want my kid to have toys, I want to save money, AND be cognizant of the plastic I bring into the world. We got a playhouse for $15, and a kitchen set for $10. Both are in fantastic condition. When it comes time to dispose of these items years from now, we will donate them. So there.

As a culture, we simultaneously desire and abhor cheap goods. People like to save money; I would argue that we also need to be aware of expending less plastic into the world. But it's much easier/efficient/satisfying to shop for new things in a store than it is to hit garage sales or consignment sales, even though you can get the same items for a fraction of the cost if you put in a little effort. It is precisely because all plastic becomes devalued at some point (either at point of sale because the item is 'cheap' or later on because an item is worn out) that we should be more mindful about what we purchase; the more new stuff we buy, the more we corroborate the creation of wasteful plastic. Parents should know that there is a large pile of perfectly nice, used kid toys out there; I just hope they're partaking of them when they can.

The Daily 'Dislike'

Things that happen in real life often piss me off, and I am not one to mince words--but often I feel constrained--by my job, politeness, relatedness, what have you--from expressing my true thoughts about these things, so I create rants in my head that (to me) sound like the rants of a stand-up comic (or a crazy person--fine line there). So I'm going to start recording them here. For my own sanity. Here goes.

Facebook

1.

You know I am continually amazed at the ridiculously personal shit that women of all ages share with the internet, unbidden. I scheduled a Facebook invite for my birthday that included one 20-year old from my Zumba class. At the last minute she couldn’t go, but instead of just changing her response to ‘no’ and telling me a reason later, she posts, ‘Hey, I have a mouth infection so I won’t be able to make it tonight.’ Really? You needed to reveal THAT to 20 people you don’t know who are also on my invite? Plus, despite what you think, I really didn’t need to know that. Where is the shame??


2.
How about when people post something clever/humorous on Facebook, and everyone is all, ‘oh I’m going to steal THAT,’ and they lick the screen because they can't like it enough. And then they re-post it and people compliment them like they wrote the fucking thing. I posted an article on FB this week and one of my work ‘friends’ asked me in person if he could re-post it on LinkedIn. My response? ‘Uh yeah, sure, dude, I didn’t write it.’ I just want to scream at these people, ‘just because you post something on Facebook doesn’t mean you own it or are in some way due compliments for its content! You know that 'some e-card' you posted last week about drinking wine out of a purse? Yeah you found that shit online, in fact you’re like the 10th person who posted it this week in my feed. So original. Unless you wrote a hilarious status update, you don’t get credit for re-posting something that someone else created. Get over yourself.

3.

Have you noticed that women of a certain mindset loooove posting self-righteous quotations? You know the type--they typically contain some generic feel-good sentiment that falls into one of three major categories: 1. the lobotomized religious quote that reassures the paranoid delusionals that Jesus is everywhere; 2. some passive-aggressive bs about relationships that obviously reveals they've been burned in some way; or 3. being unafraid to be the strong woman you already are but can't be because you're hemmed in by society/yourhusband/yourkids/yourdog.

I say ‘women of a certain mindset’ now instead of 'a certain age' because just when I was formulating my theory that all women over 45 think the point of Facebook is to post asinine shit, I friended someone from my exercise class who just turned 30, and SHE PUTS THEM ALL TO SHAME. These women post the HELL outta that shit, with no apologies. IMO, they are ABUSING the internet and should be blocked from Facebook. Forever. Posting a gagillion quotations is usually a one-way ticket to 'I WILL HIDE YOU'-ville, but lately I've started unhiding these people because I wanted to start analyzing this shit. You know, for educational purposes.

Take a look at a handful of posts from yesterday's feeds:

The editor in me sneers at this one because it could have benefited from a little restraint. The text runs into the people, for chrissakes, and the word 'class' is used twice. I don't think half the people who re-post these someecard gems realize that ANYONE can create their own some-e-card. Thank god.

These hastily-handwritten ones are making the rounds lately. I imagine the author was so inspired that he/she just didn't have time to properly fashion their quote using one of the many sites on the Internet, they only had time to take pen to paper and take a picture with their phone. Such was the nature of their inspiration.

I like how this one is actually credited to someone, to lend it an air of credibility. Here, we have a narrator who is clearly the subject of her own novel, because she thinks by declaring something should be so, it makes it so. And way to foster the stereotype that all women in leadership positions should start as annoying little bitches.

Really?! I am?? Well I'm glad someone noticed, even if it's just me, posting this and then reading it back to myself on Facebook. If this is true, why don't more people choose to be single?

No, the smile on your face means you've either been lobotomized or you're a smug son-of-a-bitch. I'll go with the latter.

Oh I'm not afraid of being myself. What I'm afraid of is this woman getting splinters from humping a broom.

The best for last. One of the commenters on this one actually sums it up the best:

In case you can't read it: "Sociopaths believe and act on these impulses not rational people." A-MEN! So there are some rational people still out there. Good to know.

And if you can read the first few comments above, apparently women fall down and intentionally cut themselves on posts like this so they can share with TOTAL STRANGERS how something bad happened to them once. Well thank GOD you overshared that with me otherwise I would have never known that I hurt your feelings with my random comment, total stranger!

Full circle.

Rant of the Day: Papal Rage

You know what I'm sick of? People saying shit all over Facebook for the past week about how this new pope might be better, sounds good/promising, whatever blah blah FUCKIN' blah. You know what I desperately want to comment on their shit to shut them up?? 

Hey there, he's STILL ANTI-GAY, ANTI-ABORTION, ANTI-BIRTH CONTROL muthafuckas, because he's a CATHOLIC POPE for fuck's sake!! What do you expect?? It's a vestigial religion that needs to DIE. It is no longer relevant, even to its current practitioners.

You know when I'll have hope? When they decide to do away with POPES, that's when.

Ok, I'm done.

How to switch your checking account without (completely) losing your mind

Fed up with your corporate bank? Want to switch banks but you’re afraid of the hassle? Switching checking accounts doesn’t have to mean a total disruption of your life.  It does take time though, so allow a good month for the transition. You can learn from the benefit of my experience below.

If you’re old school and are switching to another brick-and-mortar bank in your hometown because you have a need to talk to actual people, you still may find this helpful.

Before you begin the process:

• If you use online Bill Pay, make a list of all your creditors and other people you pay on a regular basis. Don’t forget people who bill you monthly for something using your credit card—your gym membership, Netflix, Spotify, iTunes, etc—you will need to provide them with a new credit card when it arrives. I was able to take screen shots of all my online pay-to accounts, and I made a list that I could check off after I’d added each one to the online bill pay in my new account.
• Make a note of any checks that haven’t cleared yet (who still writes checks? Oh that's right, middle-aged women and old people).
• Steel yourself. Winter is coming.

1. Open the new checking acct with a small deposit to give yourself time to receive checks and debit cards. Most online banks (Ally, ING) offer checking with no minimum balance requirements or fees which will give you time to transition—but you will probably need a small deposit to trigger issuance of debit cards and checks. The answer to the age-old question, 'which comes first, the debit card or the money?' is, the money, duh.
2. Keep your directly-deposited paycheck at the old account UNTIL you receive debit cards and checks for the new accounts—you can always change your direct deposits for the next pay cycle, and transfer any monies from the old account if necessary.
3. While you’re waiting for the debit cards and checks to arrive, add all of your payees to the new checking account so all of your online bill pay stuff will be set up and ready to use in the new account. Don’t underestimate this step. Collect recent copies of your bills so that you can set up the accounts all over again using their pay-to address. This is probably the most time-consuming part of the entire process. (Oh the agony of convenience!)
4. Once you receive debit cards and checks on the new account, switch your direct-deposit paycheck over to the new account. Check with your employer about their direct deposit policies--be aware that when you change a direct deposit account with your employer, it may take 2 pay periods for them to 'adjust'—look, I know it's bs that it takes this long in the electronic age, but that's how it goes. On the upside, they will likely send you a quaint paper check in the interim. Take this time to reminisce about days of yore when you had no bank account and went to the local grocery to cash your paycheck on payday so you could spend it immediately on booze.
5. Switch any automatic drafts (that use a credit card) over to the new account before or just after the next due date to make sure it is withdrawn from a funded account. This will likely be a PITA as well--I haven't yet completed this step, but I'm sure my gym will make me fill out a piece of PAPER listing my new credit card information, blood type, and next of kin, and will SAY they will file it but will likely leave it out somewhere where some disgruntled employee can use it to buy Slankets.
6. Finally, make sure all checks have cleared and transfer any remaining funds to the new account and, once you’re sure that everything has cleared, close the old checking account (suck it BOA). 

Some thoughts after viewing my Gawker RSS feed

• Are those really bad pictures of Beyonce? Can there be a bad picture of Beyonce? I don’t think so. Suck it up.
• Chris Brown is cursed. And he looks anorexic.
• Lady Gaga: does anyone still give a fuck?
• Monopoly piece: this is news?
• North Korea: why don’t we just seize the motherfuckers already?

Man, I wish I was a celebrity (warning: breastfeeding discussion)

It's not what you think--I have no delusions. Sometimes I wish I were a celebrity so that I could tell people to fucking shut UP already.

Apparently some woman named Kristen Cavallari (who is famous despite the fact that I've never heard of her) was quoted in an article saying that she stopped breastfeeding because she felt like a slave to the pump, and some lactivists got their knickers in a twist over it, calling her a bad mother, saying that she's selfishly denied bonding to her kid, yadda yadda.

Hello people, she did breastfeed for 6 months, and that's good, right? Well apparently it's not good enough. I am so sick to death of breastfeeding fascists who do not shrink from pointing out how you've failed your child by not breastfeeding them as long as humanly possible. These people are just as bad, IMHO, as people who want to ban abortions and whatnot--both are consumed with telling women what to do based on their idea of what is "right" instead of respectfully letting nature take its course.

On the other side, I've heard the view expressed that breastfeeding is the socio-politico-industrial complex's (aka "The Man's") way of keeping women tied to the home instead of to their careers. No, I'm not making this up. This was someone I know's overarching justification for NOT breastfeeding.

What do we learn from this? That's right, there's paranoids on both sides! I don't want to use the 'F' word, but it seems to me that in order to get beyond so-called feminism, we need to stop telling women what to do. And in particular, women need to stop being so nasty to one another.

I did love breastfeeding, and am proud that I was able to do it for 7 months. But I will not lie--I was relieved when it was finally over.  Breastfeeding is freakin' hard work. Have you seen a dog wean her puppies? She literally runs away from them, repeatedly, in an effort to get them to stop sucking on her already.

While it is awesome to bond with and nourish your baby, once you get past the warm and tingly aspects, it's boring and demands a ton of the mother's time. There, I said it. I remember a short period of not being able to sleep more than a few hours at a time because the baby had to eat...and I was the only one able to feed her. Sleeping with my baby wasn't in the cards for me because of my c-section (couldn't get upstairs to our bed so I slept on the couch next to bassinet), and I don't think I would have rested well anyway.

I would go so far as to say that breastfeeding was the single hardest thing I've ever done, because it required commitment, attention, energy, consistency, and time.  Which means, there were sacrifices made by me for sure--but I made the choice to breastfeed and I stuck to it. In the beginning I pumped so much extra that my husband was able to give her bottles at night, which gave me a much-needed break. Towards the end, I pumped in the office for a while, but when it seemed baby wasn't getting enough, I started supplementing with formula, and it was over shortly after that. I would do it again in a heartbeat for the next baby, for sure, but would try to enjoy it more and not stress as much about prolonging it. And I would definitely invest in a better pump.

Like so many things, you just don't realize how much demand breastfeeding places on you until you're done with it. As mothers in the 21st century, are we still expected to give every ounce of ourselves over to our babies? I say, that's every mother's call to make for themselves. Whole generations of babies weren't breastfed and breastfeeding nearly died out because of it--and yet society survived. The reality is, we aren't hunter-gatherers anymore, able to strap our babies to our teats for hours on end, we have jobs and responsibilities, and no one needs to martyr themselves or pat themselves on the back for being 'superior' because they were able to do something that not everyone can.

Instead of these stupid arguments that pit mothers against one another, as women we should be encouraging an environment in which women feel free to do things as they see fit, without harsh, self-aggrandizing judgments by other women.

CHINCHILLA!!!!!

I just saw this post on Cute Overload this morning, and I think I've identified my next pet. They're clean and sooo cuddly cute, and they sleep in a cage--perfect!

How can you resist the cute??

Now I just have to wait till Clover dies.