Better Late Than Never

For a long time now, I've been meaning to give an update of what's been going on in my life.  Unfortunately, as with so many things, the longer one waits on these sorts of tasks, the increasingly daunting they become.  Therefore, I figure the best way is to keep it as short as possible.  So obviously, for me, that means: A LIST!

• I'm still working for Gail at the Hawaii Family Support Institute and Patti at Consuelo Foundation.
• I applied to and was accepted into the UH graduate certificate program for conflict resolution.  I love it.  My last class for it is Community Economic Development, which is fascinating and engaging.
• I've taken Bikram yoga a few times; that's the one in the heated room.  I really like it, but it's expensive, so I take advantage of their 30-day-challenges--I get a discount if I go everyday for 30 days.
• I bought a used (and not so great) car.  It may shortly send me back to the bus.
• I started working with an organization called PHOCUSED.  It's a coalition of health and human service groups advocating for our state's most vulnerable in an effort to give them a much needed voice.  It's keeping me very busy.
• I had a boyfriend (David) for the first few months of the year; it didn't work out, and he moved to the mainland.
• I went back to the Philippines with the Honolulu Rotary club for a few weeks to Baguio.  It felt like a big family reunion.  I wish I could go again this year.
• I've started doing my Shabbat/Unplugged Day again.  That's 24-hours of no phone, TV, or computer starting at 6:30pm on Friday. 
• I'm still thinking about applying to grad schools in the northeast but am no closer to knowing for which program.  Public Policy?
• The biggest news is, of course, that I now have a nephew.  I love him.  I'll not say too much more about him since he has his own blog.   Click here to read it.  It's been so wonderful to have joined Chuck and Krista at the doctors', the infant care class, and now taking care of him.  Becoming an auntie was definitely the best part of last year.

2009 was really great in many ways.  And, after five years being in Hawaii, I'm happy.  After a day at work(s), I look forward to coming home and being with my family.  Weekends spent on the couch watching TV with them don't feel as wasted as they once did.  Maybe that's not the greatest thing, but it sure feels like it is.  It's taken five years, but Hawaii finally feels like home... better late than never.

The Obvious Truth

Upon reading an article about the Great Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex of garbage in the middle of the Pacific, I've become depressed. This plastic soup formed mostly in the last 50 years when plastics became prevalent. We've known about its existence for the past 20 years. It doesn't seem we've been doing a whole lot about it since then. Many scientists agree that the size, consistency, and risk to the living creatures within the vortex prevent clean-up. There are some who disagree and are researching what clean-up will realistically take; but the general consensus: the only thing we can do now is stop it from getting bigger.

So what are we doing in that vein? What major steps are manufacturers, retailers, consumers, and goverments doing? How much longer are we going to continue to just make more and more garbage? When will "disposable" become a curse word? When will we stop making things that will be with us for the next few hundreds or thousands of years?

We do not have the land or water resources to allocate to garbage. We simply have to stop making it. If a product cannot later be reused, recycled, or composted, why is it being made? Why has no one talked about the concept of solid waste elimination? Not reduction--elimination. I concede and understand that such a change could take up to four 4 generations to fully implement (Teldyn will be a great grandad). But why haven't I heard our leaders talking about how to get to that point?

I've heard that 70% of our landfills could be recycled or reused. I don't understand why we aren't doing it. What are we waiting for? Where do we think this crap is going? We know we have no where to put it. We know we're poisoning ourselves, and we keep doing it. I'm at a loss. I'm frustrated and confused. I feel helpless.

Today, on July 20, 2009, 40 years after we first walked on the moon, I wonder how we are dealing with the challenges we now face. Is preserving our planet and life as we know it not enough to inspire us into action? In 1969, scientists collaborated and succeeded in getting us to another world. We were racing towards a bright, new future. Now I fear we're stagnating in swirling garbage. Where is our bright future?

Why Not To Waste Food

Quick note: I'm feeling more like myself than I did when I wrote the "Whatever" post. Thank you to all who asked.

This short (6 min) film is a moving depiction of how the other side lives.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Power of Whatever (indifferent case of logorrhea)

Life-long activist's biggest enemy: apathy. Today, I am the embodiment of that enemy. Fruitless, pointless, lifeless. Not gray or dark, but white. Simple lack. Not negative. Not depressed. Not feeling. Do my homework: fruitless. Reject this life completely and start over: Whatever. Live as a farmer: pointless. Devote life to others Mother Teresa-style: moral masturbation. Seclude myself and become a "monkette": too many rules, goals--too much to reject. Spend life on a beach: boring. Life is what I make of it? Eh. Life is what it is. This.

Not sad, angry, or rejected. I'm the indifferent rejector.

No explanation. No desire to find one or accurately articulate. Amorphous and convoluted: preferable. Words' precision would solidify; thus altering, defining, and shattering. Simple nothingness. No harmony. No peace. No violence. No destruction. Indifferent rejection, simultaneous blanket acceptance. I'm entertained by the backwardness. The opposite-ness to who I am most days. Curious. Interesting. This is the "abnormal" phase. To be overcome. To say "wiser" or "more real" elevates this condition and undoes it.

Sitting in the cushy chair of Starbucks watching passersby thinking they have some place to be or that they're enjoying the day. Aimless. Pointless.

I'm restless, energetic, antsy, passive, directionless. A smile. I'm enjoying my antithetical condition. I know my normal, happy, well-adjusted self would be displeased with my current disposition--in a non-judgemental way, of course.

Whatever. Not trying to rebel or deliberately reject--implies purpose, intent. I'm without.

I'm the anti-Nicole. Nothing pleases. Nothing displeases. Personification of "whatever."

I see bright sunshine, and like the pressed button of a laugh track, I produce a canned response, "the sun's nice." Most days I'd mean it. Today, I'm just glad it's not cloudy. The dreariness would have likely corrupted my non-ness into something gloomy. The sun purifies my apathy.

An observer. Disengaged. Uninvolved.

Should try to snap out of it. Don't care. Kind of like it here. New and different... in it's cliched indifference.

Last night I changed the banner on my phone--a message to see every time I flip open my "communicator"--to something that might spark inspiration or motivation: "why not?" Conversely, today the overwhelming question is "why?"

I search the street for something to engage me. Bright red hair... ! I'll dye my hair, pierce a facial feature, get a tattoo. I'm interested. Piqued. A feeling. Should I? The irony of my "cure" being rebellious, superficial alterations amuses me. Do it to be ironic? No one would get my joke. Who cares if they would. Too much effort. Pointless. I'm over it.

... I'll jump in the Aloha Tower Harbor. I'll walk down the street with no pants. Too much attention. Nothing to rebel against. No statements. No point.

I'm wearing a fuzzy gray Muppet-fur poncho around my neck; it's soft. I like it. Oh, I like something. Over it.

I'm spent. I am aware that my vain attempt to describe my thoughts today has somewhat defiled their purity. Oh well. To any (unfortunate) readers who've happened upon this anomalous entry (read: Mom), please be assured that I'm fine and have probably "recovered" by the time you've finished reading this. (Luckily, my moods are also transient.) I thought the sheer uniqueness of this post added diversity to the normally more poignant blog; thus making it worthy of sharing. However, I am fully aware that it likely came across as nonsensical drivel. And I'm ok with that. Remember? I don't care.