Talking at People

I've been trying to strike up conversations about this environmental "kick" that I'm on. No, I don't personally see it as a "phase" that I'll soon be over. My friends, however, aren't really enlightened when it comes to the current information and literature available about the Earth and where it's taking us. To be honest, most of the guys don't even READ. I feel relatively safe bloggin' about my woes, since these fellas mainly use the interweb for illegal downloaded music and movies. Probably porn, too. Forget blogs, news sites, or even informational YouTube videos. To my "crew," the internet is just one big, mysterious entertainment provider.

I've tested the waters in a few different ways. Some of these cautious toe-dips were successful... and others were not.

- The husband and I started a family garden at my aunt's house. So far, two of the guys (Z and R) have shown slight interest. R came to see it, on the way to or from somewhere with the husband and me. Z heard the two of us talking about our SuperRadishes last week, and thinks it's cool that we're growing some of our own food. We said he should come over with us to work on the garden sometime, and that we'd give him some veggies in return. He said yes, but we'll see if it happens.

- M, a good friend who's about to move from Mid-Michigan to Arizona, has been a victim of my numerous tirades about the scarcity of water in our near future. We come from a land of plenty, the heart of North America, the Great Lakes State. Even I don't fully understand how fortunate we are to be surrounded by fresh water. After showing him a few charts and graphs from The Great Lakes Water Wars, my hope is that he's truly started to think about what Phoenix will be like in 15 years. Or ten. Or five. Heck, I hope he's at least looking into the current average temps and rainfall, to date.

- The husband and I have devised a semi-longterm life plan. We're going to stay in the area for the next five or so years. Grad school is on the menu, and we need to save money. Once we're able, we'd like to head into the northern part of the lower peninsula and truly settle down. I've never been to the UP, so I'm leery of signing on to the rest of my life as a UPper. Anyways, we want to find a home somewhere in town and live a semi-sustainable life until we move on to greener pastures. Ideally, I'd like to have a long-term rental house that we could maintain, landscape, and update on our own. It'd be better to own our home outright, but I'm afraid of getting stuck. I'll put my feelers out, maybe post on Craigslist.

- I'm not sure if this last impromptu discussion was a success, or if it merely solidified A's gut feeling that I'm insane. Maybe that's a good thing. While sipping pricey coffee drinks at Barnes and Noble, and flipping through an architecture book full of ridiculously beautiful and expensive Michigan homes, I brought up cooperative living. It wasn't on purpose. I had nothing prepared - not even a basic explanation of what I mean when I say "cooperative living". All I really know is that I think group living would be neat, and smart. I expressed this to him, and he poked about a dozen holes in my balloon. Instantly deflated. Then, he realized that co-op-ing it was actually my idea and not some crazy scheme of my husband's. He suggested that we try it out. Go visit one of these EcoVillages for a while, and see how we like it.

Now there's an idea!