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10 pounds down 32 pounds to go!

Friday, January 18, 2008

Deadpan

Did you know that Maine is the most treed state in the U.S.? We're 89% trees! We're pine fresh all over. A little bit of hemlock too. I know that because it seems that hemlock trees are very heavy and it was hard work for Matt and the fam to cut them down and, you know, build a house out of them. I think I had a stronger knee jerk reaction to someone suggesting that I don't care about trees, a powerful renewable resource, than if someone had written "fat bitch" as a comment. I think one could reasonably glean from one post or another that I am in fact fat, and probably a bitch too. I don't think it's reasonable to read one post and make assumptions about my life. It happens all the time and I try not to get too upset about it because I don't have to be here, it's my choice, but I don't think it's reasonable to read two lines of someones site and make a judgement.

Apparently my triggers are money and the environment and that one time about the free range chickens. I think I talk too much about our green tendencies for what is ostensibly a weight loss blog but apparently it's not enough. I think how we live and the decisions we make every day, our priorities, are important for whole health. I don't see the point of making myself healthy and the earth sick at the same time, but I accept that I can't change other people. I don't see the value in buying organic produce at a farmer's market and stopping for a pseudo-sweetened skinny coffee drink from Starbucks on the way home, but if that's how someone else gets through their day what is it to me? It's snowing here today, which means that I will drive home behind 42 SUV's all afraid to hit 30 mph. Do I see the point of buying an SUV to drive like a scared-y pants grandma in a storm...or even say on a perfectly dry road? No! but I just pass them and get on with my day, however bitterly I write about it on my blog.

I really do think it's a shame that more people don't do the little things they could to keep our environment healthy. I think it's more of a shame that people who do try where they can get their asses handed to them by "real" environmentalists. I don't think you get the best out of anyone by focusing on their flaws, real or perceived. I think it's more beneficial to support the positive until it overwhelms the negative into success. And since this whole paragraph, and blog, are dedicated to what I think...I think you have never lived with the fear of your well running dry in a drought. I think you don't know the first thing about trees, or logging. I think you probably believe loggers are evil and deserve to be maimed by spikes hidden in trees by environmentalists for the meager offense of doing their jobs. I think you didn't know what a mistake it would be to suggest that a stranger was a fool to save hundreds of gallons of water on dishes for a few degradable paper plates, the decomposition of which feed the soil where, gasp! other trees grow! A stranger who happens to manage a forest. But, whatever, I hope telling me off made you feel better. The next time we cut down a tree, for fun or profit, I'll think of you!

8 comments:

pinky pinkerson said...

we are having the worst drought in over 20 years, here - last night we went out to eat and were served soup in plastic bowls. I don't really approve of eating out of hot plastic, but if it saves water, it saves water.

(I actually was eating my soup out of a bread bowl, which I then ate. And then realized I just ate a small loaf of bread all by myself)

(when you are 8.5 months pregnant, if you eat a small loaf of bread all by yourself, you are FULL as if you had just consumed an entire roman feast of yore)

MayQueen said...

I just had flashbacks to that semester in college when we had to eat off disposable plates for like two months because of the water ban and they kept talking about how we were going to have to have water trucked in to the city because our supply was almost gone.

I think that a lot of people of our generation were indoctrinated with environmental extremism at an early age - that whole "every tree is sacred" thing, to paraphrase, that cutting down a tree for any reason is an act of evil against nature. I have nothing insightful to add to that observation.

Also, along with being an enviro-terrorist, you're very inconsiderate to people with diabetes, but that's a couple years and whole 'nother blog ago.

Amy said...

"roman feast of yore" is my favorite phrase ever. Those bread bowls are deceptively huge and what do you suppose they do with the insides? The squishy is my favorite part. I would love to be the underground railroad for bread bowl innards, North to freedom for Boules everywhere!

I never did figure out how my concern that I ate too much sugar was inconsiderate to the diabetics of America, nay the world. It's really very unfair, that comment, because at my house I'm the one that says "do we have to cut all these trees to widen the garden?" and Matt says "well, if we want, you know, sunlight to grace the tomatoes then yes". It's all relative.

Rebecca said...

GOD....i knew you were evil! =)

ok, i admit...i kill trees and waste water.

oh, but i do clean my plate because there ARE starving kids in Africa!

Amy said...

rebecca, you crack me up.

Lauren said...

my parents house is made of trees. That's all I've got.

Shannon said...

Good Lord! Trees, yes we should not be cutting down old growth forests to make bathroom tissue,however shouldn't people be slightly more concerned about things like...um...I dunno...oil, pollution, garbage dumps that keep growing?

I think it's interesting that 'Janine' hasn't been back to defend her bullshit comment. Poor Janine, expressing an 'opinion' and then not sticking around to fight for it. Sad! ;)

Amy said...

Obviously I totally over-reacted but seriously, I wrote about the drought at the time and what are you supposed to do when the well is dry, cook a seven course meal and serve it on porcelain to save trees!