April 2006 Archive

Ok,

So of late I’ve been on a couple of different but not diametrically opposed thought processes of late.

#1. My 1 second thingie. If I live an environmentally conscientious life, then perhaps I can help extend the life of the planet by one solitary second. Join me if you like.

#2. What are the things I must do to maintain my quality of life while saving as much money as possible.

#3. How do I support my local businesses — especially when i live in a neighborhood with so many independent markets?

Today…well today could have definitely used more planning.

So I was walking through the neightborhoodwith an empty backpack with a SXSW canvas bag inside, deciding to do some grocery shopping.

-5th & Clement – Fresh bananas & tangerines, they go into the backpack

-7th & Clement – The Smart & Final

- Upon checkout, have the startling realization of “Oh.Fuck.”

Today, walking 9 blocks to market & back, was not a good day to buy and expect to carry
1 Gallon of OJ
3 Lbs of Tangerines – purchased earlier
3 Lbs of Bananas – purchased earlier
3 Lbs of Butter
15 Lbs of Rice (A mix of brown & white)
4 Lbs of Pasta
2 Lbs of Japanese Somen Noodles
3 Lbs Sugar
2 Lbs Cheese
5 Lbs of tortillas
1 Big bottle of spaghetti sauce
1 Can of pumpkin for pumkin curry soup
1 15 Oz bottle of Worcestershre sauce
1 Hugeass bottle of coffee creamer

That’s right. Something around 50 Lbs of groceries. Granted, the grand total is less than $90 and will feed me for gawdknows how long, but I was really planning on getting some dimsum, squash and fresh veggies on the way back.

After stuffing as much as I could into the backpack & the canvas bag, two plastic bags full of groceries were humped over my shoulder that would not fit.

By the time I got out from waddling out of the parking lot, I seriously considered calling a cab to pick me and my damn groceries up for a 9 block fare. But no, that would defeat the purpose of being environmentally conscientious and frugal. I plod on and imagine my mother and her stories of hauling buckets of water 3 miles through the snow to her home. I ignore the fact that if there was snow then she shouldn’t have had to trek so far for water. It was my mom’s story of suffering. Who am I to question.

I waddled one block and then took a rest.
Maybe I could hire those teenagers to carry my bags for me.
But no, that’d be really wussy. And pathetic. Right? And totally not save me $.

Another block
Hmmm I could hop on the bus and have it take me 3 stops. WTF. I’m getting the judgement staredown from the little Chinese grandparents who know the bus systems like the back of their wrinkled hands whereas I, in sweaty desperation hauling nearly 50Lbs of groceries would wind up somewhere in Potrero hill if left to my own devices.

Two more blocks
Would it be really bad to hail down a cab? Oh wait. That’s right. SF has only like 5 cabs in the entire city. And none of them are coming through the richmond.

One more block
I sit outside of burma superstar. A little grandpa strolls past me with his groceries in a lilttle rolly cart. I envy his rolly cart and wonder how far I could get if I knocked him down with a 3 Lb box of butter, steal his cart, and ran.

5 minutes later and still catching my breath on the bench of the burma superstar, I still consider mugging the grandpa and wonder if hitting him with the somen noodles would be better.

One more block and I see a latino gentleman hauling 2 cases of coca-cola, napkins, plates, and takeout boxes (all obviously from the same smart & final that I went to) into a restaurant. He looks at me in pity. He too, has a rolly cart. Bastard.

One block further and I duck into a hardware store. While they sell cheesecloth and make keys for you and whatnot, they have no rolly carts.
Outside, I reconsider soliciting a teenager to carry my groceries again.

I start visualizing the incline of the hill towards my apartment. With the awkwardly carried 50 Lbs of grocery on my gawd.damned.poor.planning.idiotic.environmentally.fucking.committed.ass.

Tears start forming.

The incline, I know, is about 2 degrees. It might as well have been kilamanjaro to an asthmatic at that point. I was going to ahve to sit on a corner and eat all my groceries until it was light enough for me to carry the rest of the way home. Surely I could at least plow through about half the bananas and oranges before I had enough strength to move another 15 feet.

One and a half more blocks I duck into another Chinese all sorts kind of store. The kind that sells vitasoy and butcher knives and batteries and umbrellas and squash and bokchoy roots and dried pork flakes. They sell rolly carts.

And my life is saved.

The cart was $12 and I will forever after use it going up & down the street to the local market.

And damn it, I’m never fucking buying 15 Lbs of rice without my car handy ever again.
Mother of Gawd.

Quite a bit going on though I feel overwhelmingly guilty and resplendant with self-flagellating for succumbing to as much inertia and entropy in my life these days. I’m reminded on why I titled my blog BrainDump so many years ago.

Inertia: Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight ahead, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by forces impressed. (Reference Wikipedia)

Entropy:
1. Symbol S For a closed thermodynamic system, a quantitative measure of the amount of thermal energy not available to do work.
2. A measure of the disorder or randomness in a closed system.
3. A measure of the loss of information in a transmitted message.
4. The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity.
5. Inevitable and
steady deterioration of a system or society.
Reference FreeDictionary

Things on my list of things to do:

Continue Job hunting

Pimp out LapPop for Saturday

WordPress upgrade (I’m on fricking 1.5 yo. Yes, I know crap is broken. I’ll fix it)

Update bio/arts/resume pages on the my website

Learn some basic sound engineering for a cool event on monday titled Ruin, Rubble and Race

Complete Sponsorship proposal for AATC

Work on SoulJump with Kevin

Sell some of the CD’s in my livingroom. Specifically the one that comes from my label! (BTW: I’ll have copies for sale at LapPop for $10) Did you see the review that CDBaby gave us? 5 Stars!

Pick up my prescription from the pharmacy

Swing by the bank

Collect payment for previous contracting work.

Drop off some event posters for some upcoming events at some kewl cafes

Writeup Lap-POP webcontent

Find/confirm the new replacement roommate since the old one is ditching out.

Participate as talent for a short film project re: Digital Lifestyle living

Teeth Bleaching

Coordination of 90% of LapPop event

Register for a few events including the afore mentioned Women 2.0

Try and stay relatively buzzword agnostic

Reading Snowcrash and about half way through it

Weekly visits with my uber cool psychic friend

Update/Revamp my resume

Send said resume to a few leads and update on Monster.com

Outline Corporate sponsorship materials for AATC

Outline information structure for Lap-POP webpage

Submit some writing to Sarah for a couple of projects. (And I really should re-edit and resubmit some of my stuff)

Really get all my laundry done. Like *ALL* of it

My Taxes. Cest Complete. State refund already in the bank.

Purchase and program spare garage door opener for the roommate

Sew up the overdancing hootchie ripping holes in the butt of my most favorite skirt.

Attend a fabulous wedding

Complete a rawfood diet for 10 Days

Keep on top of my netflix queue

Entertain with some outtatowners

Complete OCD – Cleaning up/Renaming & reorganizing my complete mp3 collection(98GB)

Artist – Title (Removing “The” or “A” before artist names like Cure, Lemonheads)

Artist – Live – Title (ie Pixies – Live at Coachella – Here Comes Your Man

Artist – Unplugged – Title (ie 10,000 Maniacs or Alanis acoustic sessions)

Album – Artist – Title (Compilations, Tribute Albums like The Smiths Are Dead, Movie Soundtracks)

Album – Track – Artist – Title (Broadway or sequential movie soundtracks ie Rent – 01 – Original Broadway Cast – Tune up #1)

Other things to take care of.

Sign the DraftMatt.com petition
” There is one person who has the faith and fame among San Francisco voters to defeat the ineffectual incumbent and win this election in November. There is one person who has galvanized the grassroots momentum necessary to beat a big-money candidate in this city. There is one person who can take this city by storm with an effective, inspiring, progressive campaign.

Matt Gonzalez is who we need to take on Nancy Pelosi. Matt Gonzalez has the integrity to actually oppose this war, to actually oppose the roll-back of the Bill of Rights, and to stand up and speak eloquently about why he is doing so. Matt Gonzalez can win this election and begin to shift the entire political discourse in this country. ”

Yup. That’s not too busy.
******************
Non Sequiter
I can change the world. Yes, Me. Perhaps if I’m just doing mindful litle things that don’t seem drama insane, bulky, or tedious to make sure I’m appropriately managing the various levels of conservation and environmental concerns.

* Reduce quantity of toilet paper used every day
* Lower the temp on my fridge/freezer to conserve energy
* Put a brick or stone in the tank of my toilet to reduce water consumption
* Use all my trendy hipster SXSW bags for when I’m going grocery shopping to reduce waste
* Return the unused plastic bags to places like Safeway that credit you for their return/reuce
* Only run the dishwaster & laundry machine/dryer with the fullest & cost effective loads
* Turn off all lights that do *NOT* need to on in the house.
* Reduce consumer waste buy making fewer frivilous purchases and buying products in larger bulk to reduce waste. Ie the 25 lb of rice vs the 1lb bag at the marketp
* Reusing pens & paper as apporopriate for short notes, reminders, etc. in teh household or tokeep a piece in your wlaet for when, you know, you wanna ask somoene for their number…

I figure if I make these v. minor minor changes and continue to eat more healthy, locally grown fresh fruit & vegitables, I will be changing the world. If I’m good, very very good, then perhaps I can add a single beautiful second to our world. What if you and everyone you knew could do something little to stretch the lifetime of your planet by a few seconds?

I love living in SF. I learn about the fact that we can mulch in the city from a good friend.

**********
Nonsequiter II
I’m not sure how it’s possible but in the course of a week I’ve had 3 conversations on Ultraman. Damn.