In what I swear is my last anti-Christmas comment of the season, I keep wondering how many landfills need to be created for just that one single day’s worth of wrapping paper. Think of the countless TONS of giftwrap that was manufactured for yesterday and then in a blink of an eye was entirely turned into garbage! Really amazing. It reminds me of the Lily Tomlin story about when she went to a store to buy a trash can, asked them to put it in a bag for her, and then when she got home a few minutes later took it out of the bag and threw the bag away in the new trash can.
That’s one of the reasons why I am determined to start a compost heap in 2005—it’s just nuts not to use all that perfectly good organic material we toss out every day. Of course if Kendall is reading this (and as of last night she knows about my secret blog so I’m no longer safe), she will probably be choking on her Venti Decaf Soy No-Whip Mocha Valenzia since she knows how often I make fun of her commitment to recycling. Let me stress that I am all for recycling and I truly admire Kendall’s efforts but sometimes they are so extreme they practically beg for ridicule. Like when she goes into a near panic when a one-millimeter shred of a ripped up receipt wafts away in the breeze and will chase it down two city blocks, jumping in front of speeding cars in the street so she can grab it for her recycling bin. Not to mention the fact that I’m convinced that half the stuff we put in our blue recycling can doesn’t actually get recycled at all but is just thrown into the same landfill with the rest of our crap. I need to go on Leah’s next field trip to a recycling plant and see for myself how it works. In fact, Leah’s wonderful science teacher, Bruce Flint, who died last summer, was responsible for setting up much of L.A.’s recycling system and I do think of him often when Kendall’s recycling obsession makes me want to do a passive-aggressive pendulum swing and throw away everything in sight while spewing, “If you really want to help the planet, stop buying $5.00 cups of coffee at Starbucks!” Luckily, she usually ignores me at that point since I have no idea how boycotting Starbuck’s would help the planet in any way. Don’t they use child labor or something? Maybe not…
My charming sister, Sue Miller, the former “doyenne of the Chicago music scene,” told me yesterday that no one could read my blog and not think I’m gay. Why, because I’m not writing about football scores and deer hunting? Wait, let me scan my few posts…Andy Hardy, Broadway musicals, old movies, Lily Tomlin…okay, maybe I do sound a little gay! Oh well…just don’t call me metrosexual, I hate that manufactured term and God knows I don’t dress well enough to be gay OR metrosexual!
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