So, I’m all like IMing the J-dog and stuff, and she’s like - Ashley said that the Ikea catalog came free in the paper, and she didn’t tell us. And I’m all like, “oh no she didn’t!”, and j-dog’s like, “Yeah. Yeah she did.” And, I’m all like, “If that stinky uncreative bitch thinks she’s somehow going to out decorate us, just ‘cause she got the ikea catalog early then she doesn’t know her HGTV from her DIY network. We are the conquerors of compressed particle board! The lords of Lack! The bards of Billy! We are the modern furniture masters!” And j-dog’s like, “Yeah.” Bring your best designs Ashley. We can take totally take your ass!

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Comments

Travis (http://the-holmes.blogspot.com)

2007-08-17T22:01:52.000Z

Wow, what a nice thing to say about my wife you fucking prick.

Ashley

2007-08-17T22:23:07.000Z

I don’t think it went to all the zipcodes. But the next time they do that I can have my mom steal one from a yard for you guys too. And the only way you could possibly out-Ikea us is to replace your daughter with an efficiently designed, flat-packed blonde child. I think everything we own is from those damn swedes! :-)

Tara (http://www.rabid-fraggle.blogspot.com/)

2007-08-19T00:49:44.000Z

Yeah well I’ve got white walls with no photos and one piece of Scandia, so beat that!

Ian’s radio station(a damn fine radio station btw, boy has taste in music) on last.fm turned me onto Jens Lekman. It kind of reminds me of a cross between Morrissey and Stephen Merritt with the questionable language skills of a Scandinavian. I especially like this song.

You Are The Light (by which I travel into this and that)

Also this one for reasons of my wifes name:

Julie

Speaking of Stephen Merritt. Did you hear he’s writing a musical based on Coraline?

I ride the bus with a couple every morning. The both appear to be in their fifties or sixties. The man is tall and reedy. He is mostly vacant when he enters the bus. He often leaves with a long string of spittle hanging from his lips. His wife (I assume) follows him. She looks healthier, but with a short cut afro. She looks as though the idea of thinking about her hair is more than she can take. And she helps her husband on the bus every day, and they get off at the same stop every day.

Today they had to lower the bus for her to get on (we have “kneeling” buses with hydrolics, so the bus can get closer to the curb, and thus be easier to enter).She walked up the aisle slowly. Her husband helping her along. They got off the bus slower, and I saw my fellow bus riders faces as we rode away. Every face was drawn. Had a look of concern. How will they get along if one of them gets sick?

While we may not know them they are our neighbors. They are part of our everyday routine. Their presence enriches our day, and if they weren’t on our bus anymore they would be sorely missed. This is what I don’t miss about commuting. I have no community with the drivers on the road. I may not know the people on the bus, but they are part of my day, and I part of theirs. And I think we’re all the better for it.

I was reading Kelli’s post on her new food blog. One thing that struck out at me is when she says:

I feel guilty when I read about people who do more than I do

But ultimately you can only do what you can do. I find there are so many people who especially when it comes to nutrition or the environment will have someone point out how much more they could be doing, and it just knocks the wind out of their sails and they stop doing anything at all. I feel like this has become a powerful tactic that originated in our political discourse and is now used constantly. We feel if we can knock out one pillar of a persons argument then there is no value to the entire argument, and they give up completely.

Recently a bunch of Global Warming deniers got very excited because they found a lot of errors in NASA’s climate change data. And those errors when corrected did change the overall picture a little bit. The problem is that a lot of people heard, “NASA’s made mistakes so there’s really no global warming”. Which wasn’t the case. It made a difference in overall severity, but not whether the problem existed in the first place. And I feel like our culture has become like that. Anyone trying to do good is a large inflatable balloon just waiting for someone to walk by with a pin.

And so I try to keep plugging along and not get discouraged. And I try to keep an open mind to change. There might not be global warming. It’s certainly possible. But that won’t change the fact that using reusable shopping bags is good whether there’s global warming, cooling, or we get invaded by green men from mars. And sometimes we get discouraged because we forget the bags. And sometimes we use disposable diapers with Stella. But you have to take the long view, and realize that every plastic bag taken is one less plastic bag, and every disposable diaper not used is one less disposable diaper. And just because we haven’t become saints, doesn’t mean we’re no good.

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Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2007-08-16T23:14:03.000Z

Amen, brother!

Ashley

2007-08-17T02:36:28.000Z

I am totally with you on this. When I wish we could eat all organic the fact is that we can’t. So every little bit that we do eat that is organic is just a little less pesticides and hormones for us. That is the way I try to look at it now. I know I can’t control everything in my life and make it green and safe and organic. But what I can change, I do. Some people have been tossing around the quote “those who know better do better” lately and you know, that’s just not true. As if having the knowledge that something is bad can force you to change that behavior. Sorry I’m rambling in your comments but your post really strikes a chord with me. And as far as our culture looking for any excuse to somehow make global warming a lie - well, I think our culture has a hard time accepting reality and an even harder time of admitting complicity.

Travis (http://the-holmes.blogspot.com)

2007-08-17T03:20:44.000Z

Not to get all soundbytey or anything, but the best saying that I’ve ever heard to encapsulate this sentiment was “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I likes it.

kelli (eatingrealfood.blogspot.com)

2007-08-17T05:07:48.000Z

Exactly! I used to get all depressed just like that. I tend to derail easily. That’s why I wanted to put that new blog together- to chronicle the baby steps and help myself reaize that I am in fact doing what I can do a little bit at a time. Even though I sometimes wrap a disposable diaper in a plastic bag.

You know, I’m always dismayed by the quality of my blog posts. With my plays I generally am quite happy with what I write, but I know my blog posts aren’t the most interesting thing on the planet, and that makes me think that perhaps I’m a bad writer.

But I take heart from Neil Gamin’s blog. He’s an exceptional writer, but he doesn’t write Oscar Wilde-esque posts. I’m envious of people who can do that. Who can write succinctly and wow you day after day with their humor, warmth and profundity (Dutch, I’m looking at you). Maybe being a good writer doesn’t mean that I have to be good at writing everything. Maybe I can just get better at writing plays. And still write crap poetry and blog posts.

Anyway, I’ve added a new feature over there on the right - “Interesting From The Web”. It’s stuff I found interesting from my feeds. Lots of good stuff down there. Be sure to check out the Mr. Rogers story.

Got the last Sunstroke 5k of the summer tonight. Really hoping I can do better than I have been. I turned in a torturous 33+ minute 5k yesterday jogging around my parent’s neighborhood. Kate was talking about caloric consumption and trying to eat healthier so I decided to computer how many calories I need in a day. Over 3000. I think I need to start eating more, and making sure I eat a lot before I run.

Living with my parents is going ok. I’ve been cooking for them which they seem to appreciate. The bed is comfortable. There’s air conditioning now, and Stella’s settled back into her old sleep patterns. We took a nice long stroll around the neighborhood which was really nice. With the exception of Roxie, our little old dog, who appears to want to be pulled along on walks. I don’t think she’s going to get invited back again. Still no roads unfortunately…

Watch this space for more information on Little Murders, our next production. Also, Laurie mentions her Bride of Slapdash experience over at the Austinist. Check out our favorite radio DJ!

I think I might have gotten comments working so that you guys having problems can actual hit the submit button. Feel free to email me if it still doesn’t work.

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Comments

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2007-08-10T22:52:23.000Z

Hooray!

kelli (gillysmama.blogspot.com)

2007-08-11T15:17:50.000Z

Most excellent!

So Julie’s already written an article on plastic bags, but I had no clue how bad they really were. Salon has a scary article on it. The Chronicle also has a good comic on this subject (I couldn’t find it online though), about the plastic vs. paper people duking it out.

I nearly had a melt down on Wednesday night, when the clerk insisted on putting our two items in a plastic bag even after I asked her not to. Julie and I had a nice little fight about this. I was having a bad day with the moving and stuff, but it still just gets to me. There are these tiny things we can do to improve the world, and it feels nearly impossible to make them happen. Julie did use the plastic bag for packing material though. And we’ll recycle them when we unpack. So I really shouldn’t have flipped out.

I guess I feel so passionately because it’s an issue in my life that I have control over. An issue that I can easily have a real impact. And there are so many other places where I’m fat and lazy and horribly detrimental to the environment. I feel so powerless when I can’t even have an impact with the small things I try to do.

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Comments

Travis (http://the-holmes.blogspot.com)

2007-08-10T21:02:51.000Z

I’m guessing you’re talking about H.E.B. here. They, or rather the majority of their shoppers, seem to be the late adopters in the bring-your-own-bags game. They sell the canvas bags, sure, but since so few people are showing up with their own bags, it still seems to surprise the easily-distracted teenage baggers. At Sun Harvest, they seem to pretty much expect it. I haven’t been to Whole Foods in a while, but I’m guessing they get a lot of self-bagging customers as well. Buck up man, you’re just an early adopter, a good place to be.

So, I said I wouldn’t talk much about the Baby Einstein thing, but this article brings up a much more disturbing comment:

…when you’re alone with your baby for hours on end, and especially when you haven’t been able to sleep more than three hours withing being woken up in months, sometimes you want to eat a meal or read the newspaper. You need something to occupy the baby, and a Baby Einstein video — which tends to make the babies smile and coo — is better than making them stare at the ceiling for twenty minutes.

I’ve read this sentiment before. First off let me say if you have a baby who is screaming for 2 hours and you’ve had no sleep and you put them in front of a Baby Einstein video - that I can understand. But, babies do not need to watch a Baby Einstein video rather than the ceiling. This is a disturbing trend I see mentioned more and more. The point of this study is that developmentally it is worse to put a kid in front of a Baby Einstein video than having them watch the ceilings. I don’t know what’s on the ceiling, but it fascinates them. Apparently babies learn a lot by doing what we would call “nothing”. I read an article in which a father basically created a TV schedule for his daughter, always turning on the TV for her at all meals. His reasoning was that he didn’t want her to be bored. Which is so frightening, because if there is anything a kid younger than 3 is never, it is bored. I mean, I’ve never tested this, but I have a feeling that Stella would play peek-a-boo with me for 7 or 8 hours straight. I’m the one who gets bored. She’ll keep exercising those brain cells forever. So let the kid stare at the ceiling. It’s good for ‘em.

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Comments

Ashley

2007-08-10T03:11:53.000Z

Dude, you gotta watch the Baby Einstein video that someone gave us. It is down right creepy and weird. I guess it’s the equivalent of watching a fish tank and then a different fish tank then some hand puppets. There is a segment where it just shows those magnetic balls bouncing off of each other; you know the kind you find on an executive’s desk.

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2007-08-10T15:27:31.000Z

Yeah, that’s what truly blows my mind. Someone took a bunch of free or low cost video clips, cobbled them together, and insinuated that it could make your kid smarter. It’s one of the most amazing snake oil swindles of all time.

jooley ann (www.julieholden.com)

2007-08-12T21:31:19.000Z

Well, the guy’s an idiot. He says, “…as far as I can tell, none of these studies show that the videos are bad for kids,” and yet he links directly to an article that is TITLED, “‘Baby Einstein’ stunts vocabulary, study says.” Um. Wouldn’t stunting your baby’s vocabulary be considered harmful…? Also, the scary thing about his comment is that he’s bitching about not getting more than three hours of sleep at a time, which makes me conclude he must be talking about his experience when parenting an *infant*. Most babies get pretty good at sleeping by 4-6 months. Not all of them, I know, but the “every three hours” thing does tend to die down in most babies after the “fourth trimester” when their brains get a little more organized. So…he’s talking about putting, like, a 3-month-old in front of the TV? Good Lord. We plan to keep Johanna away from the TV ‘til she’s three. Longer, of course, if she shows no interest. That’s what’s recommended as ideal, so we’re going with it. That means zero TV time for the next 2 years, 4 months. Honestly, that doesn’t seem at all hard to me. *At all*. And trust me, I am *no* supermom. Sorry to rant. I’m very anti-TV. We only watch after Johanna goes to bed, and then it’s just an hour of something we’ve Tivo’d. The rest of the time, our TV stays off. We’re freaks that way. :)

• New Stella cuteness: She has started wandering around the house with her hands clasped behind her back. This is ridiculously cute, and you want to offer her a pipe to puff on. Well, I do. You might not if you are a responsible adult.

• More studies on ADHD and TV watching. I think I’m going to be like Dutch and try not to editorialize on TV stuff. I don’t want to be the “I don’t watch TV” guy. But the stuff’s scary.

• Sushi does not give you enough energy from heavy exercise. I ate Sushi from HEB for dinner last night, and turned in one of my slowest 5ks ever this morning. I almost broke 33 minutes. This wouldn’t have been so horrible if I could have pushed my legs enough to even get me out of breath.

• We might be reviving “One Was Lost” my Bride of Slapdash piece for Frontera Fest. We’ll see how that goes. I’d love another chance at tuning it up.

• I’m also going to try to write our Spring show and an entry for Sam Bass’ playwriting competition in the next month. This is definitely doable if I can focus. History shows I can’t focus.

• This whole “obesity is contagious” business has got me thinking about how we as a society should view obesity. I think we should tackle it like smoking. We all know smoking is wrong. Our society is decidedly against people smoking, yet somehow he majority of us stay civil when someone is smoking around us (and the non-smokers generally want to pummel the “obnoxious fake cougher” as much as the smokers). I’m not sure how to start with that, but it seems like a fairly successful program that has not left smokers mired in deep depression.

I think that’s it for now.