efficiency (h20)

rereading my last post made me want to also talk about other stuff you can do to help out the environment. cause maybe recycling isn't your thing. it can be pretty annoying having to drive all around town to drop off stuff at the proper place, and if you city already makes you sort your recyclables from your garbage, maybe what you're doing is good enough.

besides all the usual things people do (turn off the tap when brushing your teeth, only run the dish washer / laundry with full loads) i also do these simple things:

water:
i take pretty fast showers. i usually undress (as i wait for the water to warm up), shower, shampoo, shave, dress in less than 15 minutes. and luckily, our shower head has this cool button thing so you can "pause" the water (so i can shampoo / condition without immediately washing away my product). btw, i usually shampoo and condition first, so as i wait for my conditioner to soak in, i soap up the rest of my body, also with the water off. even if you don't have the pause button, just switching up your routine can help you be more efficient with water.

i don't recommend this for everyone, but i do it anyway because i do my sport on saturdays and sundays but i don't do my laundry saturday night. i wash my clothes in the shower. you're not supposed to use warm water when washing dry-fit stuff anyway, so i'll toss my clothes into the shower, get in, turn the water on, and and as i wait for the water to heat up, i hand wash my laundry. it's not super clean, but i'm going to wear it again the next day (after which i machine wash) so as long as it's clean enough...

i used to do this and will probably start again. keep an empty bucket in the shower. but make sure it only catches the clean water, which you can use to water plants with when you're done.

don't just rinse your produce, wash it in a little bucket thing so you can collect the water, which you can use to water your plants with. it'll also catch the dirt, bugs and small plant break-offs which i'm sure is good for your garden anyway. besides, if you wash your produce in a bucket you'll know when it's actually clean. you can rise your veggies for 5 minutes but how will you know when the water is running clear?

a few other super simple things: water your lawn at night. if you water during the day a lot of the water will evaporate before it gets to soak into the soil anyway. but if you do it at night the water will have a chance to actually reach the roots.

lather up your soap before you turn on the tap. you're supposed to wash your hands for however long it takes the sing the birthday song and you can't do it correctly if all the soap is being rinsed away from your hands anyway.

only use hot water when necessary. not only will you save the energy it takes to heat up the water, but you end up wasting a lot of cold water as well. if you need to use hot water, put a bucket under the tap to catch the cold water and use that to water plants / mop your floors...

unrequited

claire messud - the emperor's children

"...she fails to take into account the emotions of the person whom she loves. She is, therefore, a poor lover, and your sympathy should be limited. ... It's narcissism, to love a wall and resent it for not loving you back. It's perversity. Love is mutual, it flourishes in reciprocity. You can't have real love without a return of affection--otherwise, it's just obsession, and projection. It's childish." [306-307]

while i can understand the sentiment, i wonder if it's actually true? it seems a bit harsh, doesn't it?

drop in the bucket

i was thinking of how much i drive around town dropping off recycling, and it's kind of a lot! here is the list of things i collect for donations or recycling:

- plastic bags - grocery store, target
- aluminum cans, plastic / glass drink bottles - recycling center at supermarket (i get $ for this one tho)
- paper (including newspapers and all other kinds) - guy who picks it up once a week
- plastic or glass food containers - buddhist org in norwalk
- random plastic (generally from packaging) - godmother's house (their city has separate trash bins for plastic and other recyclables)
- batteries - la palma city hall
- e-waste - local e-waste recycling site
- packing material (peanuts, air packets) - old work (which does a lot of shipping)
- large cardboard - old work (people drive by and pick up cardboard)
- clothes hangers / large sponges - dragon boat equipment shed
- film canisters - costco
- cosmetics containers - origins counters / store
- toys - chinese school (they give out prizes to kids)
- shoes - souls4soles collection box at vans store
- glasses - lions club (current drive)
- hotel toiletries / other random travel sized toiletries - homeless shelter
- random non-perishable foods, plastic utensils - homeless shelter
- books / magazines / cds - la palma library
- clothes - my best friends and i are around the same size in clothing so we do swaps nearly every time we meet up
- random clothes and things - local drive-by pick-ups
- random beanies and gloves that i pick up on sale - random homeless people
- blankets - neighbor will be starting a drive soon
- prescription bottles - have started collecting, can't find who to donate to...
- my hair! - have donated to locks of love three times. :)

it's pretty crazy all the things you can recycle. but it's pretty damn annoying that not one place takes everything. like the recycling centers don't take paper, newspapers, milk jugs or like... glass soy sauce bottles, so i have to take them to the buddhist collection center (tho thank god i found them!). and i've started collecting my parents' empty prescription bottles but no one will take them! i'm actually pretty upset that kaiser permanente doesn't do anything about this... how many bottles do they fill a day? and how can they not have some sort of recycling / reusing program? a little more about this... so i went online to see where what i could do with the bottles and someone suggested calling local free clinics or veterinarian hospitals. i did that, and nope, none of the ones within a 15 mile radius of my house takes these things. gah!

locks of love

i started growing my hair out sometime last year because i wanted it long for g's wedding and i finally got it cut off today. yay! i donated about 12 inches of hair to locks of love. this is actually the 4th time i had a dramatic cut, but only the 3rd time i've donated, which is a shame. :( anyway, no before or after pictures (we forgot to get one of the before so there's no point in posting an after). but here's one of my hair:

btw, while locks of love requires a minimum of 10 inches. but pantene's beautiful lengths only require 8 inches, so don't despair if you're a little short.

level with me

it's been nearly a week now and we still haven't really talked. i was upset for two days, then on saturday i was feeling kind of down cause i had an interesting day but i couldn't share it with him. yesterday and today i'm... i dunno. my friends ask if i'm okay, and i am. i think that i could really go either way on this stay together or break up issue. that sounds weird maybe, cause we've been together for 10 years (we just passed out 10 year mark a couple weeks ago) but while functional, we're clearly not a great fit. i dunno. i definitely want to resolve this but...

saturday night, i think, was the turning point. i was feeling kind of down so i went out to a special place that he and i share. and when i was there, the absolute most amazing thing happened. i mean, yes, it's natural and nothing at all magical or whatever but it was so freaking awesome. i dunno. it put me in a really happy mood and i haven't been sad since. the world is full of good stuff. and nature fucking rocks. :)