Great Environmental Speeches.

Listed below are the some wonderful people who have given incredibly moving environmental speeches and short films. Click on the links to watch them.

1. Majora Carter, Greening the Ghetto.

Environmental justice goes something like this: no community should be saddled with more environmental burdens and less environmental benefits than any other. 

2. Van Jones, The Economic Injustice of Plastic.

You arrive at a very troubling, but also very helpful insight: in order to trash the planet, you have to trash people. But if you create a world where you don't trash people, you can't trash the planet. 

3. Annie Leonard, 2009 Bioneers Speech, as well as a variety of short environmental films, including the Story of Stuff.

The people who bear the biggest brunt of these toxic chemicals are the factory workers, the majority of whom are women of reproductive age. Now, I ask you, what kind of woman of reproductive age would work in a job exposed to reproductive toxins, except one who had no other option?

4. Charles Moore, Plastic Pollution in the Ocean.

Throwaway plastics take up a lot of space and don't biodegrade. Only we humans make waste that nature can't digest.

Minimalist Adventure: Giving Away Your Expensive Shit.

It's easy to get rid of the things that didn't cost much. And to, you know, feel guilty about tossing the things that did.

That ill-fitting cheap-o sweater practically flew into the Goodwill pile, as did the hand-me-down, fugly overnight bag.

My attempt at getting all minimalist was going fine until I found my Antonio Melani suede high-heeled boots, circa 2006. I had originally bought them to visit a friend in NYC because I wanted to look awesome and posh and definitely *not* like I lived in a redneck college town.

While I felt all sophisticated on the plane, I started to love them less once I actually had to walk for longer than 20 minutes at a time. As in a lot less. As in I wore them for exactly half a day and then buried them deep into my suitcase. They haven't seen sunlight since.

I don't do well in heels. I never have. These boots are probably the last pair I've got, save for the one pair I will only concede and wear to weddings. Heels are one of the few cultural expectations I push back on, societal pressure to look "feminine" be damned.

So, why should I keep those boots, even though I spent $80 on them?

Well, let's see.

Because I spent $80 on them. Because they're cute. Because I finally live in a colder climate in which it actually makes sense to wear them. Um, $80.

I thought about trying to sell them at a consignment shop, but the suede is already peeling off the heel, and I've endured enough bad experiences to know that consignment stores are picky and will ultimately make you feel like a complete frumpy fuck-up for not living up to their re-sell standards.

It's funny how trying to push myself to get rid of expensive things has made me feel so, so guilty. It's basically admitting to failure, because it's forced me to face the fact that I wasn't perceptive enough to predict that I would end up absolutely hating thing X and barely use thing Y. And that sucks.

But, after wearing the boots around the house and determining that yep, I still hate wearing heels, I took about 10 pictures of myself wearing them (which I will spare you of) and then solemnly placed them in the Goodwill bag.

And you know what? After that, it was easier to toss other expensive shit. Like that long skirt I've worn exactly twice and would probably only consider wearing 15 years from now, when it is cool to dress up in a tacky beginning-of-the-century costume for Halloween. Maybe.

So, my lesson? As hard as it is, I must be strong and determine what things I really, really don't use. If it happens to be expensive, remind self again and again why I do not use this expensive shit. Allow self to feel guilty about buying expensive shit in the first place. Convince self that, because I don't use this expensive shit, I don't *need* to keep this expensive shit, because keeping something I don't use for merely the sake of its price tag doesn't make any sense.

Take pictures if necessary. 

The Guilty Environmentalist Diary.

Yep, I'm a guilty environmentalist. Hugging trees while simultaneously wringing my hands of liberal guilt. You don't need to judge me, because I already do. 

I've used paper towels to clean up gross shit in my apartment instead of reaching for a cloth rag. I don't line dry my clothes, don't always remember to bring my mug to the coffee shop, and don't make my own bread. Two months ago, I bought Cinnamon Toast Crunch-like cereal and proceeded to eat four bowls of it for dinner. I know.

Ever the The Awakening (a.k.a. reading this article and then finding Beth Terry's blog), I've done lots of Good Environmentalist Shit, which I will soon compile into a list and then proudly display at some point on this blog in order to feel like a good person. 

But since then, I've also done a lot of bad shit, too. Some of it due to forgetfulness, laziness, and sometimes, even on purpose. I know. 

The thing is, I know that systemic change is what will *really* save the world. That's what Annie Leonard says anyway, and I believe her. But I can't help but fret over the fact that if *I* was really hardcore about saving the world, I'd get off my ass and go to the farmer's market and spend the $6 on local organic strawberries that don't come in plastic and then buy a whole bunch so that when I'm freezing my ass off in January, I can have local, organic, non-plastic encased frozen strawberries and feel sooooo good. 

And by the way, I love talking about what a Good Environmentalist I am. I really do. I could tell you all day about the Good Environmentalist Shit I've done, because I'm really proud of it. 

Now would be a good time to point out I was able to do most of that shit because of my economic and racial privilege. That's right, privilege. Things I take for granted, such as my education, living illness and handicap-free, growing up in a stable home in the first world, not having to take care of anyone except for myself, and being able to pay rent in a nice part of Boston, a city with reliable and efficient public transportation. I will point all of this out again and again, because life isn't as simple as just "choosing." There's a lot of other shit going on, too. More on that later.

So, here's my Guilty Environmentalist Diary. I will feel bad when I did / did not do something and then discuss it. I am not looking for compliments, pity, or for you to justify my action / inaction. I just need a space to vent.

Also, I'm not here to tell you what Good Environmentalist Shit you should be doing. I don't know you or have any idea what your life is like. It's true that I have guilt about lots of environmental shit, and if you do too, discuss, and if you don't, ok. 

I'm just here to do some brooding.  

Fucked Up Situation With Boyfriend's Sister, Part 1.

So, one of the reasons why I wanted to start posting again is because of something in my romantic relationship that I can't quite get over. It's crucial. Like in a relationship deal-breaker kind of way.

Long story short, I have a problem with his relationship with his sister, and this problem has spanned over the entire course of my relationship with the dude. She is someone I would describe as emotionally immature and inappropriately needy of his attention, and long ago it got to the point where I couldn't fully enjoy my relationship with him because of it. We've been together for 3+ years and have moved across the country recently, and although the situation is much better now, I still feel deeply wronged, hurt, and just flat-out angry about it all.

Of course, a story like this needs to be told the long way, so if you're so inclined (and I hope to Dog that someone is, because I really need some advice about this), make yourself some tea and enjoy part one of this fucked up situation.

Fucked Up Situation With Boyfriend's Sister, Part 1.
(Cross-posted from Help Me Harpies: Three's a Crowd with minor changes.)

The sister is one year younger than me (22), and until September, all three of us lived in a small college town. This is the first time I’ve been in a serious relationship, and it’s the same for him. The sister has never had a boyfriend, developed bulimia a few years ago and currently takes medication for depression. She’s been on the upswing for a while, however, and she is very social. Her parents live 5 hours away, she has a pretty good therapist from what I understand, and needless to say she has a wide support network of friends and family. In fact, one of her five roomates that she's known since high school has also experienced an eating disorder.

Their sibling relationship and her individual actions have been a big issue throughout the course of my relationship with the dude. At the beginning, when I only saw him on the weekends, she called him constantly. Like 1 to 3 times a day. Since he worked from his computer (damn lucky programmers), he could go anywhere during the day and used to meet her three or four times a week at Starbucks while she studied. I originally met him at a salsa dance class, and eventually she started coming to class, too. The dude did martial arts, and I became interested and started taking classes. So did she. All three of us began to see each other about every other day, during which she was super clingy around him and exhibited behavior that suggested she was competing with me for his attention. Like coming up and pushing him when he was talking to me, or trying to pair up with him in the salsa class. She would sigh loudly if we displayed couple-ish behavior (which was not very often b/c we’re both really shy, btw). One time, the phone rang three times the hour before salsa class because she wanted to know whether or not he was going. Stuff like that.

As the dude and I got closer, I started to become more aware of all this and inevitably more bothered. She seemed to depend on him for every single thing, big and small, and he happily picked up every phone call. He reinforced her dependency on him and didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. In the beginning, he never saw a conflict between his relationship with his sister and his relationship with me, and he never seemed to be bothered by her competitive behavior in public. It began to feel like the dude was not only my boyfriend, but her stand-in boyfriend as well. (By the way, I mean “stand-in boyfriend” strictly in the emotional sense. I have never suspected anything sexual going on, and believe me, if I did, I would have already been gone.)

When I asked for Harpy Advice on this (see link above), PhDork pointed out that those "you're not important unless your important to a man" messages in our society may explain partly why the sister felt threatened by me, and I totally agree with that observation. I'd never had a serious boyfriend before this relationship, and believe me, I can completely relate to the constant desire for a boyfriend, and even the need for attention from guys that I couldn't/didn't want to date. However, the difference is that most people are mature enough to understand that a person who is not her boyfriend should not be expected to act as such, especially when that person already has a significant other. But, because of her history, and because it was a family member, she acted as if she were entitled to have a boyfriend-like relationship with her brother.

For a whole freaking year I said nothing. I felt guilty because of her circumstances (bulimia, depression), because it’s his SISTER, and because admitting that I felt threatened and bothered by the whole situation made me feel like a huge Jealous Controlling Bitch. I tried hard to befriend her, thinking that if I was super nice and took an interest in her life, she'd warm up and cut it out. But, she didn't. It all became too much and eventually I did start trying to talk to him about it.

Long story short, it’s been a huge fucking struggle. Two years went by with only a handful of conversations that didn't end in a complete emotional meltdown. He didn't see anything wrong with her constant need of attention from him, or with the fact that he encouraged that behavior. For a long time he stood by the notion that our relationship should have absolutely no effect on his relationship with her, which implied that the sibling relationship indisputably came before ours. Over time, however, he stopped picking up her multiple daily phone calls and passively discouraged her competitive behavior in public. He didn't hang out with her as often, and she eventually stopped making comments like “ughhh you guys are so obsessed with each other!” However, initially he made it clear that he was doing it for my benefit only, and not because he actually thought those changes were necessary. It wasn't until the last 4ish months before we moved that I actually felt like we were a team, and that he was truly committed to making our relationship work.

But, even during those last months, little things still did happen, and we still had a huge fight about it once a month, probably, until we moved. I wore me down to the bone, and about six months before the move I started thinking things like right now I would be considering breaking up him if it wasn't for those set-in-stone plans to move. Getting out of that college town served as a proverbial light at the end of the tunnel for me at that time. In hindsight this was probably naive, but I just kept thinking that if we could get the hell out of there, away from her, we would be okay. Other than the whole sister situation, we've had a pretty solid relationship and still don't really have major disputes about anything else. At that time, part of me still wanted to give us a chance. And, even though he'd pretty much acted like a huge asshole about this whole thing for the majority of our relationship, I did have a lot of empathy for him because of the fact that his brother had developed schizophrenia about seven years ago. That was a highly traumatic experience for him, and I can understand the need to protect his sister and do everything he can to ensure that he doesn't lose another family member to a debilitating mental illness. I am very sympathetic. However, that kind of reasoning has also significantly hurt out relationship, and me. It's one thing to care for a family member who is in trouble, but it's definitely another thing to enable the dependency of a family member when she's been out of the trouble zone for quite some time. Am I wrong to think this way?

As the moving date got closer, her passive-aggresive subtle jabs at me became more pronounced, and one night she said, "fuck you!" to me while she was drunk. It's true that I was teasing her, but I had teased her about similar topics before and had never endured that kind of reaction from her. When I later talked to the dude about it, he made excuses for her behavior. That hurt to no end, and it reinforced this fear I had that he would never, truly stick up for me in the face of his family.

We FINALLY moved away and spent a transition month at my mom's house, during which he was going to go on a family vacation to visit his grandparents. Originally I was supposed to join him, but at the last minute I backed out because I couldn't endure another week and a half of her.

The good thing is that we agreed that he needed to talk to her about sibling boundaries and about what is and is not appropriate behavior. I know it was a lot to ask, and I am very grateful that he agreed that it was necessary to say something explicitly to her. In spite of all of the shitty things he's done, this is the one particular thing that gives me the most hope for our relationship. I don't think he ever really touched upon how she acted towards me, but he did make it clear that she needed to give him space in social situations, to not call or text him constantly, and to not do things that are more couple-like than sibling-like, like feed him pieces of food with her fingers (ugh, this particular one made me seriously cringe). From what he said, she didn't put up much of a fight and seemed to take it fairly well. But, because all three of us haven't spent any significant amount of time together since then, who knows.

You'd think that, after a change of scenery and a major confrontation out of the way, I'd feel loads better. In some ways, I absolutely do, but anger from the whole thing still simmers not far below the surface. More on that later.

I bust yo' windows out your car...

Well, not really. I've just had that song stuck in my head from Glee. Yep, I'm one of those people. I've been ordering Season 1 on Netflix via snail mail and the 5th DVD can't get here fast enough.

But I'm not here to talk about my obsession with Glee. At least not too much. As (any?) of you know, I've had this blog for a while. It's true. It's also true that I've been neglecting to post and that I've deleted all of my previous posts except for one. I want to start writing again and I want to start fresh, so instead of obsessing some more about this blog's layout, I've decided to erase all of that unnecessary crap that didn't really reflect anything significant anyway.

As I've said, there's one post I've kept, called "Introducing Myself." It's about anxiety and shame, about self-loathing and about the crushing feeling that I will never be good enough, ever. It's probably the most honest thing I've ever written. I'm kinda proud, actually, because it's hard to be honest, even on an anonymous blog.

Anyway, I have a few goals for this new round of posting. First, I want to document and ponder the efforts I've taken to live more sustainably. Next, I want to document and ponder feminism as it exists in the context of my experiences. But most importantly, this blog will serve as an outlet and hopefully even a place to receive advice for some of my own personal issues.

It's true that this is all self-centered and indulgent, but I am not pretending that this personal blog is anything but that. I'm not writing to solve world problems, or to talk about -isms and lifestyles I don't understand, or to even say anything that profound. My thoughts probably aren't profound at all, really. But they're mine, and I intend to share them, even if it's just with myself in this space. Yep.

Introducing Myself

Today I am tired and on edge and not in the mood to say anything profound.

And so begins the word-vomit in my anonymous blog that is not really meant to entertain anyone.

My name is not underbelly and I've had anxiety for eight years. I do not offer a medical term because I haven't been "officially" diagnosed. I've only admitted that there is something wrong within the past year, with the help of a required public speaking class and feedback from my significant other.

Mental health is a dirty word in my family. We do not talk about personal weaknesses or any other shortcomings not physically obvious. It's too embarrassing to admit insecurity or low self-esteem or anything else that hints weakness.

In high school I was told that it's normal to be stressed or nervous because hey, being a teenager and being awkward are pretty much synonymous, right? And I whole-heartedly agreed. Yeah, I'd tell myself, this is just a phase, no big deal, just something everybody has to endure. What I believed in the most was that eventually, it would go away.

But it didn't.

It's embarrassing to get visibly nervous while ordering coffee. For my lips to quiver when talking to a potential new friend. To stutter and stumble over the two sentences my Spanish professor asks me to read aloud. To have other professors mistake my quietness in class as apathy, or that I only communicate through e-mail as laziness.

Let's talk about that public speaking class required by my major. That I, as a 3rd-year, was more visibly nervous in front of 20-something people than the only freshman in the class. That I didn't improve as the semester progressed like my peers, that my TA initially gave me Cs on my speeches because she thought I wasn't coming prepared. Until one day, I forced myself to stay after class and practice my next speech in front of her, still stuttering and bumbling and wishing I could disappear. She then started writing Smile! Be Confident! You're doing a great job! on my speech reviews, which were probably written with good intentions, but nevertheless seemed so insensitive and condescending.

And then there were all the other people in my class. When it was my turn at the podium, some would stare intently at their fingernails or at the fascinating blank blackboard behind me, as if it were too embarrassing to watch someone like me. A few brave souls would offer looks of encouragement and slowly nod their heads, trying to give me strength through their pleading eyes. Yet regardless of what they did, I still felt like running to the bathroom and crying out my shame.

With a slight push from my partner I went to the mental health clinic at my university a few weeks ago. After two sessions with a "professional," I have decided to not go back.

Oh, I don't think you're that bad.

Can you answer these same exact basic questions I asked you the first time?

Maybe you're just one of those people who should avoid social interaction.

Yeah, I understand anxiety is not as "bad" as other disorders. That because of my resources and my privilege, I am lucky to even have access to mental health services in the first place.

But stop fucking telling me that it's no big deal. People throw around the words "stress" and "anxiety" as if it's no more debilitating than the common cold. Stop it. This isn't some "phase" that will somehow pass if I study more or pray harder or take some vitamin C. I keep waiting and waiting for that day to come when I'm not scared to raise my hand in class, when I'm not stressed when interacting with people I don't know very well, when I can go to bed and not wake up in the middle of the night with my mind racing. I don't want to be antisocial or have to ponder the joining the workforce? vs. going to grad school? debate based on the number of interviews each would require.

Rant end. Maybe I'll elaborate some other time.