An impact-less life

What do you think of this blog/experience?

This is the author’s summary of the experiment:

“My wife Michelle and I decided, before jumping in at the deep end of this year-long project, to try no impact living as an experiment for a week. No garbage. No greenhouse gasses. No toxins. No water pollution. No air pollution. No electricity. No produce shipped from distant lands. No impact. Or so we naively hoped.”

(They also avoided plastics)

I’ve been working on getting green over the past year, very gradually because I don’t enjoy how I react to extremes. And I build it up every couple of months. First I stopped buying bottled water, and refilled 5-gallon jugs, then I stopped using as much water or electricity and went online with all my statements, then I turned off my computer every night at work, and over the weekend. I followed by using reusable bags for everything, and most recently, using the dishwasher for all my washing, instead of hand-washing.

Glamour (I get free copies!) had 30 tips for going green, which makes up a nifty list:

1. Think outside the recycling box.
2. Sign up for online banking.
3. Shop online.
4. Buy local.
5. Switch to green power.
6. Adjust your thermostat.
7. Slow down on the road.
8. Pick up something vintage.
9. Skip meat once a week.
10. Switch to rechargeable batteries.
11. Stop the catalog insanity.
12. Buy makeup you can refill.
13. Order the good kind of fish.
14. Use online music stores and DVD clubs.
15. Pick up a reusable water bottle. C
16. Skip the screen saver.
17. Fix that broken thing.
18. Turn the washing machine to cold.
19. Get instantly ecosmarter. Check out greenmaven.com
20. Look for earth-friendly packaging.
21. Be kind to your wardrobe. (mend clothes)
22. Get some fun, cheap china.
23. Just say no to plastic bags–and paper ones. Solution: a tote.*****
24. Double-side and single-space.
25. Two words: power strip.
26. Walk, run or bike.
27. Make one green investment.
28. Go ahead and use the dishwasher.
29. Be a friend to a farmer. Join a CSA: find one at localharvest.org.
30. Hit the park on April 22, Earth Day.

***** This actually made me mad. On the left of this section in the magazine, they had three pictures of cute and trendy totes, that retailed for $60, $62 and $350 dollars. I wrote to the magazine saying that I had the cutest totes from TJ’s and Whole Foods and paid a whopping $0.99 and $1.99 for mine. I asked them to consider covering limiting over-spending and other un-necessary excesses when writing the next article on being kinder to our planet.

If celebrities moved to Oklahoma…

My brother forwarded this to me a couple of days ago, and it’s just too funny not to post. There are many others but these are my three favorites:

1) Tom Cruise:

2) Ashlee Simpson:

3) Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones:

gluttony, asceticism, goddess-worship

I just finished this book, and I couldn’t wait to write about it.

I. Facts

Elizabeth Gilbert writes a best-selling novel, or in the words on her own web site:

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER

#1 on the NYT Paperback Nonfiction List for over a year!

American Booksellers Association Acclaimed Best Seller

#1 on the Booksense Paperback Nonfiction List for over a year!

However, she still still expect readers of her book to go along with anonymity on one of the main aspects of her book: her Guru, who is spoken about at length throughout.

Anyone who has read the book can find out what “Richard from Texas” “Ketut Liyer” or “Sofie” looks like by going to her web site. If you want to visit any of the “other” healers, you are given directions to their practices in the very pages of the book. Gilbert is more than forthcoming about the address to Pizzeria da Michele, helpfully throwing in the exact order — “double mozzarella pizza”. It’s only fair, though she is strangely and unexplainably secretive about it, that anyone who wants to, should as easily be able to find out who her Guru is, what is the form of yoga she practices, where is the Ashram she went to. Consistency, people!

[ Fairness remark: she has a note at the beginning of her book explaining the anonymity, because she cannot speak for her Guru, and she wants to spare the Ashram unwanted publicity. I don't buy either. There are diplomatic ways around it, without teasing your readership the way she does.]

The name of the female guru is Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. “Swamji” in the book is Swami Muktananda who founded the Ashram and wandered India in search for a Guru himself.

The type of yoga that Elizabeth Gilbert practices is called Siddha Yoga, and the Ashram she visited is Gurudev Siddha Peeth, about 3 hours out of Mumbai, in a location called Ganeshpuri in the Tansa Valley of Maharashtra, in the Thane district. It’s pretty much impossible to find on a map. The site I linked to has information that dates to 2001 but at least the location and corollary information is probably correct.

Here is Elizabeth Gilbert’s own FAQ page from Eat, Pray, Love where you can see all the pictures I mention above.

My reactions to this book were unfolding, varied, and somewhat contradictory.

I was really impressed with the first two pages of the book, where Gilbert explains the structure of her book starting with the history of prayer beads, the ancestors of rosaries, japa malas, 108 beads, a three-digit multiple of threes, like her three-part book of 36 stories each, each in a country starting with I (Italy, India, Indonesia) in her search for balance, etc.

I responded very strongly to her…I guess you could call it a “mid-thirties freakout” that I can relate to, as well as I’m sure other women in their thirties. You’re either married, or you’re not, and whether you accept it, know it or not, your ovaries are old. Ageing. Dying, if I wanted to be dramatic. You’re getting your first wrinkles. It’s just what being a woman is about. If you’re single, you start thinking about your countdown to be able to have kids. If you’re married, you are probably thinking about it too, if you’re not getting ready to have (or raising) your first (or second) child.

I liked reading about the Freakout, because I kind of freaked out too, albeit imperceptibly, when I turned 30. The big three-oh. A “multiple of three” if you will.

I was looking forward to the structure, only to realize that it only appeared once in the first page of the book never to appear again. The rest of the book, although neatly divided in three (more or less equal) parts of 36 vignettes each, is rather quite messy. You don’t really see any structure in any of the individual sections. I’m not being nit-picky, I’m just saying…if you announce a perfect, cosmic structure to your book, your readers are going to be keeping their eyes peeled.

Focusing on pleasure (Italy = Eat), mysticism, or spirituality (India = Pray) and balance between the two (Indonesia = Love) worked for Gilbert, as she was basically starting from scratch after her divorce, and re-surfacing her life, starting from the bottom up. You probably would have to go through that kind of destruction to be able to understand, but from where I was coming from, I can’t imagine, for one minute, eating that much pasta and gelato for four months, praying for 5 hours a day in total silence, and having so much sex that you get violently ill from it.

Far from a search for balance that just strikes me as a race towards a happy medium of excesses. I didn’t relate to a lot of the extremism. The foodi-ness, the mysticism, the one-sidedness (of at least the retelling in the book ) of her relationship with Felipe. Felipe is her fantastic, caring, and according to her web site, current, lover. She meets him in Bali, he’s a divorced, older, Brazilian businessman, father of two, he’s just…perfect, I guess. From Gilbert’s description, he is a monolithically kind, loving, emotionally mature, affirming, caring, nurturing, passionate companion, a fantastic cook, an attentive lover, a patient and understanding man, a good listener, an interesting conversationalist, and (she says herself this is a huge plus) he’s had a vasectomy–how romantic. He worships the ground she walks on, and you get pages and pages of descriptions of their relationship, you can form a mental image of their lovemaking (in retrospect, I think she should have called the book, Eat, Pray, Sex). It was just retold in a very one-way direction, which, at the end of a book of excesses, was tiring.

The other excess I’ll mention is that she pines for David (the ex-boyfriend who introduced her to the Guru) and laments the pain of her divorce endlessly, describing in more agonizing detail the levels of suffering she has endured. It’s hard to relate to if you’ve never been divorced. I don’t even think a broken heart will get you to relate. It’s out there. It’s like…the end of the world, AND September 11, AND the Tsunamis, and a broken heart, and the death of your childhood pet. Multiplied by ten.

On for the things I did like.

I loved the characters. Particularly the Balinese. Every single last one of them had the most fascinating story, with details that go on for pages, that I simply relish
ed. The medicine man, the woman healer, the unsung musical genius who was deported from the US, the Brazilian goddess who used to work for UNHCR.

I loved learning about so many things I’d never heard of: yogic history, life in an Ashram, the history of rosaries and prayer beads, Hindu scripture, the meanings of chants, descriptions of transcendence and meditation, Italian addresses for food delicacies, Balinese lore and mythology.

I loved the fact the book actually got me meditating and looking forward to prayer.

That was priceless.

teenage crushes

I think no comment is necessary on my part. I justify nothing.

These were my teenage crushes:

UNDER SIEGE (of your loooooooove)

This movie is awesome. Ah the golden 80’s when movies didn’t need to have tight scripts or good acting, and could just be funny and entertaining! This one has a crazy plot, and a crazy Gary Busey, great scenes and funny lines.

(Trivia: the original script title of the movie was “Dreadnought”)

Here’s my plot of the movie: Steven Seagal a former Navy SEAL, now “just the cook”, is the only person who can stop a gang of terrorists when they sieze control of a US Navy battleship. His renegade partner to take over the ship is Miss July 1989, whom he rescued from the birthday cake and his arch-enemies are crazy psychopath Gary Busey and a gone-off-the-deep-end 60’s-wannabee-rocker Tommy Lee Jones.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the film:
*Casey Ryback: Steven Seagal (good guy)
*Jordan Tate (Miss July ‘89): Erika Eleniak (good gal)
*Commander Krill: Gary Busey (bad guy)
*William Strannix: Tommy Lee Jones (bad guy)

[Krill is dressed as a drag queen]
Commander Krill: Do I look like I need a psychological evaluation?
William Strannix: Not at all.

---

Casey Ryback: It’s morse code.
Jordan Tate: What are they saying?
Casey Ryback: They’re saying “Get me the f*** out of here”.

---

William Strannix: You’re a maniac. Drowning your own crew.
Commander Krill: They never liked me anyway.
Doumer: I bet they f*****’ love ya now, huh?

---

Casey Ryback: Krill’s a maniac! Go tell the captain he spit in my soup!

---

Casey Ryback: Get my pies out of the oven!

---

Jordan Tate: So who are you? Are you, you, like, some special forces guy or something?
Casey Ryback: Nah. I’m just a cook.
Jordan Tate: A cook?
Casey Ryback: [Whispering] Just a lowly, lowly cook.
Jordan Tate: Oh, my God, we’re gonna die.

---

Ensign Taylor: We still have a week together.
Casey Ryback: I guess that means I won’t get to see you go through puberty.

---

Jordan Tate: I hate being alone.
Casey Ryback: Do you hate being dead?

---

Tom Breaker: Look, Bill, if this is about reliving the 60’s, you can forget about it, buddy. The movement is dead.
William Strannix: Yes, of course! Hence the name: movement. It moves a certain distance, then it stops, you see? A revolution gets its name by always coming back around in your face. You tried to kill me you son of a bitch… so welcome to the revolution.

New beginnings

I love Los Angeles because it’s huge, it’s constantly renewing itself, and there is a regular stream of new-comers. It’s like an etch-a-sketch, the metaphor apt, because you never know when the ground is going to shake from under you.

This has been a year of new beginnings for me. Leaving Europe, coming to this sprawling, enormous city, was a painful and envigorating experience, and I have extended this experimentation to everything. Since I’ve been here, I have acted as if I have a new lease on life, reviewing my choices, re-aligning my priorities, re-inventing my experiences.

I’ve done so many things for the first time. First lease in my name on a house, first full-time job with health coverage, first time in a place with no outbound plane ticket, first baseball game and Dodger dog, first time settling in, and letting my experiences take, sink in, grow roots.

The very first episode of This American Life is called New Beginnings. It first aired on November 17, 1995. My first year in college, my first year in the States, at the University of Delaware, my first real culture shock.

The most significant section of the show was the “Should’ve been dead” Act One, where Kevin Kelly lives his last six months on earth, and talks about the experience, and his transformation. The experience is so significant, and so specific, it transcends into a universal human experience, and I could see my life mirrored in a small way in some of the events in his life.

Radio gives you space for thinking. I like that. It’s a form of entertainment that requires you to meet it half-way so you’re never completely passive. You have to fill in the blanks, complete the visuals in the story that the intimate voice narrates.

I did something for the first time this year, I sat down before the year started, and thought about what I wanted this year to be about. I cut out images and words from magazines, without thinking, then glued them on a sheet of paper, we did this with a group of friends in my community at one person’s initiative.

What emerged to me was Authenticity, reconnecting to what moved me as a child, reconnecting to who I am beyond what I think I am expected to be. This has been a salvation this year. I feel free for the first time in a long time, and I welcome the new beginning.