Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

or some old english bloke
you are, my dear.

(Excuse the awkward ashlee simpson reference-- Britney Spears was the 15th's title, in case you're above pop references..........)
Have you ever spent so much time thinking you wanted something (or someone), then let it /them slowly slip out of your consciousness... only to realize it wasn't what you wanted anymore?
I'm not sure if I am sad or relieved.

And I hope this never becomes a metaphor for my relationship with God.

--to not use paper products.
My new friend Rebecca doesn't use paper napkins or towels, and it seems so easy to do without.
But what about paper cups and plates?
And paper notebooks and printing paper? These last two I'm not going to be able to eliminate completely, but I am going to use my laptop for all classes now (thus reducing notebook use) and continue to try to print as little as possible-- make font sizes smaller, fit multiple pages onto one sheet, print on both sides, use discarded recyclable paper, etc.
I'll let you know how it goes.

By the way, I'm roughly two months in to this 'no poo' experiment, and my hair is wonderful. I finally figured out how much soda to use: roughly 1 spoon per cup of water. And my hair is not falling out much at all now. My friend Melissa-- who I found out started this long before I'd even heard of it-- says a lot of her hair fell out at the beginning, too, but she pointed out that when you use baking soda, you have to massage your head more than using shampoo.

A couple of girls saw my baking soda / vinegar in NYC and asked me what it was for. At first I was kind of embarrassed, but they were actually impressed and at least one of them wanted to start trying it for herself. She was so surprised that my hair didn't smell-- going so far as to use explatives to emphasize her reaction. She was the most "girly" in our group, but also the most open-minded. I need to remind myself that I am not going to change the world all on my lonesome ownsome, but if I can convince a few others to follow suit, maybe I'll at least have a small contribution to preserving our earth.

My next task: convince people that it is not necessary to shower EVERY day. There is no point, unless you're an athlete, but even then, you can still wipe down your body.  But EVERY day showering?? What a waste of water, not to mention the amount of chemicals poured down the drain...

I couldn't believe that every one of my friends I asked admitted to showering every day. My friend So pointed out that in order to understand someone, you need to understand their background. In my case, she said, I'd been raised in Africa, where we didn't have running water and were taught to think it was normal to shower every three days (if that). When we came back to Grand Rapids, my parents continued to act like they were living in Africa... sometimes my mom still tries to barter with Meijer employees :)
Having So point this out made a lot of sense. And yet, I still think that people's perspectives can (and need to) be changed. A lot of states (Nevada, California, Texas, etc) are struggling with drought. In Michigan, we're blessed with the Great Lakes. But just because we have this great resource, it doesn't mean we have the right to exploit it. We should be doing everything we can to preserve it.

Spread the word. Skip a shower. Save water and time.

  

Wishing I could change people's minds about everything. Me, the universe, Will Farrell (he is not funny)... and wishing that some things would just work out the way my head plans them. IknowIknowIknow, life-- and more importantly, God-- does not go according to our plans. I just wish He would have given me the instruction manual before setting me loose.

Who am I really? I don't know what or who I am, and if I can't know that, maybe I'm not ready to know someone else. If you know what I mean. But does anyone have anything figured out? NYC has put me in an 'organized chaos' framework. Everyone is always rushing en masse off to the next activity. No one says 'sorry'. No one makes eye contact. It's as if we're all terrified of being exposed, of others knowing that we don't have it all figured out. So we hide, covertly, behind our briefcases and our books, our desk jobs and our gyms. Maybe if we create a hurricane around us, the dust will never settle.
 

the end.

You know those times when you are really tired, but you just can't go to bed? You keep awake, thinking to yourself, "There is one more thing that has to get done. There is one more thought I have to think." But the thing is, you can't quite figure out what that thing is. It's like you're chasing a white rabbit down an endless rabbit hole, and you don't even know why.

This is why I think I'm a night person. I just have more and more energy as the night wears on. It's one in the morning right now and I could go for a jog... yet experience tells me I should have forced myself in bed hours ago. Mentally I'm a night owl... but physically, I'm a sloth.

zzzzzzzzz.............

Corrections I've neglected:

01/03/10: I really did enjoy myself-- and if NYE only serves to be an excuse to hang out with wonderful friends, so be it. Also, I finally watched this movie-- over-the-top, cheesy, but golden:

I just love Michael Caine. And every movie he's been in has become a favorite of mine. I think I've found myself in a chicken-or-egg connundrum-- do I like these movies because he's in them, or is he just always in really good movies?


12/30/09: That mascara is crap. But you can betcha bottom dollar I'll be using it 'till the bitter end.

12/18/09: I actually raised my GPA this semester!

10/30/09: I'm going to completely contradict myself. I hate ambiguous things. I hate surprises. And above all, I hate The Catcher in the Rye!

Hello Twenty-ten. I don't believe the newscasters who tell me it's a new decade. I may not have gotten a straight A in high school math, but I do recall that 9 years does not = a decade. They're jumping the gun on this one. Also, Twenty-ten, J-Lo's "celebration" of your existence made me throw up a little in my mouth, and that had nothing to do with my acid reflux.  I guess I was so distracted by her apparent intoxication and Ryan's "filibustering", that I completely missed Dick Clark's number-botching fiasco.

Also, I think we were talking all through the countdown, and I was on my fourthish glass of sparkling grape juice, so I didn't really get much out of the whole thing. Watching the countdown is akin to watching the yule log on TV... except at least the yule log looks cozy.

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