Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time!  I actually can’t believe I made it this far without feeling superior to every other human being on the planet.  And just for the record, it was not my intention to become the BEST ENVIRONMENTALIST IN THE WORLD; it just happened.  You see, my plan was to sulk inside my apartment all weekend while the rest of America ate hot dogs and waved sparklers or some other kind of dangerous nonsense.  Perhaps I was coddled by my parents,but if I can’t have a holiday EXACTLY THE WAY I WANT IT, I don’t want it at all. So since being a Freegan prevented me from eating meat, I decided to sit in the dark and stare at my husband for three whole days. I didn’t have to choose this course of action.  As a matter of fact, there are a millions things I could have done. I could have worked in my garden or gone for a walk.  I could have sharpened my urban foraging skills or even read a good book.  But no, my extreme disappointment seemed to demand not only that I stay inside for the weeked; but also that my husband be miserable too.  He tried in vain to get me out of the house--even going so far as to demand I leave--but I held fast.  Why go anywhere when home is where the heart is?  I could have gladly spent the entire weekend wandering from room to room in my bathrobe; but the husband was worried about my sanity so I decided to look busy.  First, I backed up my computer (twice!), then I cleaned up my iTunes library and then I went through my files.  Now, under normal non-Freegan circumstances, I would never have spend a Saturday doing that kind of stuff; but I had taken a position and didn’t want to turn back.  By dusk, I was patting myself on the back and admiring the spotless surface of my desktop.  At about 1:00 am on Sunday morning, I had a permanent self-satisfied smile on my face.  By Sunday at noon, I was completely insufferable and unable to complete a single sentence with adding the phrase; “which is how it should be.”  Within three days of my own company, I was so thoroughly sick of myself, I would have hit myself if I wasn’t also so damned pleased with myself.  (Yeah, I know, I didn’t cure cancer but I did organize my bookshelf by color and did I tell you that I backed up my computer?  Do you have duplicates in your iTune library?  I don’t …which is actually how it should be.)

What a miserable weekend, right?  Look, the only real victory was that my husband didn’t leave me for acting like an absolute pill.  And though I can’t promise you (or my husband for that matter) that it won’t happen again, I can tell you why it happened.  Seriously, there is an explanation for any old kind of behavior.  According to Carol Tavris, social psychologist and co-author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, I was suffering from post-decision dissonance.  Which is a very fancy way of saying that I was so anxious about my decision to stay inside my house or 72 hours that I only allowed myself to see reasons why it was the ABSOLUTE BEST CHOICE. I shut out any information that didn’t prove me right and as a result, I morphed into exactly the kind of blowhard I hate!  What does backing up your computer and surfing the net have to do with being a Freegan anyhow?  Does it say anywhere in my Freegan manifesto that I must remove all the joy from my life (and take other people down with me?)  Now, don’t pile on and make me feel worse; I’m just being honest. You know you do it too. We all do. According to Tavris; “Before you make a decision, you run around and get all sorts of information (Should I do this crazy assignment for 30 days? What if I just darted over to Block Island and ate a few fried clams? Who, other than the clams, would have a problem with that?). Your mind is open. After the decision is made (Fine, I’ll stay home and do nothing.), the brain makes you let go of the decision you didn't make. We blind ourselves to other options and we only notice the information that supports our decision.” (Pah! Labor Day picnics are for losers. When I am Queen of the World, there will be a law demanding that people stay home for 72-hour weekends every year and back up their laptops twice!) Tavris added that this (mostly subconscious) process is actually good for you. Without it, you’d never be able to make a decision! But while I recognize that sliding down the slippery slope to being the BEST ENVIRONMENTALIST IN THE WORLD was all about post-decision remorse, I still feel like I owe the universe an apology (I was extremely annoying. Other bad acts included lecturing the air, playing air guitar poorly, refusing to shower and being completely unable to moderate my volume—too loud!)

But when Tavris began to connect our national anxiety about global warming to this idea of cognitive dissonance (a state of great psychological discomfort when your brain is forced to acknowledge two pieces of information that it finds counter-intuitive or contradictary. Example? Imagine a sexy sloth,) I started to get it. In America, we (lots of us anyway) like fast cars, fast answers and fast results. And since for years, we’d been told that all this speed was good for us, we were stunned to find out it was also bad for the planet and we would have to CHANGE OUR WAYS IMMEDIATELY OR DIE. Talk about two contradictory ideas—spend, spend, spend, WAIT, STOP! Now, save, save, save.  No wonder we’re confused and uncomfortable. To make the discomfort go away, we have to pick a side and stick with it—NO MATTER WHAT!  Some of us have chosen the SUV side while others have chosen the Prius side; but none of us really feels like the situation is under control—those polar caps still keep melting but who cares, we’ve picked a side! Spending three days in my house was not the right decision; but I had to stick with it or risk my self-esteem! Why should I feel like a chump sitting in the dark and staring at my husband when the rest of America was at the beach! It’s much easier to sit in the dark and hector my husband about all those dummies getting skin cancer and eating dead animals. But I’m better now and I’m taking the day to get my equilibrium back—tommorow, I’m going to return to the idea of cognitive dissonance and how it’s been guiding our reaction to the inconvenient truth in really weird and funny ways. (Hint: scaring people makes them mad at you!)

Good News: I left the house.  This new theory of mine also seems to explain why former smokers are so annoying.

Bad News: My laptop is acting funny.

Worries: I have no idea how to do wash in New York City without feeling guilty because those big washing machines do not seem to be endorsed by Energy Star. And the environmentally-sound laundromats are really expensive. Freegans do big loads in cold water and forgo the dryer. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG THAT IS GOING TO TAKE?