Life Goals

- Learn another language (Italian?)
- Do a legit triathlon (not the easy sprint stuff) and/or Boston marathon
- Do a handstand

Remember When?

I went to Croatia on a solo trip and met the most amazing people in Zagreb? They invited me to their barbecue and fed me the most delicious food and then we danced all night long. Amazing one thousand times over.

the ABCs of NYC

Every trip has a million little stories that are memorable but aren’t necessarily worth telling. If I started rambling on about how I was really excited to take this new suitcase I won through Twitter in June to my trip to NYC in August, but it was on backorder, so I DMed the brand… okay, you’re already bored, right? And I have already wasted precious talking discussing my (lack of) suitcase, and I haven’t even arrived in NYC yet.

So I have a newer and improved way to document and share my trips, and it utilizes the good old ABCs. I read this about this technique in a blog. Keep a notebook with the alphabet written out, then fill in little memories as they happen according to corresponding letter. Some might find 26 letters limiting, but it’s also a way to get creative.

American triple miles, FTW! Also, this adorbs kitteh Briggs & Riley suitcase fiasco
Cabbie has a weird air freshener (of dad?)
Didn’t really want to go to Coney Island… sorry Zach.
Everything bagels are my favorite, especially when they have seeds on both sides.
Faraway view of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park.
Guggenheim: snuck a sweet secret photo! Hot tub and swimsuit vending machine at Standard Hotel rooftop bar. I killed my iPhone. I acted like a rich New Yorker and immediately bought a new one.
Jenga with Joe and Doug.
Katz’s delicatessen: soooo much pastrami!
Learned the difference between avenue and street.
MOMA & a $1 Met ticket.
New York Public Library. Where do they keep the books?
Overheard A LOT of French conversations.
Pots in Zach’s bed.
Quesedilla with Joe in park.
Rooftop view in financial district.
Sangria and brunch at Calle Ocho.
Times Square is so boring. And Twin Towers is really depressing. U
Very strange people at Standard Hotel. Very nice, erm, view.
Walked everywhere. For hours and hours and hours.
X
Years since I’ve seen some of these great friends.
Zeytinz: my first and last NYC meal.

She's a Writer... Or Is She?

I've been telling people left and right about how I am now on the Penguin Group "list." Now when authors stop through Chicago on their book tours, Penguin will send me a free copy of their books a month or two beforehand so I can read and review them. "I feel like I've made it," I told someone the other day.

I didn't even understand what I was saying as I said it. Made it in what? Like I'm a real writer now because someone is mailing me books with handwritten notes paperclipped to the jacket begging me to write about them?

I wrote a lot of really crappy stories when I was 12. I studied writing in college and realized I was not half as good of a writer as my high school English grades had made me out to be. Now I write a couple blog posts a week. So I guess I'm a writer?

It's a hard thing, this writer business. Because I don't know what being a writer exactly means. I write all the freaking time — in my emails, twitter and blogging — but obviously those things aren't real writing. So I don't count them in my writing quota for the day. And also, to be a better writer, you're supposed to read. And I try, I really do. But sometimes it's just not possible to put in a couple hours of reading a day. I have to buy groceries and do laundry and go to work and stuff. In other words, I don't always put in the time to really be a writer, so using that term to define myself seems like a lie.

But when it comes down to it, writing is something that I love. I'm more of a writer than I am a mathematician. I could care less about a really difficult math problem. But sometimes I'll be reading something and I'll think to myeself "if only I could do that." If I could only write one great sentence a day.

Who Knew?

I just read Our Man in Chicago's essay for the Chicago 20x2 event. The essay was based on the prompt "Who Knew?"

But in trying to answer the question “Who Knew?” I kept coming back to what initially sounded like a very pompous answer: “I knew.” And by that I meant “I knew the answer to a question even though I pretended like I didn’t.”

Scott goes on to explain how he knew before he knew it wasn't going to work out with one woman, how he knew before he knew it would work out with another, and how he knew before he knew he might be on the verge of pooping his pants.

The point is: The more you try and distract yourself, the more likely it is that you’re avoiding the answer you already know.

This whole "I knew" reflection reminds me of where I was a little over a year ago. My French was getting pretty good and I had been adopted into a great group of (French!) friends. I had a place to live, a job in my field. A company had even approached me for another, better job, for which I had taken a writing test. They didn't call back. Neither did I. Because even though I had had serious conversations with close friends about Parisian salary requirements, I didn't know I knew.

Even though I left work early one month before my flight back to Chicago, then spent the other half of the day crying, I didn't know I knew.

Even though I thought about how hard it would be the find a job in Chicago because I had a seemingly worthless journalism degree during a time when there were fewer jobs for journalists by the hour, I didn't know I knew.

And even though I talked to anyone who would listen about my should-or-stay-or-should-I-go? conundrum, I didn't know I knew.

And even the first few months in Chicago, so excited to be back in the land of customer service and Target, speaking a language without acognizing over pronounciation and not having to worry about meeting new people because so many of my closest friends were right there, I didn't know I knew.

Because I couldn't find a job no matter how hard I looked, was freaked out by the unnatural hugeness the bananas - and humans - at the store and was constantly frustrated by turning the key to the left to unlock doors when I had been accustomed to turning it to the right.

Next week, I'll celebrate one back year in Chicago. I've come a long way in this time, and I haven't always been sure that I made the right decision. But it doesn't matter because I already knew.

Snapshot of My Inbox

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a blog post on Chicagoist about a new class at DePaul that focuses on the ins and outs of small press publishing. It was designed and is being taught by the founders of one of the indie presses here in Chicago.

Yesterday, I received an email from one of them thanking me for the coverage. He said several students had signed up for the class after reading my post. Furthermore, he told me, if those several students hadn't enrolled, the course probably wouldn't have happened. I am assuming they needed a minimum number of students to teach it.

It felt great to hear that something I wrote had a positive outcome. Okay, I know I didn't change the world or anything. But people read something I wrote. And then some of those people did something because of something I wrote. That feels pretty good, right? I don’t need validation for my writing, but it's still nice to be reminded why I'm a journalist. Or blogger. Or whatever I am these days.

Then, only a few hours later, I received this comment on a different post I wrote, a review of a new book: "This review misses the point of the book!" Then something about my lack of understanding "may point to the first signs of an absence of compassion."

Oh, such is life. You make some people happy, others you don't.

Mermaid for a Morning

I was up at 6 a.m. to swim laps. To clear my mind, etc. Yesterday was a really sucky day for whatever reason. I looked forward to starting a new day.

When I got down to the pool, there was only one person there. Usually there’s at least a few folks swimming or in the hot tub or sometimes there’s an aerobics class; so splashing, bubbling, music and general activity. But this morning, all was silent.

When is the last time the world around you has been completely silent?

I don’t remember. Sure, there are quiet moments at work, but there’s always someone typing or someone talking faraway. This whole total utter silence thing was completely new and totally weird.

Usually I aim to swim 60+ laps. But the pool forced me into a trance me today, and I could not concentrate long enough to count laps. I absentmindedly bumped into the wall a few times, but I wasn’t going fast enough for it to matter. One time I stopped to contemplate something strange floating in the pool. I think it was a piece of the floor. Everything was all too peaceful to take swimming seriously. I think I just splashed around in slow motion, not remembering to worry about whatever was on my mind before. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a mermaid. It was a lovely morning at the pool. I like being a mermaid.

A swimmer entered the lane next to me and broke my trance. I swam a good hard last 10 laps and went off to get ready for work. The locker room made me sad. So much blow drying and hair straightening and mascaraing and eye shadowing. I wondered why women feel they have to spend so much time making themselves pretty. Does natural beauty exist?

Then I went to find a spot at the mirror to blow dry my hair.

Mermaids don’t exist and neither does a world where beauty doesn’t matter.

Summer in the City: Part 6

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

Rudy and I met when I was working one of my many temp jobs. We worked in the warehouse at Threadless for one of their holiday sales, and between pulling and shipping tees, we became fast friends. But when the temp job ended, we hardly saw each other. Since I FINALLY had a low-key weekend ahead of me, I thought it was time to make time for my old friend. Funny that Rudy roped me into doing the highest-key thing I have done all summer, which was running around Chicago in the hot hot sun for three straight hours all while Facebooking, Twittering and Foursquaring.

It was a social media urban scavenger hunt organized by FIJI water, and we were sponsored by 3 o' clock club, a daily deals site in Chicago and LA. We got a list of clues and tasks, and got points for every task we completed and uploaded on various social media sites. So we did stuff like this:

Try to sell a Domino's pizza (We actually got one! But when the guy heard he had to wait 5 minutes for his pizza, he changed his mind. BOO!)

Do yoga poses in front of the Merchandise Mart.

Mix drinks, which was by far one of my favorite challenges!

Other things on our list of tasks was to take a water taxi, kayak in the Chicago river, and sing happy birthday to someone at Bubba Gump. Completing all 20+ tasks in three hours would have been impossible, but I think we got 8 or 9. In one word, the whole event was completely exhausting. We ran and ran and ran some more. I think I sweat more in three hours than I have all summer — and for as hot of a summer as it's been, that is a LOT of sweating. But when all was said and done, I was happy I spent three hours of my life with Rudy running to and fro in one of the bestest cities in the world.

Summer in the City: Part 5

I look like a frog or something. Whatevs.

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I really had no intention of going to Lollapalooza this year. Even though I’ve been several times and have seen almost all my favorite bands play there, I’d much rather hang out with my cat than pay one million dollars* to stand in the sun for three days straight. But then I had an opportunity to volunteer with one of the food vendors and go to the fest for free. And Lolla ended up becoming one of my favorite weekends of the summer.

The thing is, when something’s free, you don’t feel gypped if it sucks (I’m looking at you Lady Gaga). And when something’s free, you feel like you really lucked out when it’s amazing (like The Strokes, who I decided to see just to get away from the Gaga yawn-fest. The second I got close enough to hear their set, I remembered how much I listened to The Strokes in high school. Nostalgia + music = hooray). As far as bands go, I probably saw an equal number of highlights and lowlights, which isn’t too shabby for a festival.

But then, there was lots of other free stuff - mainly booze and afterparties - that made this Lolla more memorable than all the rest and which led to a lot of dancing and singing, which led to more late nights in one weekend than I typically have in a month, which led to unbelievable fatigue and sore muscles throughout the next day when I was repeating the drink/dance process. Meanwhile, I chatted with a lot of really cool people: chefs from two of my favorite Chicago restaurants and a few artists who were, would you believe it? just normal people who like to talk to other normal people about normal people stuff. Now only if I had met Dave 1, that would have made my life. Apparently I met his also famous brother though, so I guess that’s good enough. Good thing I spent a whole weekend at a music festival and I don’t know anything about music. It doesn’t matter though. Fun matters. And I had fun!

*very close to the actual price of the tickets.

A Missed Connection

I’m gearing up for a Sept. 1 move, so it’s time to start liquidating my possessions. Several months ago, I bought an old-school blender/mixer/food processor/meat grinder on Craigslist, but I rarely used it (I guess I just prefer to buy my meats pre-ground). So it was back to Craigslist.

I took some photos, wrote up a description that made it clear this set included all its parts except the bowls and slapped a $40 price tag on it. An enthusiastic woman emailed me asking if she could pay $75. Okay? This was obviously unusual, but I would accept whatever she wanted to pay.

Whenever I buy electronics on Craigslist, I ask the person to plug it in and show me how it works; really I just want to see IF it works. When this woman came to my apartment to pick up my Oster Kitchen Center, she just asked that I bring everything down and put it in her car. This seemed weird, too. Didn’t she want to make sure I wasn’t selling her something broken?

A couple days later, an email. She thought I had scammed her. She thought it was a newer stainless steel model with bowls. “I learned a lesson about checking everything and trusting less.”

I felt awful. My description was completely accurate, but I should have asked why she wanted to pay me double. So I felt like I did mislead her. Why oh why did I take her money? This transaction was not good for my karama. She was right. I had not been a trustworthy person.

I emailed back apologized for the misunderstanding. I told her she was welcome to come back for $35. I included my original posting and told her she was right, checking things carefully was a must when dealing with Craigslist. And that there were scammers on Craigslist, but I didn’t want to be one.

A few hours later, she responded. “You restored my faith in mankind!!!! I most likely responded to another posting. Keep the extra and use it to do good, it will come back to you ten-fold!” I felt better. I told her I would use the extra cash to buy books for the kids’ book drive at work. And I will.

Summer in the City: Part 4

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I’m not going to exaggerate and say my Pitchfork weekend was oMfG-u-had-to-be-there-FTW!!1111!!!, because it wasn’t really. I didn’t recognize half the bands, spent a great deal of time worried about staying hydrated, and got slammed with the most gawd awful volunteer job ever on Sunday. But still, I’ll give the weekend a Pretty Good. Especially because I cut myself a pair of kick-ass jorts for the occasion.

I’m not going to waste my time writing about the music. Because you would pee your pants laughing at how uneducated I would sound. So I’ve included some of my favorites below.







Basically it was a good weekend to get turned onto some new bands, get turned off by others, and check out a few that are working their way up my list. I enjoyed the ballerinas and onstage energy at Major Lazer, although I did not appreciate the daggering. I liked Big Boi bringing back some of those all-time favorite Outkast hits. As always, I enjoyed the artwork at Flatstock, and I tried some new food (vegan mint ice cream!). Also, I made $125 off the weekend since I won extra tickets through Twitter, then sold them on Craigslist. Amidst the heat, I was able to drink enough water, didn't get sunburned, and lived to tell about it.

Summer in the City: Part 3, A Very American Weekend

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I like holidays so much to the point that in college, I took notes with ink tailored to the season (orange & black: Halloween, red & green: you get the point). So I couldn’t wait for July 4th, especially when my plans turned out to be so spectacular.

In a nutshell, the three-day weekend went like so, starting 6 p.m. Friday night: carefully planned Red, White, and Blue outfits; crazy dance raver lightshow concert; many many grilled meats and beers with friends from here and friends from there; sitting on the beach in Lake Michigan (sunburn, reading, reading, sunburn and reading); more grilled meats with wine this time; fireworks; White Sox game; mustache madness; another grilled meat plus a Lemon Chill this time; more fireworks. And around 11 p.m. Monday night, collapse into bed surrounded by three fans because in true July 4th fashion, it was 90+ degrees, or at least felt like it.

I thought I might go as far as to detail the whole weekend, but all that would entail would be gushing about how wonderful it all was. And that could be boring. So I will just leave it here. Happy 234th Birthday America! Hope 235 is just as fun.

Summer in the City: Part 2

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

In two consecutive days of attending the Taste of Chicago, I ate the following:
- vegetarian gourmet deep dish pizza
- chicken tostada salad
- chicken wings and hush puppies
- tequila lime chicken taco
- cherry Italian ice
- Italian breaded steak sandwich
- pot stickers
- crab rangoon
- rainbow ice cream

This is why Americans are fat.

Summer in the City: Part 1

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I don’t know how I ended up in a three-story warehouse party with free booze, free concerts and DJs, and free mini hotdogs, but I did. It was some invitation-only thing sponsored by Heineken, and my friends had an extra ticket. I find this out last minute and bike three and half fast miles up North just in time to catch the end of Matt & Kim’s “Daylight.”

The party looked like this: freely flowing beer. Enough material to play “find the biggest hipster” for hours on end. A (not very good) DJ spinning on glowing Heineken barrels several feet above the crowd. Screens everywhere flashing INSPIRE INSPIRE INSPIRE so ginourmously and frequently that I think I began to feel inspired - but maybe all the beer had something to do with that.

By the time Cold War Kids came on stage, I didn’t even care how unreasonably tall every single freaking person standing in front of us was. I danced, I sang shouted, I laughed when some rando dude with glasses crookedly falling from his face tried to mack on my friend. The show ended, empty Heineken glasses were hidden in purses and pockets, we were herded out.

The night went on. On my bike ride back, I passed an interesting assortment of a band: one saxophone, two trombones, one drum, one flute, and one maraca. They were playing something jazzy and had attracted a crowd. I hang there for a bit, then ran into I guy from one of my temp jobs months back. The catch-up conversation was good, and I told him to invite me to his next punk show. One more beer and some late night mac ‘n cheese later, I was in bed.

When I woke up the next day at 11:30, I felt refreshed. Then I ate a burrito.

Why I < 3 H20 Aerobics

Remember that one time I ran a marathon? I mean those three times?

God, I can’t stand running.

I follow a probably unhealthy cycle in which I run and train and train and run for months and months and months, and as soon as I cross the finish line after 26.2 miles, I can’t look at a pair of Asics without thinking about how miserable it would be to have to put them on and run a measly block. So I don’t. Meanwhile I continue eating cheese and guzzling wine as I had been before. Then I get fat. In other words, I start feeling unhealthy and moody and a tad bit pudgy.

So now I try to maintain my fitness level by adding some diversity. But it doesn’t matter how diverse your workouts are, there are always days (like 90% of them) when I just don’t feel like doing it and would rather go home to eat cheese and drink wine.

Thank the Heavens for the water aerobics class. I now plan my lap swimming around their schedule. Cause the teacher’s music rocks super hard. I even told her so.

She’s got a good mix of ‘80s and oldies. She even incorporates current events - like when she played the Blackhawks theme song. I also enjoy the fact that she wears flashy headbands, just as you would expect a water aerobic teacher to. All this adds to great hour of swimming. Sometimes I even take a few laps with the kickboard so that I can enjoy a particularly good song. I already went swimming two times this week! No I can devour that wine and cheese without the slightest bit of guilt.

Picky Pet Peeves

Since I got a growed up job that involves doing a lot online, I’ve been spending more time on the Web. And ever so slowly, I’ve developed a short little list of things that have come to bother me. I know you are very interested, and that is why you are still reading.

• Tweeting a link to your blog that is really a link to your Facebook page, which then has the link to your blog. I’m not a big fat dummy. I get what you’re trying to do. Your Facebook fan is just so much more interesting than every other Facebook fan page out there, and you would like me to see it/get page views. Unfortunately I don’t have a click of my busy day to waste, so shoving 15 links in my face will only get you one thing: a bit fat unfollow.

• On that note, if I follow your blog in my google reader, please do not withhold pictures and especially do not make me click on links to read the content. The point of my reader is to read your blog. If you make me click all over the place to do so, I’m unsubscribing. Unless you are the About.com French Language blog. In that case I will still be pissed and will continue to play your stupid mind games because there is French involved.

• Not shortening URLs when publicly sharing links. Just-between-you-and-me emails or gchat convos are fine because they’re spur of the moment and all, but please consider the eyeballs of people who read your stuff when you publish this: http://tickets.disney.go.com/buy/TicketTrans?storeID=DRD&tktFitterDefaultQty=ADULT=1|CHILD=0|ALL=1&lengthOfStay=7&tokens=m3NYXjZuC09VE7x4%2B0jnT110o4GFb/DqOkrQ54xWxe5YKmRR5cvwV5YGlrPuirisst7ndyzcAbAuchhjJogRzgHO3IX3qmXy97Fb%2BbENCrPG69wDATJZgsk/xoYKeFQfhMl4XhtHMZXSUJWUB7tbYvHB%2B1zz3s7h65xXOBpAc%2B/VRnmlv67B1XT20T392vFhYUI/qhjKxkMGBi4QkoKFQAVY7CiN01WC1c4YbCEUZOu2DVCto85j1H6QQrLKAwkIWuZoj%2BQLBd7cUqvbpZzKCpGCv0qBbNzjgec9Y8mf9UAz8bld9clw032EmuakXsl5hGP%2BCz9G/FamHtpBS%2BKK51rIViepGVtZfMv0nuXbWCTYxxAo/sN1crbqtRYxxc93HaBTreon0TnoV9X9Zn5N0TjkY21QYUcPHaBTreon0TlPTbeN/aYMJVspk%2B/Wk%2BRmUU0fmGmC3WasiCaNNoH5N2d6ItmHAR25n4sL9PHn5YRNMYXXOy1YUyLn2eihPLyaHyR5LdXqoYPfpx5jfinkJE583l0BFcr/wozFOKwhvo6HGNYisLiHXw9OqkWnkVmRxyc4UUeNGzHYic%2BbfSW1HccnOFFHjRsx3xYXzoM2byc0F%2BFaQOWFZyNqKNzo7MLyE7VllRRmOrDnR/LRS1/lRM2rNpDLKx/7wxwglGN8H0NHgtZuPic2qvRGHj%2BESuoDOJzO2Xwu%2BGANlQfRBdTGEeU0I99daNEFuPAxwRgZEJA%3D&drnid=7238430 instead of this: http://tinyurl.com/26yato4.

• Tweeting about your kids when your twitter page is not supposed to be about your kids. It's pretty simple. If you were a mommy blogger, I would not be following you. Unfortunately you provide other valuable information that I do enjoy, so I have to somehow figure out how to embrace the knowledge that your 3-year-old woke up the baby from his nap by blowing in his face.

• Acting like publishing readers’ content for no money should be really exciting. “Oh my gosh do you want your name and your words to be in print???!?!?!? Send your movie review or top secret vacation tips, and we will publish them FOR FREE!!” If this pay scale really appeals to people, they can just publish things on their own personal blog.

• Pop-up Ads. So 2001. Stop it allrecipes.com and others. And grow up.

Why I Made For the City's Worst Parisienne

Parisien Salon published an entertaining article earlier this week on the 10 golden rules of being a parisienne. In response, I thought about all the ways I sucked at it. I could have lived there for 10 years and never been able to blend in. Here’s why.

1. I own too much Dri-Fit clothing. Parisiennes are not the sportive type. They don’t run. If I didn’t want a crowd of French guys oogling me, I had to find a secret place to stretch during my runs. Also, most parisiens were really interested to hear about my marathon training. They had never met anyone who ran marathons. In America, where everyone and their grandma does them, I get no respect.

2. I dip croissants in my soup. A teacher at my school looked at me in disbelief when I did this. She told me croissants are strictly a breakfast food only to be consumed with something sweet, such as jam or jelly. I’m sorry, it tasted good. Other food faux pas of mine included consuming the breakfast-restricted pain au chocolate and café au lait whenever I damn well pleased. And sometimes I threw a baguette on the table and didn’t pay attention to turn it right side up. OMG I’M GONNA DIE (according to French superstition).

3. I think adults should use adult forms of transportation. My bike tires are the most kiddish wheels I’ve got. This isn't cool. Neither is this. Nerds.

4. If something brings joy to my life, I shall smile. Parisiennes don’t smile (#2 on the list of what inspired this post). Unfortunately, I do. Which is why I always got hit on. Old men thought I was hitting on them. No sir, I do not find you adorable. The cute little French girl trading me a lollipop for a piece of my baguette made me smile SORRY YOU GOT CONFUSED.

5. My hair will never be dark brown or black. My hair is blondish brownish whatever. Sometimes, I entertain the idea of dying it red. Which is still not dark brown or black. I don’t have perfectly olivey European skin, so dark brown or black hair would just make me look goth.

6. My clothes are too practical or comfortable or something. I will never be able to wear a scarf as effortlessly as a parisienne can. Can you ever see me pulling off an outfit like this? And I’ve got a rule when buying skirts and dresses: pockets. Which eliminates many chic parisienne options. Oh well. I like not losing my keys.

Big Fat Liar

I was ghcatting with my good friend Brad the other day. Brad went to school in California, thus is very up to speed about doing things that are nice for Earth. I thought I would brag to him about all the nice things for Earth I've started doing over the past few months.

As I was rambling off a few ways I've changed my day-to-day life in the name of Earth, I realized how much of a big fat liar I was being. All I really care about is saving money. I guess Earth is happy about the changes I've made, but I really made them for entirely selfish reasons.

Like riding my bike. If I am really tired and groggy and don't feel like riding my bike to French class, do I say to myself "You know, Betsy, Earth would really like it if you rode your bike there"? No. I think, "Do you want to spend $4.50 to get there? Or do you want to spend $0?" Then I ride my bike.

My roommates and I also make our own cleaning supplies (which is really just dumping vinegar on anything that's dirty) and have reduced our paper towel consumption to one roll a month. I might have led people on to believe that I do these things for Earth. But I don't. A giant bottle of vinegar is $4, lasts forever, and can be used to clean anything. That's all I've spent on cleaning supplies since February, and there's still plenty of vinegar left for more months to come.

I guess it just sounds better to say I do this stuff for Earth. And I do like Earth, so it is a nice added advantage that the Earth might get something out of all this. It's embarrassing to admit that I'm really just cheap. But it's the truth.

Want vs. Need

I was sitting in my giant new cubicle yesterday, wondering how I should personalize it and fill it up with tons of stuff. While pondering this very important issue, I noticed my entire cubicle was the size of my bedroom in Paris. The cubicle is probably bigger.

I don’t remember the measurements of the Paris room, but I am pretty sure it was illegal to live in a space that small. I didn’t really care though. I made sure my life fit inside that space, because that was all I had. I had a futon, a desk, and a closet. How much more does one person need?

Transitioning back to my American roots was much easier than I thought it would be. The hard part is resisting them. After surviving on very limited wardrobe for a year, I tried to remember that new clothes were not really necessary. But when I began working at threadless, where slightly damaged t-shirts were free, my American greed got the best of me. I took more than I needed. I probably have 50 threadless shirts now. I didn’t even need to take one.

Now that I have that out of my system, I think I need to try to find some sort of median between accumulation of useless crap and simplicity. Instead of grabbing as many tees as I can get my greedy little hands on, I am trying to focus on purchasing good quality, evergreen basics (ie black clothes). I will spend 40+ hours a week at this cubicle, and it would be silly to resist adding a little something something to spruce it up. Where is my French magnetic poetry?

I Am The 260,000,000th Richest Person in the World

GOOD Magazine sends some pretty good stuff through my Google Reader. Here's one. It shows how a "meager" US salary of $40,000 per year looks compared to the whole world:


I entered my salary and I learned that I am in the top 4.33 percent of richest people in the world. Then I learned this:

$8 could buy me 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy me an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy me a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy me a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

It's an excellent campaign. I hope it moves people to take action.