The Long Month

Everyone knows that February is the shortest month of the year but why the hell is it SO FUCKING LONG? It might be that I am resisting winter instead of embracing it, it might be that I have dozens of hours of midterm grading ahead of me, it might be that the job market (a misnomer if I ever heard one) seems to be fucking with everyone through the Chinese water torture of rejection letters and/or the application of impossible choices (you'll have a job but you'll never live with your loved ones again, which will it be??!?! Choose now!!!). I know I am extremely privileged to have my job and I am dearly grateful for my paycheque but if I started writing out all the ways in which living apart from E is actually physically painful I would never recover. I don't know what to do about any of this. February is horrible.

I'm sure you've all been waiting with baited breath to hear about how this ethical consumption thing is going. So first step was to buy special biodegradable, healthy, happy cleaning and grooming products: enter Barb of The Collective Conscience, owner of ecoottawa.com. I'd hotlink this post to their website except for the fact that I know Barb is watching and I don't want her to find my blog. Because Barb and I are now BFFs. E, very sweetly, ordered a bunch of shampoo and conditioner and such from Barb to have it delivered to me for Valentines Day (E is beyond totally awesome, is for certain). Thus ensued multiple email exchanges between E and Barb re: when it could be delivered and what the card should say and what kind of eco-friendly vegetable-print wrapping gift should have, etc etc. So E and Barb are now BFFs and Barb wants you to know that she supports the lesbians (as if something called The Collective Conscience could stay in business without supporting the lesbians, but I digress). I googled Barb and it turns out she was involved in a local fertility-clinic-mixes-up-sperm-so-babydaddy-is actually-the-fertility-doctor!!! scandal a couple or three years ago - Barb played the role of surrogate incubator (I totally saw this on Law & Order!!!). Objection: Irrelevant, your honor! This has nothing to do with ethical consumption. Overruled, I'll allow it counselor - even though this story is not germane to the case at hand, we can hardly expect D to just not tell it.

Anyway, a week later, I ordered a bunch of detergent products from Barb as well, so both E and I are tight with the ecolady.

Re: eco-special-Mc-friendly products. Here's what I've learned:

1) Don't underestimate the good work carcinogens and other nonbiodegradable chemicals are doing in your shampoo. Also, be wary of companies with names that make you feel weird, ie/ The Green Beaver Company (http://www.greenbeaver.com/). The label reads: Cranberry Shampoo; Dry, Damaged Hair. I didn't realize that meant it causes dry, damaged hair. It is like pouring an appletini on your head - smells great but makes hair weird. I would recommend it for shampoo users like Skinn.

There were other kinds of special shampoos that worked way better than the G-Beev but, in general, I haven't found anything in the shampoo or conditioner category that works as well as the nasty stuff in Pantene etc. This will be a continuing saga.

2) There is no such thing as an ecofriendly drain cleaner. Or rather, using ecofriendly drain cleaner on a slow drain is like bringing a toothpick to a knife fight. I will admit that using LiquidPlummer might be like bringing an atomic bomb to a knife fight but is there no happy medium?? Is there no knife??!?!

3) Eco-special detergents in general kinda suck. I am saving the world but my dishes are half-clean, my hair is like brown straw, my laundry smells like the dog, and my drains are slow. The one, wonderful, revelatory exception to all this is this product:
Most soaps give me rashes but Natureclean does not. I love you Natureclean 100% Natural Soap unscented hypoallergenic, you have changed my life.

In other news, my organic veg delivery has been a steady stream of carrots, potatoes, and leafy bullshit for weeks now. I am not a leafy salad person. I am a chunky vegetable salad person (ie Greek salad, marinated salad, non-lettuce salad). Because I also have a backlog of heaven-blessed organic eggs, I am seriously considering making Savory Potato Carrot Loaf (recipe came with veg delivery) today. It sounds so sick! But maybe is delicious?

This ethical stuff is hard. :/ Fuck you, February, fuck you.

Welkom New Year!

I just have this feeling that 2011 is going to be epic and awesome. There is little empirical evidence to support this theory: the job market is The Shits, US (and world politics in general) seem to be slipping into new levels of FUBAR, bizarre and disastrous weather abounds everywhere, etc etc, I don't really have to go on with this list. BUT I'm holding out hope - perhaps ill-founded, ill-fated hope - that something good might happen too. DADT was done away with, right?

Don't worry, I'm not preparing for the Rapture or anything. [Aside: one of my great uncles went down that road decades ago. Thinking that the End Was Nigh, he gathered up his family and took refuge in the storm cellar. He, Aunt Hazel, and their two daughters, subsisted on saskatoon berries (horrible, small, sour, rock-like blueberry knockoffs) for 2 weeks until the police finally found them. The whole family had turned blue from the all-berry diet. No one really talks about them anymore - I wonder what ever happened to that side of the family?]

Anyway, while the Good Things about 2011 are waiting to be revealed, I've decided to make some New Years Resolutions to keep me occupied in the meantime:

1. Be more like Monty.

Monty is awesome! Even though he has phenomenally bad hair (the faux-hawk never fails to elicit reactions of "Whoa! What happened to your dog?" and "Do you cut his hair that way?") he totally doesn't give a crap and struts it down the street like he owns the neighborhood. If he has a problem, he bites it. Doesn't matter if it's the dog upstairs or itchy hindquarters or an unknown threat, he goes in guns blazing and apologizes later. Once, Monty defeated Chuck Norris with a roundhouse bite to the head. His problem-solving is the epitome of direct: if there's something you want and it's encased in other stuff, you chew through it all until you get your treat or you die trying. Either way, get 'er done. Monty does nothing half-assed. When he's taking a nap, he's fully committed - he's not worrying about other shit like emails and to-do lists. He's enjoying the Best.Nap.Ever.Everytime. He will do whatever he needs to do to be as comfortable as possible - whether that's about jumping up on something, building self a nest out of surrounding materials, or digging a hole in the rug. There's no sense being uncomfy if you don't have to be. Finally, he celebrates the small victories as well as the large ones: breakfast, belly-rubs, having a great crap, biscuits, the promise of a walk, seeing friends... all of this is both quotidian and pretty fucking amazing in his world. Monty is my hero!

[Aside: Monty rules, no question. You know what also rules? Ducks. Historians might look back on my previous blog entry re: duck superiority as an uncanny primary source for the Beginning of the End of the Age of Humankind and the Rise of the Reign of Duck. They will read my words and say things like, "Even before the Duck Emperor took control of Earth, humans worshiped le Canard." Because the time of the duck is beginning, my friends. I have the evidence:

Don't they all look delicious?]

2. Try to become an ethical consumer.

Holy shit. I don't even know how to do this. Example: my local, family-owned grocery store sometimes doesn't have precious organic, co-op produced milk. Would the ethical consumer get in their car and drive to the impersonal grocery store chain to get the precious milk or buy the nasty-yet-available-in-walking-distance independent-grocer milk? Or not drink milk? Also, how many times a day can I ask myself questions of this kind about how many products before I go completely insane? I don't know how this one is going to work out. But I suspect, if I stick to my resolution, I will be eating a lot less meat and sugar and a lot more fair trade items. And walking lots. I'm sure this experiment will be the subject of future blog updates.

3. Do my job better.

This one isn't that imaginative and goes right up there on the "Duh" list alongside Floss More and Exercise. But it bears typing out and chiseling in impermanent digital media.

Happy New Year, everyone!