Birthday & Instructions for the Future

Fasting from Facebook yesterday (Ash Wednesday) was an instant relief. 
I'm going to keep it up till Easter.

Fasting from blogging made me sad. 

I do a lot of my thinking here;
not that I write them all out and post them,
but during the day I hold blog-conversations in my head, 
and if I cut that channel off, I feel...
lonely in myself.

So, here I am.

I. Off Line

But it was nice to spend the morning making a little amulet-type thingie instead of blogging yesterday.

"Power: Cocktail Size"  >

These little things take me ages to assemble, so it is good to turn off the computer sometimes.

When I get out all my scissors and glue, I always think I will make beautiful abstract collages––
something sophisticated, like Kurt Schwitters's.

But no.
Little (toy) animals always make their appearance.

They give me a lot of joy, so that's all right.
Little animals and dolls, that's me.
 
It's good to get out of the neighborhood too.
On my birthday, I took all five Orphan Reds to the conservatory with bink. There were so many young children there, however, the Reds didn't want to come out of my shoulder bag.
"We are not for children," they say.

The Reds did came out to sit in the sunny vestibule of the old entrance to the original Victorian greenhouse, which looks like the palm room in Kew Gardens. (The new, modern entrance is like the entrance to K-Mart.) 
Nobody comes there except maintenance workers--there was a mop bucket in one corner.

I didn't bring my phone––I'm tired of strapping electronics to my body––bink took photos:

Here's Penny Cooper,  ever confident.

And here's the new doll Orange, who says she is a tropical flower or a fruit bat, she can't decide which:

 
II. Birthday Loot

Here, below, is bink's birthday present to me:
she painted the saucer and cow on top of a thrift store painting. bink said she'd like to do a series, so I'll be on the lookout for more of these sort of paintings.
 

bink gave me the painting over cocktails with friends, and the server said,
"It used to be like a painting by Bob Ross, now it could be in the Louvre!"

Isn't that great? I wonder if the Louvre has an altered-paintings wing? 
Oh---huh, I guess not.
We're back to 1848: according to the Louvre's website, "Works painted after the 1848 Revolution [in 1986 were] transferred from the Louvre to the newly renovated Gare d'Orsay."
 
Mz made me a birthday present too:
a Starsky/Hutch fanvid set to 10cc's "I'm Not in Love", from 1975, the year the show first aired––I was in high school and heard the song a million times on my little transistor radio. 
(Never once saw the show though until a few years ago.)

I'm not enough of a fan to vid it myself, but I must've said a dozen times this song of denial would fit S&H perfectly.
Even though it wouldn't be her choice, she stayed up half the night setting a million little sighs and gazes (and aversion of gazes) and touches between the guys to it. 
"It was fun," she said. 
(One reason I quit vidding: it's too much fun. It's common to stay up all night editing microseconds of video to fit a gesture to a lyric.)

I was right--the song fits perfectly.

III. Instructions for the Future

The community ed course bulletin came in the mail yesterday. They're offering a series called Transition to a Sustainable Future. 

Topics include:
Zero Waste––going beyond recycling to reduce, reuse & repair (NYT article on what might really happen to your recycling);
Sewing for the Environment;
Bike Repair;
and how to go Car Free, & even consider giving up air travel––a huge carbon suck (calculate your flight carbon footprint here).

I'd just blogged about how there aren't instructions for the future, and I stand by my idea that the best "instruction" is to practice thinking creatively.

[Survival of the fittest = survival of the most adaptable. Darwin didn't say this * ––it's from a management text!––but it's still true that resilience is a key survival skill for weed species such as squirrels, dandelions, and humans. Management & business teachings are often very smart stuff, along a certain line of thinking anyway.] 

But of course many people are exploring concrete steps too--for now and for the conceivable future.
Here's an article from the Guardian last fall:
"Overwhelmed by climate change? Here's what you can do."
You know---eat less meat, insulate your home, VOTE...

If everyone did these things, well, we're a bit late scientists say, but it'd at least slow down climate collapse (and be good for the environment), 
––and generally it's not a bad way to live, eh? being more actively engaged and less of a consumer. 

HERE'S MY GUIDELINE:
Don't do [or forgo] things if that makes your heart slide into your socks.

Meanwhile, 
I had a blast going downtown and buying all NEW THINGS! I've always liked thrift stores and rummage, and most of my stuff is used (or donated new stuff, like shampoo). Shopping for new stuff once in a while is such a treat.

My auntie had sent me $100 for my birthday, and I spent it on expensive lotions and potions, jam and fresh flowers (talk about carbon! the rose in this bunch was quite likely flown from east Africa). Afterward I took a few friends out for cocktails.

IV. Budget for the End of Time

When I started work at the thrift store, I made a budget, which I've never done before--I always just lived day to day. 
But I love this job, and I love working part-time, and I wondered if I could work it until I retire.

The answer is... maybe.
Paid $10.25/hour, I earn enough to pay my rent (cheap because I rent from friends), phone (damn expensive smartphone--I half-regret it), and a bit more. 
I also get $25/month store credit, so I can get most of my clothes free at work, and even shoes, if I'm vigilant about watching for good ones in my size. We also get free food drop-offs at the store, even fresh stuff sometimes, and that helps.
And I'm lucky to live in a state & city that provides health insurance for low-income people.

I have enough money in savings to supplement my pay at $300/month for a few years--until retirement?
That's $10/day for groceries, bus, movies & restaurants, library fines (really? I work in a book store!), postage, gifts, haircuts, vacation... 
Oh, and the dentist.

I am failing at living on $10/day.
If I even take the bus to work (only on bad weather days--but there've been a lot lately)--that's $4.50 round trip.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this.
It's my choice, to some extent (lucky lucky me!):
I have the skills to get a better-paying job for a nonprofit.  The job counselor last spring said I would have no problem finding such a job, even though I'm old(er).

But geez--I know what that'd be like. It'd be days of committee meetings, computer training, and fundraising in carpeted offices.

My heart & spirits sink into my socks.

I think I'll just keep doing this for a couple years––till I'm sixty––and then take stock.  

My friend Julia, who is all about climate collapse, says I don't have to worry---the way things are going, retirement is an illusion.
That almost cheered me up about my budget failures.
You know––not really!
but I suppose living on $10/day isn't bad practice for adjusting to how limited things might become if/when things start slip-sliding away like Dali's melting clock. 

And if they don't––hey! wouldn't that be great? I'm not going to freak myself out about it before I have to.
Darwin said, "I quite agree how humiliating the slow progress of man is; but everyone has his own pet horror…"

V.  I think...

*Darwin didn't say that thing about survival of the most adaptable, but he did conclude On the origin of species with the words:

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

From the Natural History Museum:
"The first evolutionary tree sketched by Darwin in 1837 beneath the words 'I think'":