Freegan Girl

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2008-08-28T20:58:52Z

Day 31: The End, my Friend

2007-09-21T05:39:19Z

Cravings: Nothing. I have no appetite. I appear to be in some kind of shock.

Mood: Out-of-it

For those wondering why we skipped days 29 and 30, I’ll explain. Day 1 was actually posted on Day 3, so all the posts were off by two days. I really wanted to do the experiment for 32 days so that it wouldn’t look like I was cheating, BUT I JUST CAN’T HANDLE IT ANYMORE. So as of right now, I am the Post-Freegan Girl. If I wanted to, I could not only eat a cheeseburger, I could buy it. Some of you are probably thinking; “She’s already waited 30 days for a cheeseburger. What’s two more days?” Well let me tell you--it is a lot. As a matter of fact, I’m fairly sure that if I had to do this for even one more day, I would go stark raving mad. I mean it. I’d make the shenanigans of Britney, Paris, Lindsey and Nicole look like Sunday School fun. Anyway, I’m done; but e-mail me if you don’t trust me and require an official affidavit from some Newsweek big-wig.

Despite yesterday’s panic, I am not completely turning my back on my Freegan lifestyles. Right now, as of day zero, here are the things I’m planning to keep up and the things I’m dropping like a hot rock:

1. I am determined to limit my buying. So one pair of fall shoes won’t break my budget or make me feel guilty but 12 pairs would--a distinction that I would not have been able to make four weeks ago. I’ve also vowed not to buy weird-looking clothes just because they’re on sale and I thought I might try my clothes on before I buy them. That should prevent me from buying (over and over again) those cropped pants that make me look like a knish.

2. I’m through being a vegan. Life seems very long and sad without the hope of ice cream or cheese. Call me a bleeding heart if you must; but I will try to only buy meat and dairy that is certified humane. I don’t know what to do about eating out.

3. I’m going to try and keep up with the organic and local buying, keeping in mind that local is more important since it has a smaller carbon footprint (less driving) and it tastes much much better then any of the mass-produced equivalents. That’s true, you know--locally grown tastes better. I just didn’t want to tell you that during the experiment. You would have instantly accused me of fanaticism and closed your mind to me.

4. I will continue to scrupulously recycle and reuse or rather my husband will since he does most of it anyway. The composting thing is over thanks to my cats; but let me say that if you limit the buying and buy local instead of canned, you produce a lot less garbage.

5. And you can be absolutely sure that I will not, on pain of death, throw away what I already have and buy "green" items. Shoot, I’m not going to create garbage in order to help the environment--what sense would that make? Think about that when you feel pressured to buy the eco-variety of anything, it works. And keep your guard up, because the Green Marketing Machine is going to really kick in for the Holidays.

6. I’m going to keep up the energy conservation which is an extremely easy thing to do considering summer is over BUT I’ve decided that each electricity bill must be cheaper then the next or I will be extremely disappointed in myself. Electricity is my enemy! Don’t you wish I could stick around and let you know how that goes? Oh, by the way, I haven’t gotten my latest electricity bill yet but if it’s under $100, I will make a special effort to post it on YouTube so you can see it!

7. Eco-Friendly Transportation is just the thing for me! As it turns out, I don’t mind taking the subway rather then a taxi because as it turns out, if you’re running late, the subway is always faster! Taxis just feel faster. As for the bus, I only ever took one when I was too lazy to walk. I will try not to be so lazy. Of course, my husband just picked his car from the repair shop so temptation does loom.

8. I absolutely love the idea of a Freedom Savings Account. Just forget that’s it’s an account to shave years off your employment history. Think of it as funding your dreams. My total saved after 4 weeks was about $1200; which is about $300 a week which seems about right. Between meals out, cabs, Target and assorted drugstores, I probably do spend that much every week. So, I think I should keep saving, keep taking my lunch to work and stay out of drugstores. I can’t desert Target--I love Target. It’s lame to love a store so much, but I just do. Of course, the Freedom Savings Account went toward the cost of repairing the car. When life gives you lemonade, you get lemons!

9. I really thought that being mindful of my impact on the Earth would drive me crazy but, in the end, it was the most valuable thing I did over the whole 30 days. The more you know about where your food, clothing, entertainment and shelter comes from, the easier it is to make buying decisions in line with your conscience and in turn, save the polar bears.

Stay tuned for tomorrow: Post-Freegan Girl will breathlessly report the experience of her first cheeseburger.

Good News: I ate M&M’s and they tasted like little round pieces of Heaven. Really.

Bad News: Milk tastes funny now.

Worries: What me, worry?

Day 27: Still Consumed with Guilt

2007-09-18T22:32:07Z

Cravings: Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, Sushi, and more Sushi

Mood: Apprehensive

I think it’s fair to say that this experiment has changed me. Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to go into this whole monologue about how this has been a miraculous conversion for me. I will not be dedicating myself to Freeganism permanently. But I can say that I feel very, very apprehensive about my return to mainstream culture. Because don’t get me wrong, this whole Freegan experiment was meant to explore food waste, what Freegans’ claim is the abuse of capitalism and the environment and our desire for more, bigger and new; but was also about measuring your impact. So, I read about how our food gets from the farm to the plate. I did some research on how companies figure out how to sell us things we don’t need. And of course, we learned about cognitive dissonance. And interestingly enough, as my time as Freegan girl draws short, I appear to be suffering from it again. For those who are just tuning in, cognitive dissonance is that completely horrible buzzing sound you hear when you walk under big electrical wires. Just kidding, actually, it is the state of great psychological discomfort created when your brain is forced to acknowledge two pieces of information that it finds counter-intuitive or contradictory. Now according to my favorite expert 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, cognitive dissonance can be more uncomfortable than extreme hunger! And it’s true; though I think I’d rather be hungry. The problem is that I want to go back to my old life with open arms and no questions or concerns; but I can’t. I would just feel too guilty. And not that free-form kind of liberal guilt because life is harder on some people than it is on me; but real guilt. Perhaps some examples will clue you in on my state of mind:

Exhibit A: I have no problem going back to meat; but now I have to balance my carnivorous desires with my new knowledge about the less then stellar conditions in factory farms and animal cruelty. Yikes.

Exhibit B: I want new clothes for Fall; but I don’t need new clothes for Fall. It just feels wrong to buy clothes you don’t need them. I feel like I’ve fallen under the spell of a cult. I AM NOT CALLING FREEGANS A CULT. I am calling myself cult-like. I actually brainwashed myself to stop buying; and I feel like I'll never shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be shopping. Disturbing, right?

Exhibit C: I have this real reluctance to get back into the swing of things. I don’t know if that’s because a part of me likes the isolation of living outside of mainstream mores ( so dramatic!) Or maybe part of me is afraid that I won’t have learned from this at all and NEXT month, not only will my electric bill be $240; BUT I’ll have developed an addiction to veal, SUVs and Styrofoam.

You see where I’m coming from now? My editor, Jon Meacham, brought up an interesting, slightly insulting point today. How much of this guilt and fear can I really blame on Freeganism? I, like most Americans, don’t believe in small steps. So I’m either a Freegan or an Over-buying Pig who kills polar bears. I simply have no faith in my ability to find a reasonable middle ground. Let’s just say that ‘Moderation in all things’ has never been my mantra. But maybe I should try. I’m just scared, that’s all.

Good News: Husband is getting ready to grill up some steaks; I am so looking forward to going away this weekend and maybe do a little flea market shopping and the Dallas Cowboys are still undefeated!

Bad News: Halloween decorations are just calling out to me. “Buy me. Buy me now, Raina.” It’s very unsettling and creepy, I might add.

Worries: I want to throw a football party; but I’m afraid it’s just an excuse to go on a buying bender.

Note: Go to unicefusa.org and get some Unicef Halloween collection boxes. They’re free and kids can combine gorging on candy with global giving.

Days 24 - 26: Near the End

2007-09-17T22:27:36Z

Weekend Report Card: A solid B+

Cravings: Succotash, weirdly; but I got all the ingredients at the Farmers’ Market and ate it for dinner on both Saturday and Sunday.

Mood: Weary

OK, I have a lot to do today so I’m going to limit my asides and get right to work (and considering my temper tantrum on Friday, I expect you’re grateful.) There’s a line in the movie "Dangerous Liaisons" that goes something like this; “Regret is an essential component of happiness.” And I’ve always wondered if that was true. Of course, I’m usually too cowardly to consider the matter because it would entail going over my regrets in a detailed way and well, that just seems unhealthy. Anyway, now I know it’s true because I had the kind of weekend that Freegans dream about. And hence, I already miss being a Freegan. Before I began this experiment, weekends were one long sprint from Friday night to Monday morning. I always had a list of things to get, people to see, errands to run and rooms to clean. As a Freegan, I could actually enjoy my time off and relax because I had nothing else to do. I took long walks around my neighborhood. I went foraging in Prospect Park again and actually got some bay leaves that didn’t come out of a jar. I had to leave a bit early and missed the gathering of the wild parsnips but I had fun nonetheless. I picked tomatoes and peppers from my garden and bought more from the farmers’ market. I made succotash, as I mentioned, a medley of roasted veggies and a really good salad with homemade dressing. Shoot, I felt like a frontier gal. All I needed was a shotgun and a horse. It was the kind of weekend that makes you fearful of a meat-eating lifestyle. But honestly, it was wonderful. I even avoided newspapers for fear I’d read about some kind of environmental folly or some newly discovered danger to the polar bear population. That’s not something most Freegans or I would normally do but I was determined to stay cheerful.

Of course, I just hung around with my husband. That’s not a criticism of my husband. I’m just saying he’s always with me—there were vows exchanged to that effect. We are getting a little testy with each other however—squabbling over stupid stuff like who gets to press fast forward on the digital video recorder. Some people say meat makes you aggressive. But meat’s got nothing on deprivation. I have a hair-trigger temper nowadays. As a Freegan, I always feel slightly frustrated, like a spoiled child who’s been told; “No more sweets.” And knowing that I volunteered for this discomfort only makes it worse. The poor husband asked me if I wanted some ice tea and I attempted to strangle him. OK wait, I was telling you how good my weekend was. Right, it was great. I’m just a little moody—let’s just say that the strain of this experiment is starting to get to me. Plus, as it turns out, being a Freegan is a lonely existence. At least it is for me. I didn’t want to hang out with my Frentors because I feel like a pretender. My friends have yet to send me an email that doesn’t mention the eating of garbage. I guess people are just leery about hanging out when you can’t buy a round of drinks. I’m not saying that my friends are only friends with me because I buy the beer. I just didn’t want to be a mooch or a killjoy. And trust me, I did not need to be tempted anymore then I already was. I had no idea that being a Freegan would make me anti-social; but I guess that’s what happens when you think almost all the people in the world are living their lives the wrong way. If I had to do this all over again, I would give myself two months and ease into the lifestyle. As this weekend proves, once you get into the swing of things, you can have fun. Or maybe I’d blackmail somebody into doing it with me so I would feel less alone.

Oh and I wanted to tell that I may soon be done with my Freegan experiment; but I’m not done talking to you. I’ll be around for the rest of the week opining on my re-entry into the mainstream economy. Email me if you have any specific questions you’d like to ask me about the thirty days and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

And let me take this opportunity to give an Internet shout-out and thank you to my Aunt Mary and my friend Rob for each sending me a care package full of delightful vegan treats. It was great. On Friday, I came home still angry at Google and there was a box full of goodies waiting for me. Then on Sunday, I was complaining loudly about there being nothing to eat and right before I was going to blame Husband for getting me into this whole Freegan mess, the mailman delivered me care package number two. Did you know the post office delivers on Sunday? I didn’t. Email me if you need an address for future care packages.

I’ve been blabbing so much about my weekend that I completely forgot to plug sustainable eating. I promise I’ll get into that tomorrow. Plus, I will explain why I deem my Freegan experiment a complete success for me in a physical and intellectual sense; but a complete disaster for me psychologically. But I suspect you already knew that.

Good News: I’m almost done. It was fun; it was great; but it is nearly over!

Bad News: I’ve gotten a little used to writing this blog everyday—I’m going to miss it.

Worries: I can’t even count them; but here’s an abridged list:

1. Weight Gain due to eating 72 bags of Skittles;

2. Over-consumption of Meat leading to Heart Disease;

3. Fall Clothes Spending Spree and bankruptcy;

4. Complete relapse of profligate ways.

Day 23: Cut and Run

2007-09-14T17:34:53Z

Breakfast: Another rut … whole-wheat toast with jam and a sliced apple.

Lunch: Skipped!

Dinner: I plead the fifth. I didn’t cheat. I just didn’t eat very well and I’m ashamed.

Cravings: More Skittles.

Mood: Angry!

I was going to write about sustainable food practices today. You know--healthy, good tasting food (meat and veggies both) that isn’t bad for the environment or cruel to the animals and pays fair wages. And I will, on Monday, but I just want to get something off my chest first. Check out this story in the New York Times:

“The group whose $10 million prize spurred privately financed rocketeers to send a small piloted craft to the cusp of space in 2004 has issued a new challenge: an unmanned moon shot. With the audacious new contest comes a much bigger prize: up to $25 million, paid for by Google, the ubiquitous Internet company. The “Google Lunar X Prize” was announced yesterday in Los Angeles at the Wired magazine’s NextFest. The contest calls for entrants to land a rover on the moon that will be able to travel at least 550 yards and send high-resolution video, still images and other data back home.”

Are you kidding me--twenty-five million dollars for a moon car? I’m sorry; do we live on the moon? Does anything live on the moon? Let me tell what how I read this--global warming will soon render the planet inhospitable for polar bears, penguins, frog and thousands of other species, including quite possibly our own, so let’s tie up the biggest and brightest minds in America and figure out how to get a remote control camera to the moon. I’m sorry to drop my fair and balanced act but that is the STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD. And I’m going to go one step further and say this is the reason people hate scientists and other assorted intelligentsia. First you tell us that Earth is going to hell in a hand basket; but instead of dedicating your efforts to fixing the problem, you cut and run … to the Moon.

Didn’t we just talk about this two days ago? Here’s what I said then: “Some consortium of billionaires can get together this huge pot of money and host a competition for sustainable methods of reducing America’s carbon footprint. Can you imagine how many great ideas would come out of that? Honestly, I know our self-esteem is battered right now; but average Americans build rockets in their backyards, invent Ferris Wheels and somehow find time to make wine even the French have to like. We can do this.” So what do the billionaires do? They raise a bunch of money to turn their childhood fascinations into reality. Great, I should just stop writing this and dedicate myself to developing magic powers like in “Bewitched.” Let’s consider what else $25 million dollars might be used for:

1. Stop Alaska from melting. Stop Greenland from melting if you want to. And yes, it’s expensive; but so is traveling to outer space.

2. Find a source of fuel that doesn’t come from fossils.

3. Get cracking on preventing the extreme weather and destabilized ecosystems caused by rising temperatures.

Or we could put an SUV on the moon. Don’t get me wrong; I love the moon. I even have a moon tattooed on my leg (I really do.) I’m just so mad about this; I can’t keep still. We have to change our whole way of living from cradle to casket to save the planet and the smarty-pants are concerned about going to outer space. Why don’t they just offer $25 million dollars to find Atlantis? I know what all those analytical minds are going to say back to me--the technology from these kinds of contests can be used far and wide for the good of humanity. And they’re probably right; but we don’t know what that new technology will be--it could be a miracle cure for climate change, but it could also be a microwave oven and I already have one of those, thank you.

But wait, I need to calm down. There is a contest. Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Air, will give you $25 million dollars if you find a way to remove one billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere. Sounds good, right? I should just shut up, right? But consider for a second how many tons of carbon are emitted due to Virgin’s airplanes and nascent space program. And besides, at least the Robocar is a possibility--we’ve been to the moon before. Getting one billion tons of carbon out of the sky sounds like science fiction. I’m just so confused--is global warming a public relation ploy or a marketing bonanza?

Good News: The New England Patriots have been punished and no one in National Football League will ever cheat again.

Bad News: This quote from London’s Daily Telegraph: “Prof Singer, a specialist in atmospheric physics at the University of Virginia, said: 'We have a greenhouse theory with no evidence to support it, except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events.'” So does this mean we can all buy Hummers?

Worries: I’ll never be invited to be a civilian in space.

Day 22: Just Brownnosing Around

2007-09-13T07:14:19Z

Breakfast: Miracle of miracles … whole-wheat toast with jam and a sliced apple.

Lunch: A little bragging … toasted tofu w/ marinara sauce, grilled tempeh burger, mesclun salad

Dinner: Backsliding … leftover pasta and a salad with too many onions

Cravings: Cake, cookies, brownies, cupcakes, muffins, Danish or really any kind of baked good with more then 300 calories.

Mood: Still cheerful!

My time as a Freegan is drawing to an end and while I can’t say I’ll be craving tempeh burgers anytime soon, I can admit that I’m going to miss this blog. I’m panicked that I’ve missed a whole set of vital concerns. What I do know is that I’ve glossed over the whole Freegan work ethic. According to Freegan.info, their stance on employment is as follows:

“By accounting for the basic necessities of food, clothing, housing, furniture, and transportation without spending a dime, Freegans are able to greatly reduce or altogether eliminate the need to constantly be employed. We can instead devote our time to caring for our families, volunteering in our communities, and joining activist groups to fight the practices of the corporations who would otherwise be bossing us around at work.”

I have two beefs with that. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% in favor of more time to care for my family. I’ve been trying to carve out a space for volunteer work and well, I can’t join an activist group because I have to stay fair and balanced. My problem is that "accounting" for food, clothing, housing, furniture and transportation takes a lot of time … a lot of time. Trust me. If you go the Freegan way (and I am sincerely not discouraging you), you’ll need to find about 30 extra minutes for everything just to be on time for things you have to be on time for. It’s not the dumpster diving, I’ve been assured by both my Frentors that once you get the hang of it, you can knock out your “shopping” in about 30 minutes a week. It’s everything else! But the rest of the stuff--scrupulously recycling and composting, foraging for wild plants, posting on Freecycle.org, dropping off things, picking up things, finding furniture and all that yadda yadda can be a full-time job if you let it. I spent thirty days eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly and pasta because when I come home from work, I just didn’t have the energy to make something from scratch. On some nights, I would have opened negotiations with Satan for a Lean Cuisine--how pathetic is that? That’s the problem with convenience--it’s hard to go back, even if it is destroying the planet. And convenience gives me more time for the Husband, the BFF, my Parents and all the things I love like crime TV, novels and my garden. And I just can’t conceive of not needing to work. I guess I could cobble together some freelance work and maybe do some odds and ends but that seems a lot more work then just showing up here everyday. My parents would testify on a stack of bibles that I don’t like to be bossed around. When I was 13, I melodramatically offered to drink Drano rather than load the dishwasher (yeah, I was that kind of teenager.) But I’d vote for a single boss over hustling for a few bucks any day.

And another thing, I like my job. (Warning: Sad story coming.) Right before I started at Newsweek, I got dumped. I started at my job here 6 months later as a shadow of the woman I am now. And while time helped (as did the realization that that guy was a total schmuck, more fit to date a toad then a fine woman like myself), my job gave me back my self-esteem, ambition, drive and most importantly, the ability to focus on something other then myself. So while I understand that some people feel oppressed and abused by their job, I believe in work and career. Call me corny or a pawn or even a fool but don’t tell me that the only point of a job is being bossed around and making the things that keeps global warming ticking. And honestly, we can’t all be unemployed. I don’t worry about the economy. The economy seems to take care of itself; but I do wonder what the world would be like if no one worked. Or to put it more bluntly, I don’t wonder because it’s an impossible idea. Every human, even the ones in communal villages such as the Amish, needs something produced by the sweat of another human’s labor. We could set it up a different way, no wait, we did that with slaves and indentured servants and merchant guilds. Paying people a living wage to do something you won’t or can’t do seems alright to me. And that brings up the whole sustainable issue. If Freegans live off our waste, what would we live on if we all became Freegans? I’m not trying to poke holes out of meanness, I just wonder if there’s some other kind of way of meeting our needs as a species that I don’t know about. Because if there’s not, then the Freegans need to find one because while Americans can definitely cut some waste, we’re not going to stop working. Of course, my Frentors know that. But they don't care--perhaps because they assume they will always be a small minority--as they say; "We believe ultimately that our consumption practices, while important and even revolutionary if practiced en masse, must only be one small thread as we weave the fabric of a new society and mend the garment of the old.”

On the good relationship front, I have to declare the Husband, THE BEST HUSBAND IN THE WORLD! He bought me a pack of Skittles. When he gave me that rainbow of flavors, I was so happy, so grateful, so overwhelmed that rather then thank him; I locked myself in the bathroom and ate them in a single sitting. That ain’t the Freegan way; but that’s what 22 days without processed sugar does to a person.

Good News: Fall is here!!! If you don’t know New York City in the fall, come visit!

Bad News: For the first time in my life I’m looking forward to the Fall TV season. This can only mean my brain is turning to rice pudding.

Worries: I’m already sick of that trailer for Across the Universe and I’m running out of ways to get those Beatles songs out of my head … Blackbird singing in the dead of night!

Day 21: Everything Old is New

2007-09-12T22:13:38Z

Breakfast: The ubiquitous Kashi and soymilk BUT I added bits of apple that made it taste weird.

Lunch: A huge salad and some cold curly fries.

Dinner: Pasta and a salad

Cravings: Sushi again (I’m tempted to walk over to the Hudson River and catch my own.)

Mood: Worryingly cheerful (When I’m in a fabulous mood, I temper it by convincing myself it’s a manic episode and will dissolve into tears by the end of the day.)

Everybody’s eyes always pop out when I explain what a Freegan is. People just can’t believe that they dumpster dive, eschew buying and remain steadfastedly unified in their opposition to capitalism. Or to put in their own words; "After years of trying to boycott products from unethical corporations responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came to realize that the problem isn't just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself." Or to use more iconic language, they have turned on, tuned in and dropped out. And that, the ‘system’ notwithstanding, is as American as apple pie (which by the way, comes from England). Seriously, think about it but if you don’t want to, I have developed some mathematical equations to illustrate my point:

Freegans + Drugs + Communes = Hippies

Freegans + Jesus = Quakers

Freegans + Walden Pond = Henry David Thoreau

Freegans + Jesus - Electricity = Amish

Freegans + Jesus + Mother Ann - Sex = Shakers

Now don’t get offended; I’m being purposely simplistic to prove my point, which is that striving for the simple life is not new in this country (Little House on the Prairie was on the air for nine years!) and neither is proselytizing against the wicked consumerist ways of your fellow Americans (Who said; "Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!"? Answer below.). And I suspected you might not believe me so I dragged in an expert. I talked to Dr. David Shi, President of Furman College and the author of "The Simple Life: Plain Living and High Thinking in American Culture." Not only did he say that I was completely right; but he also endorsed me for Queen of the World. OK, he didn’t say any of that; but here’s what he did say:

Freegan Girl: Freegans all advocate, on some level, dropping out of mainstream culture. I want to know, what is the historical context of dropping out, what makes it so American in character?
Dr. Shi: It’s certainly fair to say that simplicity is a perennial human ideal but at the same time, it’s a very elastic idea that when put into practice constitutes a wide spectrum of practices and perspectives. The contemporary Freegan would be positioned at the left end of the simplicity spectrum.
Freegan Girl: Who’s on the right?
Dr. Shi: Well, on the right would be people who are actually very affluent but are attempting to live relatively simple life within their socio-economic means, so for example someone like Robert Redford. He’s super wealthy but compared to Paris Hilton, he lives a much more self-conscious life and makes deliberative efforts to live simply.
Freegan Girl: And what’s at the far end of the left?
Dr. Shi: Primitivism would be the natural result in that Freegans are for the most part promoting simplicity to enable to dedicate their time and energy and resources to "higher" pursuits, whereas primitives are forced to spent more of their time (our most precious resource) simply subsisting (or just finding sources of water). Because of the extremity of their stands, they’re giving up control of their time in exchange for the purity of their commitment. The most famous predecessor would be the 5th century BC primitive philosopher, Diogenes, an eccentric everyday figure who quite self-consciously thumbed his nose at mainstream society and the prevailing mores of Athens at the time.
Freegan Girl: Are Freegans cousins to Hippies?
Dr. Shi: Certainly there's a shared sense of alienation from mainstream society, norms and the political process. There’s also the shared theme of environmentalism and a stewardship of nature
Freegan Girl: There’s a "but" there, right?
Dr. Shi: Well, Freegans have more in common with the Amish or communities that represent themselves as an oasis of purity surrounded by the corrupting effects of modern civilization and there’s certainly some of that in the Freegan movement. One of the differentiating characteristics of this modern movement is that it’s hard to discern any conventional spiritual movement other then a pantheistic strain—nature as a spiritual entity.
Freegan Girl: But no one is an oasis of purity. Isn’t it impossible to separate yourself from modern civilization?
Dr. Shi: Wherever you stand on the spectrum, your decision is fraught with hypocrisy. Thoreau borrowed an ax. He was not nearly as independent as the rhetoric of Walden implies. Any reasonably intelligent person can pick at what seems to be inconsistencies in the logic of the Freegan’s lifestyle. But the obvious point is that even if one is not completely successful at fashioning a way of life, that does not mean it is any less meritorious.

And figuring out the merit of the Freegans is what I’ve been trying to do. And one very important aspect of that is putting the Freegans into historical context because, well, if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going or something like that. I’m not going to deny that Freegans are extremists, but I don’t think we should dismiss them for that reason. Our national identity has been forged by more then a few extremists, from those guys who had the Boston Tea Party to all those young people screaming to end the Vietnam War and so our history might help us figure these Freegans out.

What’s the first thing that pops into your head when you hear the word "Shakers"? If any kind of adult entertainment pops up, you’re at the wrong blog. If you think furniture, then we’re on the right track. The Shakers (more properly called The United Society of Believers, founded in 1772) were radical Protestants who believed in a self-segregation from non-believers, the equality of all men and women, community property and celibacy. Now before you yawn, let me just remind you that this was the eighteenth century and freedom for all and communal living were still really controversial in 1969. Anyway, there are only four Shakers left nowadays (because they were serious about that celibacy thing, they didn’t believe in procreation) and while their legacy will most likely be the gorgeous furniture which they built to show devotion to God, they were right about that equality thing and they treated black people like humans well before the Civil War. Quakers were all about peace and Hippies may have become Boomers; but they were spot on with all that caring for the earth business. So even if Freegans disgust you with their dumpster diving and tendency towards absolutism, they might be on to something. I’ve already ceded the fact that we could all be a lot less wasteful and it certainly wouldn’t hurt us to know a little bit more about the impact of their actions, right AND FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, POLAR BEARS ARE DYING. So maybe, just maybe, these Freegans are on to something.

Good News: I’m up and running at 100% and more importantly, Kevin Everett may walk again.

Bad News: I can’t think of any!

Worries: I hope, Gentle Readers, you haven’t judged me wanting because I watch that Rock of Love Show with Bret Michaels

Note: It was that ol' scamp Henry David Thoreau who said that.

Day 20: Inspiration Strikes

2007-09-11T21:18:14Z

Breakfast: Theraflu Daytime Severe Cold

Lunch: Approximately 1 gallon vegetable soup

Dinner: Theraflu Nighttime Severe Cold, more soup, 4 bites of a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

Cravings: Sushi and Macaroni & Cheese (Which is odd, not because it’s a disgusting combination; but because I’ve never been that crazy about mac and cheese.)

Mood: Self-pitying (I’m sick!), but otherwise cheerful.

Against all advice, I have decided to solve all our problems. Or rather, to be more precise, I have decided that WE should solve the global warming problem right now, today. Having the healthy ego common to my profession and feeling flush from fever, I have come up with a few ideas that I think will make quick work of our fossil fuel consumption problem. In case you haven’t been keeping track of our earlier solutions here they are:

1. Capturing and using gas flares = A potential reduction of impact of 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide;

2. Cutting food waste by half= A potential reduction of 25% of our nation’s carbon impact.

Now, I must admit that I’m feeling crazily optimistic but I think I have reason to! No, it’s not because the Dallas Cowboys are undefeated after one week (their secondary is a little too shaky to inspire visions of a 6^th Super Bowl ring) and no, it’s not the cold medicine—it’s just that the Holidays are coming! And though it may seem like an amazing conflict of interest that I am also working on Newsweek’s Holiday Gift Guide, I did have a life before I became a Freegan and besides, don’t be a Scrooge! I have been looking for items to suggest for YOU for Christmas and/or Hannukah, stop being so judgmental and go with me for a second because I have some important information for you: Not only are you going to be asked to purchase all manner of "eco-friendly" items from soy candles to shredded plastic coin purses for Christmas, but you are going to be inundated with very expensive, very simple items that "should" replace all that bling you’ve purchased over the last five or so years. Which is to say; if "Pimp My Anything" was the most overused headline in the first seven years of the 21st century, then "Simplify Your Anything" (or something like it that’s actually clever) will soon be taking it’s place. And what I’m telling you is stay strong! Don’t let the trend-makers (including myself) tell you that you need to junk your old wasteful life in favor of a new one with low-emission paint and vintage whatever. Say it with me now; "If we want to reduce our impact, we will figure out a way to address the real problem. We will not just buy new stuff." I say that not just because I’m been fighting the urge to spend every dime I have on shoes and meat when this experiment is over; but also because this experiment has shown me how industries can bow to our wishes. We want a simpler, less wasteful life. We want to help fix the global warming problem. And industries are giving us what we think we want—just not in the form of actual solutions. Instead, we get new stuff to buy and the band plays on. So, here is where my solutions come in:

Let’s facilitate a return to friendly wagers. You know how competitive we are; so let’s turn that to our advantage. Instead of keeping up with the Jones’ new gas grill, challenge them to use less carbon. But I don’t want you to think that I think individual competition is enough because it’s not. If it was, we’d all buy a Prius and a yoga mat and be done with it! No, we need to compete city to city or region to region. Here are just some of the brilliant ideas that leap to mind:

1. New York and Chicago used to have a bitter rivalry over who was America’s number one mega-city. Let’s dredge that back up for the environment’s sake. In 2005, New York used 40,629,913,573 kilowatt hours of electricity. I think we should bet Chicago that we could reduce that insanely large number by at least 10% or at the very least, we can reduce more kilowatt hours then the Windy City can! If we lose, our Mayor will do something humiliating on TV or some such nonsense. We could get internationally competitive too—according to the Wall Street Journal today, Japan is launching this Cool Biz program in order to "lead the world in reducing energy use." C’mon, let’s challenge them. If their bankers can keep their thermostats at 82 degrees, our bankers can swelter at 84! Of course that’s the least they can do after this sub-prime mess, but we won’t go there!

2. Some consortium of billionaires can get together this huge pot of money and host a competition for sustainable methods of reducing America’s carbon footprint. Can you imagine how many great ideas would come out of that? Honestly, I know our self-esteem is battered right now; but average Americans build rockets in their backyards, invent Ferris Wheels and somehow find time to make wine even the French have to like. We can do this.

3. Let’s make a reality show out of my example—we’ll stick 6-11 good looking and unstable people in a house, make them follow my nine rules—or maybe more! We’ll just throw in some challenges and big money prizes and you could have one hour (or more) of prime-time television dedicated to how to save the planet and people would watch it!

The ideas are just flowing but that’s not what I’m trying to tell you. I’m just saying that this experiment has shown me that throwing the baby out with the bathwater is not a good idea. We’re not going to give up our lives, we have too many excuses (some of them good) not to. And though we might be tempted to just buy new more Green stuff, why don’t we just repurpose the stuff we already have like competitiveness, a surplus of billionaires and an odd, never-ending attachment to reality TV? Isn’t that really the Freegan way?

Good News: I’m on the mend! Soon, I’ll be up and running at 100%!

Bad News: I’m on the mend! Soon I’ll be expected to work a full day!

Worries: I hope Jess wins on that Rock of Love Show with Bret Michaels

Note: I know I said I was going to talk about the history of Freegans today but I got over-excited about all my ideas and forgot. Tomorrow, I’ll get there, I promise!

Day 17-19: A Freegan Intermission

2007-09-11T01:31:04Z

I'm sick. I have a sinus infection due to Fall allergies and my persistent refusal to take my Claritin or quit smoking. So, that's the doctor-approved reason I'm not doing my normal (always informative and amusing) blog post today. But if you want to know the reasons why I think I'm too sick to post today, here they are:

1. I normally believe in fighting a fever but Freeganism has sucked all the joy out of my life, so why fight? (Have no fear, this is just a bit of dayquil inspired melodrama!)

2. The whole world is saying the most unbelievably mean things about Britney Spears' performance at the MTV Music Awards last night (all true unfortunately.) So let's just say that I'm a little scared to bring anything less then my A-game today.

3. The first week of football season has made me overly jingoistic and aggressive so it's really impossible for me to be fair and balanced in my blogging today.

So, that's it. When I return to work tomorrow, I will regale you with a very funny and very interesting perspective on Freegans as seen through the eyes of Quakers, Hippies and Hipsters with only a brief detour into sanctimony, and I will end with your standard pie-in-the-sky hopes for a better tomorrow.

Day 16: The Empire Strikes Back

2007-09-07T19:08:05Z

Breakfast: Apple and some wasabi peas

Lunch: 6 boiled potatoes, ½ cup corn, salad and a few french fries.

Dinner: Roasted asparagus, Pasta Primavera and even more salad.

Cravings: Still would sell my Mother for a pair of new shoes (let’s see if Mom really is reading this blog everyday)

Mood: Bitter

Gentle Readers, I am exhausted so I hope you don’t expect one of those really long posts where I talk to experts and solve all the world’s problems. That just ain’t happening today. I feel like a chump-- like the kid helping the teacher bang erasers while all her friends are outside stealing candy. And it’s hard to summon up moral superiority when your co-workers are dancing around, eating hamburgers and buying new iPods. Anyway, I think that whole BEST ENVIRONMENTALIST IN THE WORLD thing last weekend was a fluke--a precursor of the bitterness free ranging all through my brain. A friend and co-worker looks so nice today in her new lip-gloss and perfect mani/pedi. I wanted to slap her. I look like l fell under a turnip truck. The problem with doing this for a month is that after two weeks, the novelty wears off and you still have to do it. Which means that I walk around always feeling that sense of disappointment you get when you wake up and realize that the fabulous date you had with George Clooney last night was just a dream (Husband: this is just an example of a dream, it’s not a dream I’ve ever had or would even want to have because as you know, I think Mr. Clooney is weird-looking.) And for the kids: that feeling I just described is probably ten times worse in jail so stay in school and out of trouble.

You don’t have to take much away for me to feel deprived so now that the newness of this thing is beginning to wear off, I feel like a refugee. And the subconscious consumer in me is starting to assert herself again! Why is fall so tightly connected with buying things for me? But then again, I’m always obsessed with buying things. Fall is just another excuse. October means Halloween, November is Thanksgiving, December is just a blur of spending. And January? Well, that’s the perfect time to remodel myself--new gym, new clothes and of course, the post-Holiday sales! You see where I’m going with this, right? (Hint: My point is not that I’m an unrepentant spoiled brat) For the first time, I am getting a glimpse of what it takes to:

“Live well without money. Reconsider "needs"; resist marketing and find other channels to acquire the things we want rather than contributing to the consumption of new resources and generating revenue for capitalists. Learn to depend on the Earth and on our community to provide for our needs rather than corporations.”

And that’s one of the key goals of Freeganism as defined by my mentor Adam. And I’m trying but it’s just not as easy as it was ten or so days ago. For the first two weeks I was a Freegan, I felt as if I was on vacation from my own life. And for that reason alone, I would recommend trying this for a bit. It’s like the great rapper Coolio says; “If it wasn't for the military I probably would not have ever come to Bosnia for vacation.” In the beginning, as a Freegan, I was able to get outside of my life and peer back at it. It felt good to explore my impact and plan changes. It felt good to plumb my soul for alternatives to Target. Now it feels like I’m being punished for crimes I didn’t know I committed. (Whine, whine, whine, right? Maybe I should go club a baby seal and see if that makes me feel better! Um, that was a joke.) Maybe I’m just angry because the Associated Press announced that scientists are now predicting that Alaska’s summer ice will shrink by about 50% by 2050, which means, “The situation is dire for polar bears. They're going to drown, they're going to starve, they're going to resort to cannibalism, they're going to become extinct,” according to Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. Great, and I’m complaining about my fall wardrobe. Guilt and bitterness--isn’t that always a marriage enhancing combination? But seriously, I know I said Bruce Willis wouldn’t be able to get us out of this mess, but we need some leadership on this issue. We need a silver-tongued devil who can translate our mixed desires and confused feelings into a sustainable plan of action. Movie stars can’t do it, they’re too rich and who likes to be told what to do by a person who never worries about money. Al Gore can’t do it because as devoted as he is, his passion just doesn’t reach people in a visceral way. I’m not saying he’s boring; he’s just not riveting. I am loathe to compare this to the Civil Rights movement but we need a voice (like Martin Luther King Jr.) who can convince us that sacrifices for the sake of future generations are not only necessary, but noble.

Good News: I made actual plans for the weekend! I’m going for a walk, exploring new Greenmarkets and I’m going to experiment with my vegan cookbooks since it’s not exactly fair to complain about a meat-free diet when you eat the same seven things over and over again.

Bad News: Stupid fashion designers changed all the toe shapes of this year’s “hottest” shoes so now all my “hottest” shoes from last year are out of style. That’s not really a big deal while you’re a Freegan but man, is that going to cause me some dissonance when this exercise in torture (sorry, “experiment”) is over.

Worries: Do you think Husband will buy that “George Clooney is funn

Day 15: A Pilgrim's Progress

2007-09-06T19:49:52Z

Breakfast: approximately 14 grapes

Lunch: Lentil Soup and a peach

Dinner: Leftovers

Cravings: Shoes

Mood: Peevish

Gentle Readers, it’s been two unbelievable weeks since I first laid out the nine rules of Freegan living AND vowed to live by them. As promised, I’ve kept you up to date on my progress and setbacks. And while I prefer to complain about most things, even I must admit that it hasn’t been all bad. So now that we’re at the halfway point, let’s take stock:

1. I will spend as little as possible on food, and shell out only in case of emergency.

This was going extremely well until I started feeling a little chill in the air and the Husband went back to school (He’s a teacher.) Now I want things for "Back to School"--starting with some new clothes, a Trapper Keeper notebook and a fancy trench coat. I am such a sucker for those sale circulars--I want to get a jump on Fall. I need a fresh start for September. I am seriously craving 4 or 5 new outfits to get me back in the groove after the lazy days of Summer. Plus, I’ve been so good for so long! Say it with me now -"It’s just cognitive dissonance - you’re just trying to convince yourself that you’re still a good person if you do buy a new Fall wardrobe that you don’t need. Of course, this won’t be a problem when I’m Queen of the World and can afford Stella McCartney vegan fashions

2. I will be a vegan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m a vegan but I’m not happy about it. I know it has only been two weeks but I have not changed my basic position. I don’t mind eating other animals because they taste good and besides, I have wide flat teeth in the back for grain and pointy ones in the front for meat--animals are a natural part of my diet. I wish I could make myself feel differently, but I don’t. I’m appalled by animal cruelty and sincerely believe that factory farms should be forced to stop torturing animals, but I just don’t think it’s wrong to eat meat. And another thing, since I’m on a roll, plants have a heartbreakingly beautiful way of growing towards the sun AND they actually release the oxygen that we all need to live; but nobody worries about eating them. I have 3 cats (Yes, three. It was an accident!) and a garden and I love them all equally. I talk to my plants, threaten them with tough love, tend to them when they are sick and protect them when they are attacked. So yes, I’m really attached to plants and while I understand our very human attraction to other sentient beings, I’d give my right arm for a steak and a tomato salad from Keen’s Steakhouse right now. My own omnivore’s dilemma does not allow me to be upset about eating anything and besides the Dali Lama eats meat and he believes in reincarnation.

3. All my food will be organic (and local if at all possible) and only from local sources such as New York City's greenmarkets or the Park Slope Food Co-op. I will also investigate waste reclamation and wild foraging. (Gross maybe, but Americans waste more than 90 billion pounds of food a year, and that can feed a lot of starving activists.)

I am really enjoying this rule though I’ve renamed it the "Eat Fresh Food Dummy!" rule (and trust me, nobody is more shocked about that than me. I used to love canned and boxed food. A lot of people don’t know that about me because I live in the food capital of the world and if you confess that you really enjoy Chef Boyardee, you don’t get invited to the cool parties.) Because, if you want to examine your impact on the planet, it helps to know where what you’re eating and where it came from (I stole that reasoning from Michael Pollan, author of "Omnivore’s Dilemma"). I’m not going to lie, I will always adore Tater Tots but my own hash browns made from organic potatoes grown in upstate New York taste pretty good too. I didn’t however join the Park Slope Food Co-op--I joined the Flatbush Food Co-op, another community-owned all natural store because I needed soy milk and the Park Slop Co-op makes you jump through too many hoops! And, despite the fact that it doesn’t require any gear, I think urban foraging might become my new hobby. How cool is it to gather high-priced herbs like sorrel from a public park! I’m still really on the fence about dumpster diving. America’s food waste problem is serious and needs to be addressed, but I’m just not sure eating it out of the trash is the solution. I don’t believe that you can live off a system you’re trying to eradicate at the same time. And if you want to inspire people to act, I think you should start with something they don’t think is completely gross.

4. I will scrupulously recycle, reuse and compost. If I want something, I will barter for it or go to freecycle.org or try and find it in that house of horrors I call a storage space.

Hmmm, this rule can be more accurately stated as follows; "I will ask my husband to do most of the scrupulous recycling." I seem to have taken a supervisory position when it comes to this rule. I am thrilled that our household does all these things; but it would not be exactly fair to say that I, myself, do it since I just leave papers, boxes and cans in a haphazard pile near (but certainly not in) the recycling bin I also wanted to get a bunch of stuff together out of the house of horrors and put it up on freecycle.org but I haven’t found the time to do it. And the composting just isn't happening! I got the kit, set it up and it keeps getting knocked over. Perhaps a bucket full of worms, leaves and peat moss is too much temptation for a gang of bored cats

5. I will not throw away what I already have and buy "green" items. I will use what I have until it's gone.

I love this rule because it’s teaching me to be less wasteful. It’s also really opened my eyes to a lot of the marketing chicanery surrounding eco-issues. Just because it says ‘green’ or ‘fair-trade’ or ‘organic’ doesn’t mean it is and besides, why should global warming be an excuse for the same old corporations to get even richer because I feel guilty about still having incandescent light bulbs?

6. I will aim to reduce my energy bill by 50 percent and be carbon neutral.

I spend a lot of time sitting in the dark without air conditioning so when my electricity bill comes next week, I better see that reflected in the amount due! Other keenly missed sacrifices: turning off the tv when I'm not watching it and unplugging all unneeded appliances - from the toaster oven to my husband's 927 chargers. Bonus: I got a 7% discount from Con Edison for switching to wind power. Bummer - the discount is only for two months and then wind power will actually cost me 10% more!

7. I will only use eco-friendly transportation (including the subway), but I will take a car if it is a matter of personal safety (such as late nights).

All I have to say about this is I never thought I’d be so grateful for the subway. I’m still afraid to ride a bike in the city but I’ve eschewed the bus and no longer react like an overtired toddler when asked to walk anywhere.

8. I will open a Freedom Savings Account where I will put the money I save. This money will, in time, give me the freedom to quit working if I want to. And when I get the Man's foot off my neck, I'm going to move upstate and read used books.

At my current level of savings, I should be able to stop working in about 42 years, which is about 12 years earlier than I had originally calculated.

9. Most importantly, I will mindful of the impact of my actions on the earth.

This one is a lot more work than I expected (don’t believe me? You try to account for YOUR carbon output in a single day; then determine if any of your actions (direct or indirect) harmed any other humans or supported evil enterprises and then get back to me!) Everybody’s always looking for a gap in your logic and so you have to read a lot of books, talk to a lot of experts and do some serious carpal-tunnel inducing web surfing.

Good News: My boss made me lunch! Because of my new vegan diet, my pants will fall right off if I’m not wearing a belt.

Bad News: I’m not wearing a belt.

Worries: What if this experiment doesn’t change me at all?

Day 14: We're all Good People, right?

2007-09-06T14:23:22Z

Breakfast: skipped!
Lunch: Grilled vegetable sandwich and mixed greens.
Dinner: Homemade hash browns, some vegetable soup and yet another salad!
Cravings: Take out Chinese
Mood: Weary (Is that a mood?)

Yesterday we were talking about cognitive dissonance. For those just joining us, cognitive dissonance is the state of great psychological discomfort created when your brain is forced to acknowledge two pieces of information that it finds counter-intuitive or contradictory. And since I sincerely believe that our national desire to succeed at any cost is now cohabiting in our heads with the idea that our success is killing the blue planet, we should all know how this dissonance works. Especially since we’re coming up on a decision here. We can reduce our individual dependence on fossil fuels or we can blame the evil oil companies or those stupid tree huggers or China or Congress for the problem and keep doing what we’re doing (Or we can do both!)

Here’s my chat with 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." She told me some more about how our sneaky little brains are processing this whole planetary disaster scenario (And please blame her if you feel bad afterward):

FG: Why are we so paralyzed by the prospect of Global Warming?

Tavris: Once you open your mind to the evidence that human beings are contributing in a major way to a potential environmental disaster the next question is, “What are we going to do?” and it's not all clear what to do. It's not as simple as ‘wear a condom’ to combat the rise of AIDS. That's clear advice. The environmental issue is really complicated and we are not good future planners.

Our economy is designed for short-term growth, not the future. Companies have stockholders that want to see immediate efforts. Short-term gain--that's the American way.

Also, our culture has always been a culture of individualism and that’s a problem when solutions need to be system wide. We have this self-oriented approach. It's up to individual women to decide how to balance work and family. Our culture, which prizes individualism, won't help. We need to solve the overarching question of how we make government save us from the effects of global warming. If we look only to ourselves, there's no consensus. All of these individual decisions do make a difference. We do need to think globally and act locally; but that lacks consensus. Besides, nobody wants to feel like a chump. If everybody else is wasting water and you’re refusing to water your lawn, you're going to fell like a chump and you’ll want your town to pass an ordinance forbidding anyone to water their lawn.

[Just for the record, that’s not what I would want, I would want to cut all my neighbors’ hoses in half with a machete, but that’s just me.--FG]

FG: So that explains why environmentalists are constantly being attacked for being self-righteous and idealistic, right

Tavris: When a decision is difficult and ambiguous, what will happen over time is that the rightness of your choice will get stronger while the wrongness of the choice you didn’t make also gets stronger. [You can also apply this argument very well to the ongoing and always hostile ‘dialogue’ between mothers who work outside the home and those who don’t.] The venom stems from having to consider the road not taken--especially if it’s something you might really have enjoyed. It makes you feel good about all the things you're giving up. [This is totally what happened to me over Labor Day weekend!]

FG: So we’ve doomed all the penguins and polar bears on the planet because we don’t like to be reproached?

Tavris: A larger way to see this is to understand that most people see themselves as good, kind, caring, competent human beings. Therefore, when they are faced with evidence that they are doing something that might be bad, unkind, foolish, or stupid, they are thrown into "cognitive dissonance" -- a hardwired mental state that is as unpleasant as extreme hunger. It's precisely to maintain our views of ourselves as good people that we often justify and continue to do bad things. This is how the CEOs of big polluters sleep at night. They reduce dissonance by saying "the economy is more important than the environment"; or "my workers need these jobs"; or "my stockholders won't support the cost of going green." Another way of reducing dissonance is to dismiss the evidence of the human role in creating environmental problems as left-wing propaganda.

That Carol Tavris is smart, right? And I think it’s OK, as I’ve said before in this blog, for us to take a minute to reassure ourselves that we’re good people and we did not mean to melt the polar caps. But if we want to continue to think we’re alright then we’re going to have to make another decision – to do something to slow this problem down (cut waste, capture gas flaring, use less electricity, demand governmental action, cut hoses in half) or do nothing and let the next generation of good, kind and competent people take care of it.

Good News: I’m halfway done! I eat all the carbs I want and I’ve lost 8 pounds.
Bad News: I may not be as kind or competent as I thought I was!
Worries: You wish Carol Tavris was doing this blog, don’t you?

Days 11 - 13: Queen of the World

2007-09-04T22:26:13Z

Weekend Report Card: A+
Cravings: Sushi
Mood: Self-righteous

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?

Day Ten: A Freegan Coincidence

2007-08-31T17:03:47Z

Breakfast: Kashi cereal with soy milk.

Lunch: Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I know, I know!), 1 plum, 1 peach, Some wasabi peas.

Dinner: A little bit of leftover pasta primevera, a bowl of left over rice and beans, a big salad and some more fruit.

Cravings: A Labor-Day cookout with all the meat-laden bells and whistles!

Mood: Really good, I seem to hitting some sort of stride.

In a series of events I can only describe as cosmic (so melodramatic, right?), I found Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Selected Essays lying on top of someone’s garbage on the way home from Urban Foraging last week. Its first essay, if you’re not familiar with the text, is ‘Nature,’ a founding tracts of transcendentalism that opens with this; “Our age is retrospective. … The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” Now, people of a particular nature will accuse me of making up this anecdote; but it’s the truth, so we’ll just ignore those people. Anyway, Emerson’s idea, that we should live in harmony with nature, not solely as its master, was on my mind as I reading my colleague Sharon Begley’s blog, Lab Notes, and this fact just leaped out at me:

Worldwide, gas flaring is sending into the atmosphere the greenhouse-warming equivalent of 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. That’s more than one-third of the 1,197 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from every home in the U.S. last year, according to the Energy Information Administration, and more than one-fifth of the 1,965 million metric tons from all the trucks, planes, SUVs and every other vehicle in the U.S. that year.

And it’s all wasted: flaring natural gas makes the stuff go up in smoke, literally. Looked at from the point of view of sheer waste, the 168 billion cubic meters of flared gas equals 27 percent of all the natural gas used in the U.S. last year, with a market value of $40 billion. As the World Bank says, “Capture and use of the flared gas is an obvious candidate in efforts to reduce global carbon emissions. It is a so called low-hanging fruit relative to other carbon emissions reductions.” Are we still going to claim that cutting carbon emissions means unacceptable sacrifices in how we live?

Isn’t this just an amazing fact? You’d think people would be breaking out into spontaneous celebration, waving balloons made out of plastic bags. I really expected nothing less then press conferences hosted by giddy scientists pouring champagne on the chairman of the World Bank, taking phone calls from the President and planning trips to Disney World. Oil executives should be sobbing and breaking down on Larry King overwhelmed at the possibility of some good press. Why do I just hear yawning silence? Shouldn’t we be demanding that this ‘low-hanging fruit’ get picked immediately? Wouldn’t this kind of carbon reduction give us a huge self-esteem boost which would in turn lead us to do our own part and finally turn off the water while we’re brushing our teeth? Or to speak in what appears to be the unifying language of this debate; “How many polar bears and penguins would this save?” And how many other goodies does the World Bank have up its sleeve? What other planet-saving secrets are they keeping from us ? (Yes, I will be dialing down the paranoia shortly.) And why is everyone hysterically waving us off regular light bulbs when we all should be marching in the streets insisting on the capture and use of gas flaring!

Now don’t get me wrong. I am not solely advocating solutions that abdicate us of personal responsibility. I am merely suggesting that if we want to truly justify our actions as consumers, maybe we should not only be measuring the carbon footprint of our daily lives; but also measuring the footprint we leave by not demanding that our vendors (and that’s what these companies are, not matter how big Exxon-Mobil gets, it’s still our money they’re spending) attempt real and sustainable change. Are we so cynical about the power of the money that we think change is impossible despite overwhelming evidence that it isn’t. The highlights of our history teach us that time and time again, Americans have stood up to wrong and demanded right. (We’re not perfect, I know, but then again, who is?) Shoot, that’s how we got started as a nation. Abolition, Universal Suffrage, an end to Jim Crow and a Civil Rights Act – and sure, there were a lot of people opposed to those things but, - they’re on the books now.

As I talked about earlier this week, America ’s Second Harvest (that’s day 7 if y’all are losing track) swoops in and attempts to get all our excess food and groceries and give it to the hungry. I’ll be blogging at you about Second Harvest some more next week. They do some pretty amazing work to get stuff that would otherwise be thrown away to people who need it but can’ afford it. Freegans live off that same excess in an attempt, not only to illuminate the issues surrounding that excess, but to boycott it as well. Both are indirect ways of engaging our waste problem since neither actively agitates for its destruction. In other others word, these solutions have a symbiotic relationship with the problem they seek to solve. Although I acknowledge that - to back up from the intellectual cliff I’ve walked myself out on - it’s a start. If we are really outraged by a system that wastes 40 to 50% away of the food it produces (according to Timothy Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona .) and for which we bear some of the blame, we need to figure out what to ask for and get it. Jones suggests cutting food waste by half could reduce our impact on the environmental by 25 percent just by the fact that we’ll be filling up less landfills and using fewer chemicals such as fertilizers, and pesticides . Not only does that seem like low-hanging fruit to me, it also seems completely square with Emerson’s point as well. Nature is wondrous in its complexity (you know you were obsessed with the Planet Earth series too.), breath-taking in its scale, awe-inspiring in its beauty and magnificent in its destructive ability. We owe it to ourselves and our future to try a little harmony and demand that our vendors do the same.

Good News: Not sick of salad or rice and beans. According to some very rough estimates, I have saved $300 towards my Freedom Savings Account.

Bad News: Really sick of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Worries: I’m getting a little preachy, right? Well, I’ll calm down, There’s a holiday weekend coming up. See ya on Tuesday and please wish me luck over Labor Day weekend.

Day Nine: Inertia Sets In

2007-08-30T21:18:21Z

Breakfast: Kashi cereal with soy milk.

Lunch: Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I have got to stop eating those!), 1 plum, 1 peach, Some organic raspberry organic yogurt.

Dinner: Sautéed string beans with brown rice (and too much soy sauce).

Cravings: Take-out Chinese!

Mood: Impossible to tell--I’ve had a sinus headache for about 30 hours.

Some of my co-workers are driving me absolutely batty! They will not lay off all that “Are you following all the rules?” stuff. And I swear, if one more person asks me if I can eat a peach or a nacho chip or drink WATER, then I am going to need a defense attorney. My boss is real sweet though; she brings me local and organic fruit just about every day. And she’s totally cool about the turning off the monitor thing--turns out she doesn’t really care if I step away from my desk as long as the work gets done. Of course, I wonder whether the fruit thing will come up in my evaluation and if so, how? Maybe she’ll say; “Can we give Raina a big fat raise so she can buy her own local and organic peaches?” But the ever-present paranoid part of me thinks it’ll come down to something like this: “I supported Raina with local and organic fruit during her Freegan experiment. Now I feel like she still expects it and it’s making me uncomfortable. I say just go ahead and fire her!” See, so now I’ve put my fears in the blog and she’ll have to find another reason to fire me if she’s so inclined!

I’m going to apologize in advance for today’s entry. It’s sure to come across as scattered and pointless because I HAVE HAD A SINUS HEADACHE FOR 30 STRAIGHT HOURS. I don’t know what I’m allergic to; but it is kicking my butt! So, gentle readers, if you have any experience with sinus headaches and know of any home remedies, I would be most appreciative because at this point, there’s a good chance tomorrow’s blog will be about 1000 words of this; “uyhjnnnnnnnnnn;” which is what you get when you rest your forehead on the keyboard.

So you may or may not have noticed but one of the salient parts of the Freegan manifesto is; “Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing.” So I’ve been trying to be really, really nice to people. That’s not such a big deal for me, I’m a pretty nice person to begin with; but I’ve been trying to be nice to strangers and the results have been, well, mixed. I’ve been trying to smile at people who catch my eye in the subway or on the street and let me just tell you, there is a reason people tell you not to do that. From my recent experiences, I even think it’s fair to say that the average person passionately hates to be smiled at. (And I don’t think this is limited to NYC either; but what the heck do I know, this experiment doesn’t really facilitate travel.) Some people look back at you with an expression fixed somewhere between being possessed by Satan and fear that you are Satan. Others turn away as if to discourage me from speaking to them (which I wasn’t going to do! I have my own life and I have plenty of better things to do other then talk to you!) And some people actually jump out of their skin as if I’d threatened them with violence. I smiled at a uniformed member of the New York Police Department and he not only grimaced at me; he straightened up and put his hand on the butt of his gun. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that I’m a menace to society - a mad smiler who must be stopped. And then there was the ‘incident’ from this morning (on the corner of 58^th Street and Eighth Avenue), I stopped at the corner and was waiting to cross the street when a man smiled at me and said what my iPod stuffed ears thought was hello. So, I did the polite thing (removed both ear buds) and said “hi” back. Check out his response; “What? Why are you watching me? It’s not fair; I don’t watch you so don’t watch me. I am constantly being watched and I can’t take it anymore. Everywhere I go, I’m watched.” At this point, what was left of my smile looked like I’d just eaten an onion-flavored jelly-bean. I’m going to have come back to the generosity and sharing thing later in the month though I do wonder if because of my headache, my smile doesn’t look like a smile. Perhaps it looks like a completely insane rictus of pain and really I’m frightening people.

One more thing, I’ve begun recycling even the smallest bits of paper like envelopes and scrap paper and stuff like that and I thought it was going to be a real headache (sorry, couldn’t resist) but it’s not that big a deal (Freegans: 1 Lazy: 0). Oh and I’ve begun to take some advice from Janet Luhrs and her book The Simple Living Guide. Truthfully, I skipped right over the meditation part (I’ve tried! I can’t meditate. My brain resorts to making animal noises if you force it to be still.) and have fixated on the bit of the book where she says: “Spirituality is also about bringing mindfulness to everyday activities.” See, this is the part that gets environmentalists mad at us (remember “us” is the average American--we’re all in this together.) We have gotten used to having a lot of stuff all the time and it’s been long time since we’ve had to really think about where it’s coming from. But now that time has come, right? (Right!)

Good News: We had a little party at work and there were free vegetables and other vegan tasties to eat. I was so happy. I probably embarrassed myself.

Bad News: Chickened out on the Park Slope Food Co-op. The headache wouldn’t allow it. Barring a miracle, I should have just enough soy milk to last until the next orientation on Friday.

Worries: Still no concrete plan for BFF birthday gift.