Wednesday, April 02, 2008

i think we're going to have to amputate.

my dad used to say that ALL the time. I find myself saying it constantly, sometimes about myself. After my sinus surgery I told Matt that my nose hurt and then said--you guessed it--"I think we're going to have to amputate." Today I said it to one of the players on the other football team who had hurt his hamstring and was sitting out. I mean, I said are you gonna be okay? And he said yes. And I said "are you sure? I think we're gonna..." My teammate Andrew was like "Carrie, that was very tongue-in-cheek of you. And, um, mean." I felt kind of bad, actually. I apologized, and he was like "no, it was funny!"

anyway.

also, I thought of something ironic as I was waiting on my deli meat to be sliced--which actually takes me to a different tangent, so I'll come back to the first one. today is "be flirty with carrie day," apparently. there's only like 30 minutes left in my time zone, so y'all will just have to wait for next april 2 to get your turn. but seriously--the german-or-something dude behind the counter cut my turkey and then was like "here, I'll give you extra for free!" and picked up some of the meat and then rang the ticket for less. I really thought the guy checking out the fish was going to come over and talk to me by the way he was making eyes. And then at Walmart (where I STILL couldn't find the arm and hammer washing powder stuff for the eco-detergent) a guy 150ft away in walmart yelled to ask if he could help, and then happened to be waiting at the door when I left and was all "before you should've let me help you, you were kinda mean...tee hee." like seriously he should've been batting his eyelashed. anyhoo.

oh and while at walmart I impulse-purchased these pens. they write really nice and I like 'em (and they were alarmingly cheap, which I now realize because I watched the story of stuff--if you didn't you really really REALLY might want to--it's linked in this post) but I don't need this many. If you want I shall happily share them--heck even mail them. I love sending mail!

anyway, original thing I thought of...
so. plastic has revolutionized our life right? I mean, if you get to the nitty gritty, and don't even talk about things like heel inserts and disposable plates and tennis shoes--think of food, shelter, health. plastic has improved our ability to keep our food fresh (plastic wrap, containers, baggies) and has also improved our ability to keep from infecting/exposing other people (particularly health care folk--think of things like our gloves--which aren't exactly plastic, but for this purpose, go with it--they're polymers of various types, and then it's also let us isolate things to just one person instead of requiring sometimes-faulty sterilization and all)

so yeah. plastic has revolutionized our lives. increased our life span. resulted in eleventy billion advances in technology and increased our quality of life. yay, plastic!

and now? now it's smothering us.

...

I am probably being over-dramatic, but it's essentially true. I mean--it's in landfills. in our homes. in our makeup. our clothes. We put things only a few steps away from plastic in our bodies regularly (hello, fake butter). I am probably also still getting over being horrified by this logo. At first I was all "oh, cute and retro. neat." And then it hit me--Yes, let's COVER the ENTIRE world in blood red paint. Let's. We can take this toxic substance full of volatile organic compounds (which, by the way, we have technologies to reduce, but we don't use 'em) and slather the world in it. Sweet. Sign me up.

I saw that on the way to my doctor and almost ran into the median I was staring so hard. Mouth agape. Deer in headlights. How anti-environmental can you get? PS, subtle use of the red, white and blue.

whatever. rambling. ranting. probably bed time. let me know if you want a pen. and let me know if you want to come to my eco-fab-soiree!

5 comments:

M. said...

I'm really surprised Walmart didn't have it!

KaritaG said...

I want a pen.

And I agree, one of the things that pisses me off the MOST about all of the psycho-chemicals we use on a daily basis is that WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO DO THINGS A BETTER WAY - we just don't care enough to use it, or insist that the powers-that-be use it!

I'm not being self-righteous, because I sure as hell am not writing letters or anything, but it baffles me that we have the same technology (and often better!) as many european countries that are light-years ahead of us in reducing chemical pollution/use, yet we just don't use it. As I read and re-red "This Moment on Earth" I kept thinking, if we KNOW X is bad for us, and we have an alternative in Y, why in the world aren't we making a CHANGE to use Y instead?"

I'm ranting, so I will shut up now. I hear you!

Ariel Merritt said...

glad to see you are analyzing logos. we might make an art historian out of you yet!

As American as Apple Pie said...

Ooo, they look like they write nice. I want a purple one, please!

Love your thoughts!

Anonymous said...

Visit the rest of the world...

We have fantastic paper products beacuse of our vast forests. We have a large amount of plastic because of the oil we refine.

The Middle East has plastic for everything because they have oil to burn. Their paper products are terrible. No trees...


Anyway, I only have three indoor lights left in my apartment that are not CCFL. My two closet lights will be replaced shortly, and my office light when I figure out a CCFL that fits it.

 
Blog Template by Delicious Design Studio