So after watching Grey Gardens last night on HBO, I took a shower because unlike the Beales I have hot water and an aversion to filth, and reflected on how minimalism is the new opulence (I'm tired of everything being the new black). Looking at the piles of cans and bottles throughout the manse, all I could think of is how they were in desperate need of a more formidable recycling system, although you could make an argument that the pair was working out a precursor to composting, all the more effective when done outside within range of an actual growing garden, but I digress.
What did weigh on me is the hoards we all accumulate as we move through our lives -- clothes, papers, garbage -- and how we all need to begin thinking of ways to pare down on a daily basis. We're bombarded by ways to think green these days, from morning shows to gossip magazines, to daily tips on the internet (check out Idealbite.com by the way for those.) Now it's time to think out of the box as we strive to lean out our lives.
We did some nice out of box thinking this past Saturday night at a Gala celebrating 20 years of the Natural Resources Defense Council's accomplishments in Los Angeles and beyond. Instead of printing up tribute books for each of our 600-plus guests to thumb immediately to their own ad, glance at it for three secs of ego boosting, see if theirs was bigger than their friends or frenemies, and then throw it aside for all eternity, we set up two big screens and ran those same ads continuously through the night. Yes, we did draw energy from the grid, but we offset the entire evening's worth of joules , and what we ended up without were stacks of books from chopped down trees within bags of plastic to head to the landfill or recycling facility... the perfect example of waste not, want not. Because who really wants a tribute book the next day?
Follow the lead people and get rid of tribute books for any charity events or fundraisers or anything you've got coming up on the calendar and save yourself the headache of printers and the like. And save some trees while you're at it. And if you're still tempted to print them up, just imagine yourself as Big Edie surrounded by piles and piles of rotting papers from the past and think, this could be me. Without the cats of course.