Sunday, September 25, 2011

Breaking the habit

I've always considered myself a saver. Not exactly a saver of money, though goodness knows I like to save it, but a saver of stuff. And not in the "I'm hoarding all these shoes" way (well, maybe), but more in a "this is special so I'm going to save it for an occasion/to make it last longer."

I do this with everything from clothes to food. But recently I've decided to try and consciously fight this instinct.

Those gorgeous strawberries I wanted to eat only a few at a time so I could savor them? Half of them end up shriveled and in the trash because I forgot about them. The cheese that cost $5.99 a pound, thereby requiring careful rationing of each delicious sliver? Inevitably it molds. Even the special sparkly shoes I don't pull out but once a year end up losing their shine, buried in a pile of the more frequently favored footwear.

This is bad. I should not do this. My instinct to "save it!" ends up wasting it instead.

Hence, my resolution. I think I have been marginally successful so far. The grapes are almost gone and that's a start, because usually a bunch of grapes ends up breeding angry raisins on the bottom shelf of my fridge.

Incidentally and as a complete departure from the topic at hand, a teacher once told me he saw a translated copy of "the Grapes of Wrath" in Japan being marketed as "The Angry Raisins." Pretty sure a lot of Japanese were rightfully confused.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Return of the blog

Hola. It has been a long time. But recent events have initiated my return...specifically, I got a smartphone. And this will make it much easier to blog when something interesting happens to me. Like the praying mantis outside the apartment just now. Or the prehistoric millipede that meandered its way through my office building. Or the seriously thumb sized spider whose web I disturbed yesterday. With my head.

Yes, evidently the only interesting things that happen to me involve bugs. But at least I posted. Six months, what?!