Random raves

Vroom vroom!

I like mowing lawns, although - memo to self - ensure the doggie poo patrol is carried out before mowing the back lawn in future. Ick.

Here is a list of things I have done, and will be doing shortly, to reduce my load on the environment:

• I'm using my Sodastream and groovy water filter to make my own sparkling water. The filter has improved my drinking water amazingly, and it's so nice not to be chucking out one or two plastic bottles every week.
• I'm getting my old Kingswood converted to LPG shortly. I pretty much only drive on weekends or for jaunts to Sydney, but it will make a major difference. Not only does gas have extremely light emissions compared to petrol, and especially diesel, but it's like the fuel has an octane factor of 110, so you use slightly less to achieve the same travelling distance.
• All my lightbulbs are compact fluorescents. It took a little while to find the "warm" coloured ones that don't make the place look like the office, but I'm happy with the effect. It annoys me that there is no constructive way of getting rid of the three wasteful halogen lights in the kitchen area, but I leave those lights off as much as possible. I also need to find something like an LED that will fit into my reading lamp by my bed - that's a halogen too, at present.
  
• I only buy organic meats (I eat chicken and pork, but no red meat), and organic other thingies as much as possible. I don't care so much about purported health benefits - although ingesting fewer pesticides and so on is bound to be good - but the fact you're contaminating the earth less and farming in a more sustainable manner are the stand-out benefits to me. I don't think there is any reasonable way to get rid of intensive or even industrialised farming... but I think it can be done in such a way that it actually has fewer effects than traditional methods (which require a lot of land).
• I have a bokashi bucket to take all my food waste. I'm lucky that I can add it to the compost at the CDL's, because I have no way of disposing of it in my small flat. It's working well - there is a not-too-offensive smell if I have the lid open (it smells like silage rather than rot), but otherwise it's completely unnoticeable.
• Of course, I recycle whatever I can recycle.
  
• Finally, I'm trying to fill my kettle with only as much water as I need for each use. If any of you North Americans drink hot tea and don't have a jug, get one! It's certainly more efficient than heating water in the microwave, and tea made from microwaved water is, frankly, vile (god knows why it makes a difference, but it does. Perhaps boiling it in the kettle oxygenates the water more?)

Things I need to improve:

• Turning gadgets off at the wall. There's no need for me to have my stereo and wireless router on standby all the time.
• Buying the right gadget at the right time. I'm happy with my phone, so I won't be replacing it for the next couple of years. However, I bought a new music player - the iAudio I should have bought initially - because the iPod was giving me gyp. I'll be flogging the iPod off to a colleague at work, or on eBay, but still.
  
• I've gotten my plastic bag store down to less than a dozen, but I don't need that many in reserve for my rubbish bin.
• I should probably take shorter showers, but I won't.
  

I'd just like to have a wee bitch about the seemingly prevailing opinion that not being an early riser is somehow less morally virtuous than those who enjoy waking at sparrow's fart. It really irks me. It annoys me that the construction across the road starts at 7am... and finishes some time around 3 or 4pm. It annoys me that the courier company sends their drivers out on the road by 8am, but I don't get the stupid card that tells me how to redirect the parcel delivery until after I get home from work... after 6pm (and of course I can't leave a message with the company until that 8am start time - making coherent conversation before I've had my breakfast isn't really the best thing).

So, I am normally awake around 15 or 16 of the 24 hours. I don't have afternoon naps, unless I'm extremely debilitated (ie. I'm sick or jetlagged). I work 40 hours a week, and often a bit more than that. I just really fail to see why the fact I'd rather start work some time around 10am and let my day go forward on that basis is somehow less "good" than being the 8am starter.

Ironically, nearly all of my partners have been early risers (not even "average" risers - early). I've only had one actually come the sanctimonious attitude at me personally. This was fine, because she was perfect in nearly every other way, and sorting out the fact there wasn't one "baddie" in that particular relationship was a nice balancing experience for both of us. What I'm objecting to more is the prevailing societal attitude that "early is better".

I'm trying to think what the basis of it might be. Monks get up at disgusting hours to do Matins - maybe that's where early = good came from? But where did they get the idea? It's not an at-one-with-nature thing, either. While the sun rises earlier in summertime, it also goes down later. So too with the sun rising late in winter - I don't see any particular advantages in getting up early (ie. in the dark) at any time of the year.

Anyways, that's enough of that rant. Just one of those things that bugs me every time I come across it, such as when trying to intersect with couriers, and sleep through construction noise. What was particularly galling about the courier is that he phoned me at work when he was looking for my home address - he was at the wrong end of the street. I asked him to divert to my workplace instead, rather than leaving the stupid little card - no, apparently driving less than 5 minutes from my home to my workplace would have fucked up his schedule more than eventually finding where I actually lived and scribbling his stupid card. I assume he'll be doing the same run again when I actually manage to get it redirected, since my work is less than a kilometre from where I live. I fail to see how this arrangement actually saved him any time.

On a non-rant front, he is delivering the new water filter I ordered. I pretty much drink only sparkling water, since I don't much like the taste of normal water. I was annoying myself at how many plastic bottles I was going through (the 1.5 litre ones, but still). I bought a SodaStream (once they finally got back into the shops after Xmas), so I can sparkle as much water as I like, and reuse the same bottles. However, even carbonated, Canberra's tap water tastes vile, so I hope the nice filter will improve it! (Athough while I'm on the grumpy rant thing, it annoys me that the filter site makes the stupid assertion about us needing to drink 6 or 8 or however many gallons of water a day it is to "stay healthy" - complete bollocks).

I've started a wee blog on the garden that saluqi and I have put in at her and faxon's house. We started the garden last year, but since I need something to track what worked (beans! potatoes!) and what didn't work (corn! beetroot!), I thought a blog would do the trick.

You can share my fascination for compost, and the highs and lows of cauliflowers refusing to develop heads (when they haven't been totally devoured by caterpillars). We'll get some piccies up there too, especially now there's stuff growing in most of the wee plots (it's a very small garden - just 1.2 x 3 metres).

On the silliness front, I just needed to share Lily Tomlin's informercial on vibrators: (deadpan) Well, doesn't it kill romance, you say. And I say, whut doesn't.



And I had a whole burble (l/j ated it) on the hotness (attractive, intelligent, musical, powerful, freckles, cute smile) of Condoleezza Rice, and why it's so wrong. It seems that my hot-woman-with-dyke-potential-dar is going strong, given recent rumours. I also like the article for pointing out it's the powerful women in politics who get the lavender herring thrown at them, whatever the truth might be.

...that drinking proper tea makes me very happy.

That is all.


PS. And I'm rereading Lorna Doone, which still holds up well, despite the fact I'm no longer a teenager. I like the sly humour, and, especially, the descriptions of nature.

There's a selection of "natural" laundry products made by a local outfit, called "Naturally Clean". I spotted them in the local IGA a couple of weeks back after buying the best fish and chips I've had in Australia so far (Flatheads Fish Cafe - just up the road!). So, in the effort of doing my bit for the environment, and avoiding the overly-perfumed enzyme-based powders that I truly do not like, I bought the Forrest washing liquid and gave it a whirl.

Alas, alack. The washing seems to be nice and clean, but it does not wash away my smell. And that's pretty important in terms of my believing something is sufficiently clean. I have a reasonably distinctive smell (I'm not "smelly", and I do think it's pleasant - who dislikes their own smell, unless they're physically unwell?), and I do not want to go to work smelling like I've just rolled out of bed after a busy weekend (not to be coy). I actually don't like to get into my bed and have it smelling like a busy weekend's aftermath when the sheets should be clean.

Now, I'm probably sounding like one of those massively overgroomed people who has an issue with their body, and natural smells, and yadda yadda. Obviously I'm not an "at one with the goddess and all of nature" hippy (although I think the unsanctimonious breed of hippy is cool). However, as I say, I like my smell. I like to be clean, but I'm not high-maintenance. But I don't want my smell to be too obvious. I don't like someone smelling all musky and ripe in my working environment, and I certainly wouldn't like to inflict it on other people. Perhaps if I lived and worked in a more naturally-smelling environment than the inner city (as far as that goes in Canberra) and a sterile office building, I wouldn't be so conscious of it. Or if my own sense of smell were a little less acute.

So, I'm going to finish off the laundry liquid I have now, and resist the temptation to run out and buy some Cold Power and rewash everything. I might try the lemon-flavoured formulation some time in the future once I feel like I've brought my laundry back to a sufficiently neutral state (it's never perfectly neutral). It may be that the eucalyptus oil in the Forrest formulation has a synergistic effect with my own personal smell. Or, perhaps my smell just needs real soap (since real old-fashioned soap works fine) to be sufficiently removed - these liquids only contain meths, white vinegar, bicarbonate and essential oils. It's a bummer it hasn't worked out to my satisfaction.

That Epitome of Efficiency, saluqi, has created a new community called outdamndspot, which is "for pet owning homemakers who like to keep a clean and/or tidy house, or who aim to anyway.... [it will welcome] discussion and advice about all sorts of things from stain removal to arranging sleeping space and litter trays."

So, for all those people who have critters out there and would like to know which products actually get the stains out, or what do in any pet and household management interface, get over to outdamndspot and ask your questions and post your advice.

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While I'm on the topic of new communities, I was thinking about starting a polyamory/open relationship-focussed one for queer-identified types. While polyamory is fine for general poly issues, I think there could be room for a space where it isn't assumed that the typical set up is a hubby, a wife and their HBB. Of course, the HBB would be welcome to bitch about het assumptions to her heart's content on the proposed group.

While most of the issues are similar no matter what the orientation of the participants, we can have extra hassles due to our societal and legal status, and we have already done the "questioning our identity" thing once... and I think it's easier on subsequent occasions. I, for one, am tired of some het people's tone of "OMG, I'm suddenly being oppressed! WAHHHH". I hope to at least avoid some of that entitlement-puncturing - although, of course, we'll get the "OMG, my formerly accepting of everything friends and family won't accept this" cries for help.

As an additonal distinction from the main polyamory group, I want to make the comm orientated towards all kinds of open relationship configurations. I'm also tired of the "swingers vs poly" debates. WTFevah. I mean, ok, I'm poly myself, but I don't think the two things are necessarily exclusive of each other.

So, does anyone else think there could be a niche for such a group? And, any inspiration for names would be appreciated - "openly_queer" seems just a wee bit twee for my taste, but maybe it's not as bad as I think.

I think saluqi knows me too well. Somebody mentioned a community here that she immediately thought I'd be interested in. Now, composting is one area of gardening I think I have down to a fairly fine art, but I wandered over to check out what kind of tips they might have (one can always improve, after all). After reading the first post, I had to comment... and then with the next and the next, I only just restrained myself. So, here I am now, a proud member of compost_wackos. Suits me just fine.

*mightily sucking it up*

TTO: My Mummy's Dead, by John Lennon.

My rice is burned.
I went onto the nets,
Spent too long looking at cute pets
My rice is burned.
I smelt the scorching,
Saw the pot smoking,
The fumes made me start choking.
My rice is burned.