Hulkomania

I have always been a little bit of a, how shall I put this gently, "maniacal zealot" concerning the environment.

Just ask anyone who has ever lived with me.

When roommates of old made the mistake of leaving the water running while they were brushing their teeth, something would come over me. I can't explain it, I would try to contain it, but I would inevitably go all Hulk on them and burst into the bathroom uninvited to turn off the faucet for them.

Add to my fanaticism a generous helping of OCD tenancies and you've got a recipe for 5 roommates in 4 years and at least 1 session of formal roommate mediation.

Suffice to say, I was a challenge to live with.

But, by the end of college, something had happened to the my inner eco-freak. Four years of depressingly hopeless environmental studies coursework had taken its toll on the Hulk. The final nail in the coffin occurred when my economics professor shared that she had witnessed the contents of her trash can and recycling bin being poured into the same garbage truck.

It was then that the green of my inner Hulk faded to gray, and I stopped caring. I figured that the Earth was going to wear out anyway, so why be bothered?

I have only recently begun to participate once again in the realm of environmental responsibility. My reconversion resulted from a combination things, including several trips to third world countries, hope-filled solutions presented by guys like Rob Bell and Al Gore, and the assurance that my city's recycling program is now bonafide.

Except this time, instead of going all Hulk on the subject of going green, I have gone a bit more Mr. Rogers.

With minimal effort and minimal moolah, this cardigan-wearing chica is saving the planet, and you can, too.

• Stop Sucking - I unplug anything that has a "black box" charger or plug when not in use. Regardless of whether or not you are using them, when plugged in, those suckers, well, suck.
  
• BYOBagging - I have an assortment of teacher totes that accompany me into (and hopefully out of) the grocery store.
• Trendy Cleaning - I am all about those sexy, biodegradable cleaning products like Method and Seventh Generation.
• Recycling - Um. I recycle.
  
• Passive Composting - I throw my uncooked fruit and veggie scraps under my porch. You would think it would smell like the inside of your belly button, but it doesn't.
  
• Thermostating - I turn my thermostat up/down/off while I'm at work. Takes, like, two seconds.
  
• Faucet aerating - Less water + more air = same effect.
• Breaker boxing - Forget installing a timer on my hot water heater. I just flip that switch off when I leave in the morning, and on again when I come in at night. Booyah!
  
• Compact fluorescing - Our CFFs are saving us watts of big bucks, baby! And the model IKEA sells look like actual light bulbs, as opposed to giant glowing paper clips.
  
• Litter boxing - Two cats. Two words. Feline Pine.
• Low-flow-shower-heading - So easy to install that even a Jessica Varney can do it. My water bill, not my water pressure, has gone down significantly. And, despite Seinfeld's claims, my hair is still plenty big.

Tis easy being green, so just do it, okay? You don't want to make me angry. You won't like me when I'm angry...

The antique of the future

There was a season when mother was wholly convinced that glass ashtrays were the antique of the future.

So she proceeded to do what anyone would do when faced with a potentially lucrative epiphany: scour yard sales for the aforementioned item and display them proudly on every available inch of coffee table in our home.

Some of the ashtrays were souvenirs of the previous owners nostalgic, nicotine-addicted adventures at such inspiring destinations as "The Salem Witch Museum" or "The Entire State of Arizona." Others were just clear glass dishes with bumps and notches in all the appropriate places.

When my friends would visit, they would inevitably come upon our collection of cigarette butt abodes and wonder out loud, "Who in your family smokes?"

Such a silly, silly question.

"No one. NO ONE in our family smokes!"

And although my mother has since refuted her own hypothesis, the ashtrays continue to dwell somewhere in my childhood home. Why? "Because, they might be worth something someday."

Ah - the pack rats mantra. Let's all recite it together as we hold our Beanie Babies high and sway to the skipping beats of our LPs. "It might be worth something someday..."

We've all got an ashtray collection. And I'll tell you why in two words. Antiques Roadshow.

We are all secretly scared that the family heirloom we never use and we don't even like will one day come back to haunt us. We picture ourselves parting with the item, only to do a double take years later as we are flippin' through the channels. Amidst the mesmerizing parade of miraculously preserved this and one-of-a-kind that to be seen on PBS's Antiques Roadshow, we see someone showing off our ashtray and smirking as they recall the sucker who sold it to them at a yard sale for $0.75.

But here is the problem. Any item, whether you bought it yesterday out of the dollar bin at Target, or your mother has been stewarding it for you since you were blowing bubbles with your own saliva, still has to pass the "keeper test." I've said it before, but it bears repeating. If you don't love it or if you don't use it, it be junk and it ain't a keeper.

Am I harshin' your gig? Groovy, because if you are keeping something because of its potential monetary value, then you don't really own that item at all.

It owns you.

And anything that owns you is your master.

So, shake off them shackles and put that sucker on Ebay, or better yet, give it to someone who will actually flick their butts into it.

Because the only other reasonable option is to go buy yourself a pack of Marlboro Light 100s.

Goodwill hunting

So, I have this friend. And no, this isn't one of those analogies where the "friend" is really me. This is a real person and a real example because you know what? I can't make this kind of stuff up.

I'm not that good.

Anywho, the other day my friend, who I hope will still be my friend and continue to read my blog after reading this post, made a comment about my car.

Let's pause and reflect on my car. As a lover of small things, I drive a clean, zippy little Civic stick that is typically debris-free inside and out. I have made it a habit to remove anything and everything that does not belong in my car at the end of every day. And, since I like to carry it all in one trip, I no doubt resemble a beast-of-burden as I haul twice my weight in canvas bags filled with gym clothes and lunch containers, receipts and mail, and the occasional benthic macroinvertebrate from my car into my house.

Okay, so even though I don't make this stuff up, I have been known to exaggerate in order to make a story better or a joke funnier. So sue me.

However, on this particular day, books like, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "Christy," an old shelving unit, and some of my hubby's cast-off clothes were piled on the floor behind my seat. Now, instead of stating the obvious:

"Oh, Jessica. You are such an incredible and generous environmentalist. Not only are you gathering reusable objects to donate to Goodwill, but I can see that you are conserving fossil fuel by waiting until you have other errands to run in that charity's neck o' the woods before you trek all the way out there. You are my hero."

Instead, my friend said something like, "Wow. For a professional organizer, you sure have a messy car."

Gasp! What? Did you hear that? That was the sound of my heart faltering within and my jaw dropping like a...jaw that drops.

You will be relieved to hear that I did not crack my slate over my friend's head. That is not a good way to win friends or influence people, no matter what Anne Shirley may tell you.

Instead, I promptly found a reason to go to Goodwill the very next day. My apologies to the planet.

All that being said, let me point out my error. Not the error of my friend. Mine.

I allowed what my well-intentioned friend (I assume they were well-intentioned, since people I am friends with know that they should never ever insult their friends occupation, especially when it is still a tender, green shoot...) to mess with my sense of identity to such an extent that I drove all the way to Good-flippin'-will at 7:00 on a Tuesday night just to drop off a few measly items. How measly, you ask? I didn't even ask for a receipt for tax purposes, that's how!

And finally, my point. Don't let your work define you to the point where you can't feel free to muck it up on a personal level. That's way too much pressure for a critter that is essentially made out of, and will one day turn back into, humus.

So mechanics - go ahead and let your car break down on the side of the road and call AAA to give you a tow. Housekeepers - let that toilet of yours form a substantial pink ring-o-slime around the water line. Dentists- eat all your kid's trick-or-treating booty and don't brush your teeth before you go to bed that night.

Feel free. Is okay. I make lamb.

Shameless plug

Check out the podcast that my honey does: Chicken Pop Pod. Not only does Greg contribute some pretty funny stuff, he also serves as the unofficial live studio audience/laugh track. And if you want to hear me talk WAY too much, check out episode 24 where the girls take over. Go to http://www.chickenpoppod.com/

Coming out of the closet

My house is little.

I mean, iddy biddy, teeny tiny, makes-my-hubby-claustrophobic-little.

And I love it.

Not the part about my honey suffering from a spacial dilemma upon arriving home from work each day. I just love the minimalist aspect of it. It is a basic scientific principle that the smaller a space is, the less one is able to cram a bunch of crappity crap into it.

You know what I'm talking about. It's just like with your purse (or man bag for all the metrosexuals out there).

Everybody is carrying a Mary Poppins purse these days. Yes, I know Mary came up a couple of blogs ago, but I cannot help myself. She is, after all, practically perfect in every way.

Practically.

The only reason she is not perfect is because of her big bottomless bag. Anyone who can fit a coat rack into their carry-on has some issues, and not just with airport security.

I digress. Back to my hobbit house. It has minimal accessible storage.

No basement.

No attic.

No garage.

No storage shed.

All we have to work with here in the shire are seven closets and a crawl space. And if our crawl space were to be declared modern art, its name would be "Cellophane on Moist Dirt Pile" as it is only good for storing the gasoline for the lawnmower and the snow shovel we have yet to need.

I say all this to warn you. Beware of your closets! Closets are sneaky-sneaky. They give the appearance of tidy when in reality your collection of #5 sour cream containers that you are saving until the day they become recyclable in your area are lurking precariously behind that closed door.

You know the cartoon where the optimistic protagonist opens the closet door only to meet his maker in an avalanche of gadgets and gizmos a-plenty, whozits and whatzits galore, and twenty thingamabobs? We used to have one of those at where I work.

Used to.

Then this obsessive compulsive midget came on the scene. And even though I have since purged the space of its weapons of mass destruction, I still lovingly refer to it as the closet of death.

My point is this. I may only have seven closets, but none of them could be classified as a closet of death.

Just because you have a closet, that doesn't mean you have to put anything in it.

Am I saying all this to brag?

Yes.

Yes I am.

Wallpaper

I'm not a big fan of wallpaper.

And I ain't talking about the glorified wrapping paper that is currently stuck on the wall of your half bath, or the decoupage you shlacked all over your hope chest, or even the OK Go music video.

I'm talking about that thing that has been sitting in that place for so long that you don't even see it anymore.

It blends in.

It has become wallpaper.

Tell me about that table.

We got a few years ago as a wedding gift.

Do you use it?

No.

Do you like it?

Not really.

Then, why do you have it?

I really don't know.

Incredible.

Jump back, David Blane and move over, Chris Angel! Forget the illusionist approach to disappearing; just try standing in one place for a month or so and abracadabra you're gone!

It's a phenomenon worthy of an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. When something sits in one place for too long, people simply don't see it anymore. It essentially disappears.

It happens very subtly.

It's raining, so you take your umbrella out of your car and make the mad dash to your front porch. It's wet, so you leave it outside to dry...

You need to call Oriental Trading Company because the rock bouncy balls they sent to you just aren't up to their usual levels of stone-like resemblance. You write it on a Post-It note and stick it on your computer monitor...

You are given a coupon for a free cookie from Sugar Mama's. You put it in your wallet...

A week passes, a month, maybe even a year.

And voila! They are all still there. But you can't see them. They have faded into the landscape.

It has become wallpaper.

Take a moment look at your surroundings with a fresh set of eyes. Linger on each thing. Ask yourself these questions:

What is it?

Do I use it?

Do I like it?

Does it belong here? If not, where is it's "home?"

Ready. Set. OK Go!

You've been a very naughty boy...

What is more stressful? Is it:

(a) Giving an impromptu speech about something you know little to nothing about in front of a crowd of 10,000 people.
(b) Realizing it is not a nightmare - you actually have shown up to work or school naked.
(c) Tidying up a room that bears a shocking resemblance to an Old Navy store after a one-day-only 99 cent flip-flop sale.

As with all multiple choice tests, the correct answer is always "c."

People hate messes.

The only exception to this rule would be one Ms. Mary Poppins with her whole "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and - SNAP - the job's a game!" mantra. She might as well be saying, "Could I interest you in some direct marketing?" I mean, come on, who is she kidding? Even a spoon full of sugar can't make that medicine go down!

Straightening out a space that looks more like the aftermath of what the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale would define as a Category 5 Hurricane, or its equivalent, a preteen slumber party, can feel overwhelming, and even a bit like a punishment.

Very well then.

You've been a very naughty boy - not putting your toys away after you were done playing with them - now go sit in the corner and think about what you have done.

But hey, you are a rebel, right? So, while you are in the corner, you might as well get all Billy Idol and stick-it-to-the-man by putting that stuff away.

Here's how you do it.

Pick a corner. Any corner. Pick something up. Put it away. Repeat.

Don't be distracted by the beautiful celebrities, I mean, the other junk in the other corners of the room. Stay on target. Love the corner. The corner is your friend.

If you need to put something from that corner away in a different room, you may do so, but come right back to the corner. If you have to, go ahead and take something else with you that belongs in the "corner room" so that you can find your way back to the corner should you get lost along the way.

When you are done with that corner, move onto another corner, and before you know it that room will be looking supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The voices in my head

Recently, I stopped listening to my iPod.

I mean, I completely stopped.

And since then, I have found myself more focused, more hopeful, and more motivated than ever.

What was I listening to? Not complaint rock or angst emo or anything. I mean, my ring tone is Mmmbop for cryin' out loud!

The stuff I was listening to was fantastic - terrific podcasts full of convicting messages, deep wisdom, and brilliant insights. But, I was finding the more I listened, the more anxious, overwhelmed, and depressed I felt.

I had so many voices bouncing around in my head that the only thing I knew to do to drown out the confusion was to listen to another podcast.

A viscous cycle.

There are so many messages, both good and bad, constantly being broadcast all around us. Many people cannot work, feel at ease in their home, or even fall asleep, if the tunes or TV aren't crankin'.

An addiction to noise.

And an aversion to silence.

For some, silence can be awkward, like a lapse in a struggling conversation. For others, it can create unwanted tension, be unnerving, or even downright scary.

I believe they have good reason to be afraid. I believe that in that place of silence, they would hear a voice both wonderful and terrible; A voice that would wreak their lives and cause them to change the way they do everything.

I believe they would hear the one voice we really should be listening to.

The voice of love and hope, the voice of wisdom and discernment, the voice of truth. It's a very quiet voice. Call it what you will, but I believe with all my heart that it is the voice of Almighty God.

And I believe that there is another voice. The voice of someone who hates us and doesn't want us to hear that quiet voice, because he knows what that would mean for our lives. He has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but has found that all he has to do is drown us...

...in noise.

Smoking pot

Hello, my name is Jessica Varney, and I am a girl.

It's true. The testosterone brain bath? Never got one. Totally missed this in utero experience. As a result, I supposedly still have all of these amazing connections remaining between my right and left brain that the distinctly XY chromosome types generally lack.

Supposedly.

Translation: as a girl, I should:

• (a) flake-out on the math portion of the SATs,
• (b) kick booty on the verbal, and
• (c) be the reigning queen of multitasking.

Right. But for me, it's more like a rousing round of "Two Truths and a Lie," because two of those statements are true, while the other is just lies, lies, lies.

(a) In my world, the letter "C" is not just for "Cookie." It's for Trigonometry, Geometry, and anything else remotely metry. So, there is my first truth.

(b) And verbally, I have in fact kicked many a booty. So truth number two? Totally accurate.

(c) But oh, the tragedy of the lie.

I have four burners on my stove. That means that I should be able to cook four things at the same time.

The one time (one time) I did in fact have all four burners pumping, I found out what happens when you steam broccoli without the use of water. The scientific term for what you see coming off of your pot is not "water vapor."

It's "smoke."

And when a pot that you have on your stove is "smoking," that means that it is "hot." And I'm not talking San Antonio minus A/C hot, I'm talking about twenty-seven-million-degrees-at-the-center-of-the-sun-hot.

It was on that day that I scientifically proved that neither counter tops, nor tabletops, nor even three layers of potholders are meant to withstand those levels of radiation. Who knew that a hot pot could turn a pot holder to a pile of ash in mere seconds?

Because I was trying to do too many things at once, I very nearly burned my house down.

So my advice? Maybe it's time to slow down there, Speed Racer, before you muck things up.

How many hot burners are you cooking on?

Bright and shiny objects

My kitchen is only about 8 feet wide. So to get from one side to the other, literally all I need to do is turn my body around. Seems simple enough. Yet somehow, during the 180 degree journey from one side to the other, I usually forget what I am looking for.

I wish I were kidding.

I'll open the oven, only to realize that I really needed something out of the fridge. I've been known to put the milk in the pantry and the cereal in the ice box.

Conclusion: I'm down with ADD. Be it a thought or an object, if it be bright and shiny, I be there. Did I mention that I have a hard time focusing?

In an effort to fight my flightiness, I have developed an elaborate system of tricks I use to combat my wandering brainwaves.

For example, I have a series of different hand motions I make for whatever it is I am looking for, so that when (not if) I forget what in tarnation it was I was seeking, I can just look down at my flailing paws and go "Oh, I remember. Can opener!"

But the worst is the bathroom. I am so prone to forgetting what I was working on prior to skipping to the loo that I put off powdering my nose until the last possible second. Clarification: That would be the second after my pee-pee dance reaches its DDR peek, and the second before I instead find myself seeking a mop and a pair of dry drawers.

So what's a well-hydrated girl to do? Answer: Carry whatever it is I am working on to the bathroom with me and leave it on the floor just outside the door. I call these my "props" as they help me to remember what my "scene" was prior to my restroom rendezvous during "intermission".

"Has anyone seen Jessica?"

"She's in the john."

"How do you know?"

"There is a boulder on the floor outside the door, that's how I know."

Finally, I talk to myself. Out loud. I mutter to myself. In fact, I'm doing it right now. I carry on conversations with myself about whatever it is I am doing. That way, if I forget, I can just ask myself later.

Hey, wait a second. How did I end up writing this blog anyway? I was totally doing something else? Self, what was it? Oh, I remember. Working!