My Oh My, How Things Have Changed

At last update, I had just been fired, denied unemployment, was seeing my therapist twice a week, and was generally miserable, terrified, embarrassed and ashamed about not having any money, and feeling very uncomfortable with the unknown. The quick and dirty update is this:

1. In April I started working at the Gap Outlet in the Park City Outlet Mall. I barely made any money, but managed to do ok. The employee discount was great, my wardrobe got some great updates on the cheap, I made some good friends, and gained some great experience. It is hard to make money while (as a friend of my roommate Amie's would say) "swimming in the river of desire".

2. Every time it came up this summer that I wouldn't be attending Burning Man this year, I would answer my friends questions with: "I need a money miracle in order to make it happen". I was imagining something like a helicopter flying overhead and accidentally losing $1 Million just as I was taking the dogs for a walk. Or that a cushy corporate job would fall into my lap despite my minimal effort to find a corporate job.

3. Doug came home from work one week (Aspen Achievement Academy) and told me that his employer's sister company, the Aspen Ranch had an Equine Therapy program that I might be interested in. I tucked the information away in the back of my mind.

4. Sometime in early August, on a whim, I called the Aspen Ranch's 800# to ask if there were any jobs. The HR Director told me there were two or three openings that hadn't even been posted yet. What he described made me feel really excited. Within a week I had put together a resume and cover-letter. I filled out their application and sent it by fax. A week later they asked me for an interview. I went in on the first Monday of Burning Man. By Wednesday they had offered me a position. I accepted on Thursday.

This weekend, Doug and I moved to Loa, UT. It is a teeeeeny, tiiiiiny, little town in Southern Utah. Most of the National Parks in Southern Utah are within a 100 miles or so of us. The closest shopping (outside of one little grocery store and a few tourist attractions between Torrey, Teasdale, Bicknell, and Loa) is in Richfield 45 minutes away. We're about 3 hours from Saint George and Provo. That freaks me out a little bit.

I start my new job tomorrow!!!

For now, most of our stuff is sitting in a storage unit and we are staying in a private bedroom in a house that is shared (usually) by many Aspen Achievement Academy staff members. We are looking for our own house where we can take in a friend's cat, get our own dog, and have a bedroom for Doug's little boy. Hopefully this will happen before the 1st of October.

Fear and Doubt

I saw my therapist twice last week, I'll see her twice this week, and I'll continue seeing her twice a week until I know what to do - this was her idea. When my therapist asks me to come back a second time in any given week my usual response is to feel like I'm really in trouble - if my SHRINK is that worried, so should I be. This time, I am unafraid and incredibly grateful that I didn't lose my insurance with this job. This feels like crisis.

I suddenly have nothing but time - my room is in immaculate condition for perhaps the first time since I moved in a year ago. I'm getting enough sleep. I don't feel bad about staying up too late and sleeping into the afternoon, though I am a morning person and I miss the sunlight that comes with dawn. I'm reading books written by people who have perspectives on the world that I want to share with them - about body image, self discovery, becoming comfortable with fear, negotiating life "When Things Fall Apart". I am journaling differently, spending time in the kitchen differently, etc. etc. etc. Washing dishes no longer feels like a waste of the only time I have for myself. I am relaxed and energized. I'm also learning that for the last several years I have been living my life as someone I don't know. I've been myself only in fits and starts, every few weekends or so. How did this happen?

As per usual, when questions like this come into my life and mind it opens a floodgate, and now that I have time to examine every piece of debris that rushes upon me, I'm learning and learning and learning over again that I am pieces of who I thought I was and who I want to be.

I want freedom of expression.

I want freedom to explore myself until I "get it" and then help other people "get it".

I want not to need any money. I don't want to work, and if I have to work I don't want to work in an environment that I will feel trapped in. I was just set free! I want to stay free.

I've started to question events of my childhood again, wondering how they impacted the adult I am today. No longer from a place of blame, but from a place of genuine inquiry. I know that my parents did the best they could with what they had and what they knew, which is not an accusation or an excuse. I think that many things were handled very poorly. My memories can be placed into very few categories - alone/with sierra/with friends and as a behavioral problem (you are not being obedient, why are your grades bad you can do so much better, you are the big sister you know better, I expect more of you). I do have memories of enjoying myself with my parents - making pots with dad, riding horses with mom, but they aren't as many as feeling like I wasn't good enough.

I know now that having clothes to wear, food to eat, a bed to sleep in, a yard and toys to play with are indicators of being loved and well cared for by my parents, but I didn't know that as a kid. I felt like a problem much of the time.

Perhaps one of the reasons I speak so freely without thinking of the implications or consequences; the reason I become so insistent about my thoughts and feelings; the reason I get so indignant when people get angry or frustrated with me; the reason I feel unsure about HOW to express myself creatively with my clothing, etc. is because I didn't have a voice as a child:

Nobody listened to me when Sierra picked a fight to get me in trouble for instance - and many of the things I didn't have words for got me in more trouble or hurt people around me.

I struggled with homework as a kid and when my mom sat down to help me with math, she would solve the problems the way she knew how - if it was different than my teacher did it, I got more and more confused and then angry - then she'd get so frustrated with my anger that she'd give up, telling me to figure it out myself if I didn't want her help.

I wondered if anybody even liked me.

Now I wonder if my assessments in hindsight are valid or not. Did I injure myself as a teenager because watching a physical manifestation of pain heal meant that I didn't have to feel the emotional anguish? Was I attention seeking? Aware that hurting myself would freak people out? Was I hoping that they would come to my room and hold me and let me cry and tell me they loved me no matter what? I think it was all of these things, and it didn't work.

I know now that they loved me, I don't think I knew how much they loved me.

Now I am up against a wall - I didn't have a back-up plan. My plan now is to resolve some of the financial nightmare I'm experiencing so that if I choose to take a sabbatical sometime in the future, I will have savings to depend upon.

Without Further Ado . . .

A new beginning!

I always have mixed feelings about new beginnings time. This beginning comes with: anger, happiness, fear, anxiety, optimism, hope, freedom, sadness, and especially relief.

I lost my job on Tuesday (3/9/10) because of some bad judgment calls which brought to light many little things that weren't so good about how I was doing my job. I understand that the choices made, were in the best interests of the company and business - especially in the current economic climate. My heart wasn't in it which made me a bad fit.

I am amazed at how many people have come out of the wood work to tell me how much they appreciated, respected, loved, and cared about me and how much they were going to miss me. I'm a little surprised about who hasn't contacted me, but I'm not invested in it. Part of me can't believe I didn't see all that love and friendship until now. I was pretty caught up in what was immediately obvious to me. For instance, the members of my department and I were not really friends outside of the office, though some of them were friends with each other. I usually felt left out and unaccepted. I have other bits of experience that hurt me very deeply, however it is not worth my energy to re-hash here.

I have hated that job for such a long time, saying things like: "it sucks out my soul". I'm glad that I no longer have to make any decisions about my employment there. I have some regret though. Like, the way my actions made my boss feel. I hope that one day we can both understand each other's point of view surrounding my termination. I really respect and admire her despite recent evidence to the contrary.

Now? I am kind of freaking out - wondering what exactly I am going to do. I don't think I will qualify for unemployment, and I don't think I can afford to be out of work much more than 3 - 4 weeks. I have no savings, and no credit, and no back-up plan. My boyfriend is also not working, collecting unemployment, and an occasional bit of extra money for odd jobs. I have a lot of safety nets between here and destitution - friends, family, etc. So I am not afraid, I'm just not sure what I will do next.

I've been daydreaming of making lattes in a coffee shop I love and going to school full-time. I'm excited for my life to change. My education has definitely taken a back-seat while I worked for this company. The work was incredibly demanding of my mental capacity - my days were spent in a constant critical think/problem solving mode and I had very little energy for school work.

This feels like the chance to make my education my first priority. If I can get it to work financially, that would be simply beautiful. I have a pretty solid idea of what I'd like to do with my life and the schooling will be very intensive. I can finish my undergrad in two semesters if I can go to school full-time (maybe three if I have to take more than two math classes). Perhaps I could get my BA in two years if I can do it full-time. I have my heart and mind set on a Ph.D.

I am also registered to participate in the Landmark Forum near the end of May - I committed to change my life and less than a week later I was canned from a job that I hated. I can't help but believe there is a higher power involved.

Doug thinks it was my Essential Self (as Martha Beck would call it) that kept me in bed last Wednesday. I think he's really on to something.

If I could just stay in touch with the path -

We're getting dangerously close to December again . . .

Last december I had some tremendous break-throughs; you probably remember the lists of things I wanted to do and be and have. You probably remember 'justification for inaction' and my desire for bathtub products that make the body smell like birthday cake.

Here I am . . . winter coming soon, and while all of those goals and feelings still resonate - still belong to me, I don't feel like that girl right now.

In May while I was in Seattle on my business trip, Doug was saying really sweet things to me. I was so excited to get back home to see him. The details are fuzzy now, but we have been inseparable since I got home. It feels so comfortable to be in a serious committed relationship with him and I have never been more sure of anything in my life than I am of my relationship.

I don't have a lot of experience in relationships with good men, but I'm struggling a little. I don't want to be anywhere but where he is. I go to work, I meet up with Doug, we stay at his house or go to mine, we make fabulous dinners, and then we go to bed together. It is absolutely blissful. Now is find the balance time . . . Since May, I don't write, I don't sew, I don't make hair fascinators, I don't see my friends regularly.

I went to Burning Man again this year and spent most of the week heart broken because Doug wasn't with me. My friends did their very best to pull me out of the shell, but I felt disoriented and mostly refused. I spent almost the entire burn in camp. I had a great time when I did go out with my friends, but I did not take full advantage of the opportunity given. No catharsis. I learned that I don't want to figure out my life without Doug.

It fills my heart to the brim when I think that I have found the right partner for my life. I feel so secure and safe, so delighted, so loved.

But the path??? It's obscured by the gooey, gooey love among other things. We are too busy making eyes at one another to look at much else.

The other things are the same impulse control issues I've always had . . . though now they are easier to identify. Margo says that I need to put my priorities in order and make all my decisions in accordance with those priorities. She's right, and this is how to get back on the path.

It feels like they haven't changed much:

Better money management so I can get out of debt . . . this would give me the freedom to pick up and move away from SLC if the opportunity were to arise. Doug and I both want to live closer to his little boy in Colorado Springs.

Better relationship with food and my compulsions toward eating . . . would improve my self-esteem immediately. It would help me get healthy, lose weight, be more active. I want to learn to rock climb, I want to spend my summer on the river, in the mountains, and in the desert. I want more energy, more stamina, more endurance.

Better time management would help me be a more successful student and employee.

I feel like it has to do with discipline . . . something I've never had much of.

I don't want to be a victim of my own lack of impulse control anymore.

No rest for the wicked

I landed in Seattle at about 1:00 PM today. By 2:00 my clothes were up in the closet. By 3:00 I was headed out to get on a bus and go downtown, feeling like I was going to take this town on all by myself . . . . I didn't need anyone to show me around.

Yenn helped me work out a bus route - then the bell boy sent me in the wrong direction. I walked 20 minutes one way before I realized I was in the wrong place. I almost called a cab to come rescue me. When I got back to the hotel, I spoke with the concierge who pointed me in a better direction, but when I got to the bus stop I realized I only had a $5 and needed to break it into smaller bills. By that time it was 4:30 or so. I'd had coffee to drink and not eaten all day. Yenn and I were working out how I'd get back on the same route when the dead battery beep sounded off on my cell phone.

That was how I ended up ordering room service. It wouldn't be an adventure without wrong turns, but part of me blames the bell boy for giving me bad directions to the address I gave him. I wish that I was someone who could take it in stride. I wanted to feel totally independent and instead I feel like I failed.

I got hung up on wishing that when I booked my flight several months ago, I had advertised to my friends that I was coming out here . . . It would be nice to have someone to spend my evenings with, and Yenn would have most likely been able to.

Thing that's bothering me the most is that independence thing: Just a few days ago I was in a canoe that flipped over in the Colorado River. It absolutely terrified me, but I got myself out of the water without any help. It felt amazing! 

I wanted that feeling back. 

To beginnings, as well as to the end

My last day of class was yesterday. I am relieved about all the pressure that has been lifted suddenly (though I am still finishing up an essay and have one more assignment to post - both of these things are enjoyable for me). 

I've decided to take a 6 month hiatus from school.  This decision feels good, but it also makes me slightly nervous. I know I will go back for more; having the degree is too important to me not to go. I also know it doesn't matter how long it takes. I'm only 23 years old, I have the rest of my life to learn, but the critic is whispering that even though it feels good, it's bad.  It's not good enough, it's what quitters do. I'm a fool for giving up - I should stay in school until I get good at it. 

She also tells me that I won't actually do the writing that I want to do for myself over the next several months - she's setting me up to feel guilty for something new. My life wouldn't seem to be complete without overwhelming guilt about something.

My compulsions have their own compulsions and if left unsupervised, I'm likely to eat the entire house down, so I'm packing up my stuff and heading to Goblin Valley with some of my people. I hope the time away will help me figure what I'm actually eating, because it's not just a bag of potato chips.

The interesting thing is that this doesn't feel like the pit. It feels like I'm on the surface and a storm is raging on over my head. I've been really angry on and off for the last few days. Angry about food, angry about my childhood,  angry. It's kind of nice to not be sad anymore. I feel like in my life I've been served some emotional injustices and I'm SO GLAD to see that they weren't my fault.

Sin Nombre

Aside from being a stunning directorial debut with incredible shots, beautiful lighting, and amazing scenery. . . this film is perhaps one of the most beautiful I've seen this year.

I want everyone to see it. I want everyone to know that during this film, my only feeling was to take these people home, give them my shower, a home cooked meal, clean clothes, and a comfortable, warm bed to sleep in.

I hope that American's can stop treating immigration like an 'issue' and start thinking about humans.

P.S. Never to eat dairy products again.

Two weekends ago I cheated my diet and had some cheesecake. Within a matter of hours there was a new zit on my chin.

On Saturday, I had some Creme Brule and got four new zits.

Monday I had a white chocolate chip and cranberry cookie - massive break out. 

My body feels different than it did before all of this. All over my body, my skin is more oily, and my bowels have been different too.

I can't have milk, or cheese, or cream of something soup or sauce because my body doesn't like it. It kind of bums me out. No milk chocolate, no sour cream, no yogurt, no ice cream, no butter. Fortunately there are about 10 billion products that are made of soy milk  and I happen to really like soy products. 

 The good thing though is that I finally understand the cause of my acne. I'm learning to be very assertive. I'm learning how not to give into every food craving. 

Rubbed Raw - and plans for Happiness is a Journey

There is a little bump inside my lower lip - it wont heal. Every time I forget about it, I eat something and bite the ever living shit out of it over and over again.

It reminds me of my emotional state. Most of the time I am such a cheerful and delighted person. Every once in a while, when I don't see it coming, this dark feeling jumps out from a hidden place and the wind is knocked out of me when I hit the ground beneath its weight.

I am gearing up to start my blog project. Happiness is a Journey is a writing project to continue my self discovery and growth. I want to learn what I can from the experts about the topics that impact my self-esteem. There are several goals that come along with it, but my intentions are to reach a better understanding of who I am, and to reach other women who feel similarly - I want them to know we arent' alone.

My goals are:

1. Establish a daily writing practice. Take Sallie's advice and instead of self-handicapping, start with goals that aren't going to stress me out. - I want to write for no less than half an hour every day (anything more is a bonus). I will start on Sunday May 3.
2. I want to really learn what I read and apply it to my life. This goal is why I want to read a small pile of books to supplement my blog project. There are several of them so I am recognizing the need to give myself a schedule, but also some flexibility. (books to start with: When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane R. Hirschmann, When Food is Love by Geneen Roth, and Mindfull Eating: Jan Chozen Bays)

The part that is still in its conceptual stages is how big I want this project to be and how exactly I want to put it into the blog. I want a disciplined writing practice and I have an idea of what my best processes are:

Free associate to get notes about my thoughts and feelings, use
them to narrow it down, create a draft, edit twice or three times and
publish.

I want this project to be beautifully written. I want to cite my research materials, any images I use, etc. I don't want it to be academic style essays or research papers because of the very, very personal subject matter - I want to focus on my feelings, remembered events, the research I've done, and my thoughts on the research. There are still a lot of things to decide on.

I want to be done before Burning Man (the first week of September), but I wont know until I have made a few more decisions if that's something I can really do. My summer will be busy and fun and a great deal of the motivation behind this project is to relieve myself of academic pressure. I think it will be more realistic to give myself until January.

The Critical Decisions

The amethyst I've worn for years, the one that belonged to my mother before me, fell out of the setting sometime after leaving Alchemy Coffee and sitting down on my living room floor on Wednesday night. This was after the intense therapy session where I realized that the real fear behind 'not being good enough' is about not being loved.

Amethyst is the stone for crown chakra, it brings enlightenment. When I realized the one I wear most often was gone, my emotions surprised me a little. I am unattached to that stone. If it turns up I'll be glad, but I believe that it was carrying around some serious intensity. I feel like that stone fell out of the setting for a reason, if it doesn't come back to me that will be ok too.

Now is time once again to make some pretty serious decisions about my life. I have put myself under so much pressure for so long and I'm feeling like I have direction, but it is no longer the direction I thought I was going. I want the degrees, but I don't feel incredibly urgent about it. I would rather spend some time practicing discipline, reading the books I've been sitting on for a while - Will I ever be Good Enough?, Mindful Eating, When Women Stop Hating their Bodies

One of my favorite English teachers, Mary-Jayne Davis, told me she offers a class called English 1900. It's a free-for-all, structured class in which I pick my own projects and she helps and consults and guides me through them. I didn't see the class online so I'll have to ask, but if I take any classes at all this summer, that will be the one.

My intentions when I created "Happiness is a Journey" was to become a better writer by setting up some parameters where there would be an audience. I've strayed away from it a little bit and considered deleting some of those entries, but I see no reason to do so because of my second intention: To be genuine with the people in my life. 

Very few people know this blog exists, and many of them are relatives who will remember me as the sweet little daughter of their eldest brother. A faithful church goer, a nurturer of the little cousins, smart for her age and sometimes very bratty. One of my fears is that when they learn that I don't believe in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they won't love me anymore. I'm afraid that they won't like the niece with the tattoos, who cusses like a sailor, loves a good glass of wine, and top shelf vodka. The niece who goes out dancing till all hours of the night, who experiments in psychedelics, and wants to learn about Tantric sex. I'm afraid they will judge me (which I know is insecurity speaking). I'm afraid they will worry about me and put me on temple prayer lists. I'm afraid that these things will break the hearts of my grandparents because it means I wont go to the heaven they believe. These feelings bring a lot of guilt. 

But I will not relocate my writing. I will not hide who I am. 

When Spring semester is over, I am going to begin a new project. I want "Happiness is a Journey" to be a raw, honest, vulnerable, and intense piece of artwork about my journey of self discovery. I want to learn to love food, love my body, and live my life believing in abundance instead of scarcity. I'm going to read, research, and write about body image. I'm going to have Sallie take photographs of my body and I am going to publish them here. 

I am a good and beautiful human being and I trust that my family will not love me any less for naked pictures on the internet. 

It breaks my heart

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I found out in therapy today that I've been carrying around a belief that if I'm not self-sufficient, if I'm not totally independent people won't be proud of me, and if that's the case then I really am not good enough.

When Margo asked me what it means not to be good enough - the answer that came to mind dropped me to my knees -

No one will love me.

Have I really been walking around believing that I'm not good enough to be loved?

Dark and Twisty

I have an appointment to see Margo tomorrow after work. I don't know if I should tell her that roughly every third day, I eat an entire bag of potato chips in my car. Sometimes in one sitting, sometimes in two, or four . . . but never where I can be witnessed.

Amie says it's cute that I love my potato chips so much.
I think, at least I've decided I can't resist Kettle Chips - all the spices can be found in the grocery store and Kettle doesn't use hydrogenated oils.
Amie said that being observed would break the spell - I agree.
The weekend before last, she and I had make stuff day at home. I ate the chips in front of my friends. It felt good to be observed, but I still felt full of guilt and shame.

That's the thing - The chips seem like something that I'm doing to make myself feel better, but it doesn't work.

I stopped at the grocery store after work today to get some, and they didn't have what I wanted so I got something else. The need for exactly the ones I wanted lead me to a second grocery store on my way to a friend's card making class.

If I tell Margo about this, she's going to start asking questions and I will have to explain that my avoidance technique isn't working.

I don't want to be in school.
I feel like a total and utter failure.
I'm several assignments behind and not learning enough to feel comfortable taking the tests or giving the presentations.
I want to drop out of this semester all together.
I think I'm self sabotaging.here

I can't tell if this feeling like I'm a fraud, a fake, not actually intelligent, not actually a writer, not actually good at my job . . . is real. Or if I feel like I'm not good enough because yet again, I'm not committed.

There isn't enough time in my life for me. I want to write every day, I want to spend time with the people I love, I want to get a decent night's sleep every night. So do I feel all this guilt, and all this shame because I procrastinate? Or is it because the pressure I feel is real?

Spontaneous Combustion

14 Credit hours might be too much . . . or maybe it's that I'm not committed to writing right now. It's all I want to do, I am still browsing all the empty journals who beg and thirst and hunger for words to be dribbled and glazed, poured, spattered, and splashed onto their page and I long to do it.

But I don't want to write a position paper, I don't want to write academic essays, I don't even want to write the journals for my Women's Studies course even though they are delicious and delightful and have the potential to be the kind of writing I love to do.

I am ilinspired.I am exhausted and overwhelmed and I know I am capable of working full time and going to school full time . . . I keep wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew . . . but that doesn't seem real because I'm not putting in the time!

How can I have taken on too much if I don't even do what I can?

I can't even tell what's real and what isn't anymore.

And to add insult to injury - self repairing plastic

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/airplane-heal-t.html

Works Cited - Plastic Ocean

Works Cited
Algalita Marine Research Foundation 10 Dec 2008, 02 Feb 2009
http://www.algalita.org

Casey, Susan “Our Oceans Are Turning Into Plastic” Best Life Magazine 05 Feb. 2009
http://www.bestlife.co.za/articles/health_and_fitness/52

Greenpeace “Ocean plastic pollution and how you can help” 30 Oct 2006, 02 Feb 2009 http://oceans.greenpeace.org/en/the-expedition/news/trashing-our-oceans

Moore, Captain Charles “Navigating the Pacific’s ‘Garbage Patch.’” Interview. All Things Considered. NPR. 28 Oct 2007 Interviewer Unknown. Personal Interview. 02 Feb 2009.


Moore, Captain Charles. “Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean, plastics, plastics, everywhere” Natural History Magazine 02 Feb 2009. http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/1103/1103_feature.html

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 6 Nov 2008. 02 Feb 2009
http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/plastics.htm


VBS.TV. 02 Feb 2009 http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505#Scene_1

The images from my report in order of appearance

Plastic Ocean - Report, Intermediate Writing

Trieste Palmer
Briggs
English 2010
Thursday, February 12, 2009

You’ve probably heard the term ‘plastic ocean’ and you’ve probably heard that it’s ‘serious’, ‘the size of Texas’, ‘twice the size of Texas’. Do you believe it? More importantly, can you do something about it?
The first time I heard about the Pacific Gyre in 2006, I imagined soda bottle caps, Barbie shoes, plastic forks, cups, and plastic grocery sacks. I wondered why it sounded so serious, couldn’t we just get out there and clean it up? I started to do some research and found an article about a man named Captain Charles Moore and that led me to a 12 part video called Toxic Garbage Island on VBS TV’s website.

Picture: Animated map showing the journey garbage takes from the beaches to the gyres of the ocean. From Greenpeace 30 Oct 2006,
All the things I had imagined are present, but the problem was much bigger and more difficult to solve than I had realized. I also began to wonder why I had never heard of this before.
So What is The Problem?
Charles Moore is the man who discovered the ‘plastic ocean’ in 1997 when he decided to sail a less traveled route from Hawaii to Los Angeles, CA. He was interviewed by NPR for a show called All Things Considered on October 28, 2007 and it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know: “Why can’t you just sort of sweep through, scoop it up, and get rid of it?” (Interviewer’s name Unknown) His answer is alarming:

If the entire Continental United States had a million plastic particles per square mile, how would you propose to remove that from the entire surface area of the United States? Now, imagine a medium in which, not only would you have to remove it from the surface like you would if it was on land, but where our trawls indicate it’s prevalent down to over 100 feet.

The sheer size of the mess is only half of the problem. Plastic is made up of monomers, a molecule that can be combined with other molecules that form a polymer. Polymers can be found in things like diamonds, and graphite as well as silly putty and foods that contain complex carbohydrates like starch and cellulose. At the molecular level, a polymer looks like a string of beads.
To make plastic, various polymers are broken back down to monomers using a heat process; the recombination of various monomers make-up the different types of plastic. You could say that these polymers are no longer ‘natural’.

Types of Plastics
HDPE High-density polyethylene (i.e., milk jugs)
LDPE Low-density polyethylene
LLDPE Linear low-density polyethylene
PET Polyethylene terephthalate (i.e., soda bottles)
PP Polypropylene (i.e., long underwear)
PS Polystyrene (i.e., packaging "peanuts")
PVC Polyvinyl chloride (i.e., pipes)

Table from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 6 Nov 2008. 02 Feb 2009


Plastic has changed nearly every aspect of the way human beings live. Its relative indestructibility makes it the perfect way to transport food, beverages, and innumerable other products. It is the same indestructibility that creates the major part of the problem. There are few if any organisms that can actually digest, that is to say, destroy plastic; most of it is broken down into its most basic polymers by ultraviolet radiation and solar heat in a process called photodegredation. These polymers make up the bulk of the plastic that has contaminated the ocean.

No one can say with certainty how long plastics will last in the environment. We will just have to wait and see. The first synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was invented in 1907. Pieces of Bakelite are still structurally sound after more than a century. Our best guess is that, like diamonds, plastic is forever. – Algalita.com FAQ

It seems like we are presented with an unsolvable dilemma. The garbage can be removed from beaches around the world, but there is no way to remove that much ‘confetti’ from the ocean without causing irreversible damage to the marine life.
What’s The Harm?

Photo by Cynthia Vanderlip. From Moore, Captain Charles. “Trashed: Across the Pacific Ocean, plastics, plastics, everywhere” Natural History Magazine 02 Feb 2009.


It seems like the plastic soup out there is just a big ugly mess, but is it more dangerous than that? The answer is yes, aside from being an eyesore, the plastic confetti floating in the oceans is often mistaken for natural food sources. Jellyfish mistake it for plankton, sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, and Albatross birds often fly hundreds of miles to find whatever food they can for their young. This information left me wondering who would feed their child a plastic bottle cap if they knew that it would cause starvation?

Photo from Algalita Marine Research Foundation 10 Dec 2008, 02 Feb 2009


Plastic is known for its ability to attract oily substances. That means that it also soaks up POPs (persistent organic pollutants) that make it into the fish that make it onto our dinner plates. Chemicals like DDT and PCB which, to name a few problems, are known to cause birth defects and damage to the nervous and immune systems.
How can I help?
It is estimated that each American throws away 48 kilograms of plastic each year; That’s 105.6 pounds of plastic per person. If the oceans are downhill from everything else the implication is that any wayward garbage that makes it into the rivers, because of major storms or minor negligence, will eventually end up washed out to sea. The best thing we can do is to keep as much plastic from the waste stream as possible by reducing the amount of it we use. Here are a few suggestions:
Imagine how many polystyrene take-out containers could be saved on Valentine’s Day if every person who went out to eat that night slipped their own container for leftovers into their purse or briefcase.
Imagine how many plastic bags could be kept out of the trash cycle if each person used their own bags for their groceries, or used Tupperware instead of Ziploc bags. The grocery bags I use have long enough handles that I can put them on my shoulders. That saves me the mad dash to the door with heavy armloads of plastic grocery sacks.
I would like to close by making a comparison. A responsible pet owner takes into consideration that most dogs live to be at least 10 years old. They must consider if they are willing to commit their resources to a dog for at least that long before they get one.
A responsible consumer would consider the lifespan of a plastic water bottle before purchasing one. You could purchase one 32oz bottle of your favorite water for roughly $2.50; after its one-time-use is up, it will spend centuries on the planet. You could also spend $7.00 on a 32oz BPA free bottle with a screw on cap and refill it over and over again for the rest of a lifetime. I wonder how much money could be saved?

What am I doing?

I'm having mild freak-out. . . This is that moment in my life where I've got a million responsibilities and just as many choices to make and they've all got eight times that many possible outcomes.

I know I can do this. I know I can be a full-time student and keep a full-time job. I just feel like every moment not working or studying is wasted. The semester is in full-swing and it's never good to miss an entire week during the first month because it means the weeks following it are that much more complicated. I am several writing assignments behind, but I'm writing about things I feel passionate about. I don't want to wake up at the end of another semester wondering why I didn't take that class for personal gain instead of the grade or the degree. I will be able to say I put myself through college with very little help when this is over, but I also want to say with all honesty and sincerity that I found myself while doing it.

What will I gain out of Women's Studies beside a better knowledge of what the women who came before me accomplished, and an English elective??? Hopefully a better understanding about my relationship with my body, with food, with my education, with my ideas about what kind of family I want to create and raise, what kind of career I want, and what kind of woman I am. My film class will make me a better writer. My Intermediate Writing class will make me a better writer, but what will I learn about myself in the process? I don't know yet. The reason the prospect is so disorienting and uncomfortable is because inevitably . . . a lot of it will be the damage in me.

I'm kind of intimidated by my choices. I know that I am an incredible woman . . . incredibly talented, compassionate, intuitive, intelligent, capable, powerful, blabhalbhalbhalkbha;lkjdf these things are all important to me, but WHY have I not opened up and done what I believe I am capable of? Why do I half-ass as much as I do? Why is half-assed good enough to continually earn A's and B's? To continually be told by my colleagues that I've done a good job at work? That they can't do it without me? And that they would ask me not to leave them? Why do I feel like, even though I am successfull most of the time, that what I'm doing isn't good enough? That I haven't given it my all, that this isn't the best I can do?

Could it be that I just haven't invested love into my life? I don't mean loving myself (which I am always working on) . . . I mean putting love into my job, and my education. Is this what is missing?

I want all the answers, and I want them right now, and I want more time in the day to discover them!!!! I wish I did not require sleep.

I wonder what it would be like to live an uncomplicated life . . . what it would be like to have my life governed by one set of rules or beliefs that provided all the answers about who I am and what I'm doing here, what I am capable of . . . what is right or wrong or true and beautiful. A set of unchanging, un-evolving rules. Simple, trusting, faith in something. . . these things are something I have never had in all my life. The thing I have trusting faith in is myself, and change. Change that comes as soon as I am comfortable with something. I just wish it were easier to adapt to.

50 years from now, I want to look back and remember the woman I am now and wonder who I've become and who I will be... I wonder what it would be like if I wasn't on a life-long journey of self actualization, but I would not trade my enlightenment for the pleasure of simplicity in every waking moment of my life. I don't know if I will ever really know myself and tonight that is one of the most terrifying thoughts I've ever had. Almost as terrifying as thinking . . . . I don't want to.

This turmoil, these tumultuous moments, the distress and uncertainty, the complete anguish, the uncomfortable, and unhappy times of my life make it so rich and warm and valuable that I could never and I will never stop looking for more of myself.

What are all these chemicals???

Pampers makes some wipes that I happen to like because they smell good and are a texture that doesn't pill or come apart . . . Kandoo is what they are called and they are meant for kids in potty training. They have Water, Xanthan Gum, triglycerides and benzyl alcohol and sodium hydroxymethylglycinate (to name a few with familiar and unfamiliar names), but the one that really gets me is . . . . Hydrogenated Castor Oil . . . hydrogenated oil??? SERIOUSLY???

I do not want to use things on my body anymore without knowing exactly what they are. Does it even occur to people what they are rubbing into their skin? Colour me enlightened.

I will write about my diet in a future update.