I hug trees

Alright, I promised myself and the vastness of the world wide web that I'd write this post this week, even though at the time I thought it would be my only postable material for the rest of the week and then, lo and behold, dinner happened on Thursday. But a promise is a promise. And now it is 9:20 p.m. on Saturday, so I better get to it if I want to avoid the wrath of my judgmental readership. Oh, I don't mean all of you, just maybe Julie and Jacob.

So here, finally ('cause I know you have all been holding your collective breath on this), are my Five Things I Did to Celebrate Earth Day (which was on April 22nd, almost a month ago.)

1. Nothing.

Aw, shit. This isn't gonna work, is it?! Turns out, I don't much care about Earth Day, at least not personally. Sure, I care about it as far as it gives us an excuse to talk about environmental issues, but for me it was otherwise just another Tuesday. But, so as not to send you home with an empty stomach, here are (and I totally stole this whole idea from Allie, who tagged me with this in the first place) Five Things I Do Everyday Because I Have No Reason Not To.

(Also, I may be drinking right now, so bear with me. If I get a little insistent, well, that's my real personality coming through.)

1. I do not dry my hands with paper towels. Ever. This is a relatively new thing for me, but I don't know why it took me so long to come around to it. My inspiration for this came from No Impact Man. It's the same crazy reasoning I use for not using a clothes dryer: turns out that stuff wants to be dry anyway, whether you employ artificial means or not. I don't use paper towels to dry my hands at work or in public restrooms and yet they somehow end up dry within about one minute anyway. Magic. Just wave your hands around like an idiot for a few seconds and you're good to go. Unless you're Aquaman or Ariel, living happily under the sea, in which case wet is good.

2. I don't buy things. I think this is probably the most important thing I don't do, and maybe my only redeeming quality as a human being. Crunchy Chicken had a Buy Nothing Challenge for the month of April and I forgot about it until almost May, but when I thought about it I had unwittingly risen to the challenge anyway. Aside from food, gas and occasional toiletries (which I believe were exempt from the challenge for obvious reasons), I don't buy things. What else is there anyway? I pretty much have everything I need already. If everyone were like me, our economy would revert to the stone age, which may not be a bad thing.

3. Still not using bags at the grocery store. For that matter, I'm trying to cut back on my purchases and use of anything plastic. Plastic baaaaad.

4. Driving like gasoline ain't free. Because it's not. Accelerate slowly, leave a lot of space between you and the car ahead, drift to red lights, keep your cruising speed down, take corners really, scary fast, ignore speed bumps - these all help conserve gas, and that's good for everyone. I wish this entry could instead be "Not driving at all," but that isn't realistic at this point. We do what we can with what we have. By the way: don't believe the hype - gas is still really, really cheap and this is a poor person telling you this. I can drive 500 miles in a pickup truck for $60. In what bizarro dimension is that expensive? I used to do it for 25. That's insanity.

5. I give a shit. Every decision I make is informed with the idea that waste is bad (and I'm talkin' sin on par with homosexuality to a conservative Republican; like, top-tier offense) and that there is a right and wrong way to get through our short lives on this planet. I'm not saying I do everything right, because that would be an outrageously delusional lie. What I'm saying is that at least I'm trying, and I try harder every day. I don't know why, exactly, since if pressed I would admit that nothing really matters, but I do it anyway, as much a compulsion as anything else.

Ta Daaaa!