We're all gonna 'splode!

So I just read this book, The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock. There was a pretty awesome article in Rolling Stone that piqued my interest and so I decided to read the whole thing.



Lovelock takes the stance of Bugs Bunny in this book. You know, when Bugs Bunny would finally lose Elmer Fudd at the end of the cartoon, and he would say, "So long screwy, see ya in St. Louis." Basically, when it comes to the environment, we're Screwy. And St. Louis is not such a good place to be. Much like Al Gore gave us a preview of a super heated planet a few years back in his anxiety inducing documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Lovelock tells us about all the bad things we've done to bring about a climate crisis.

Only Lovelock's story does not have nearly as happy an ending as Gore's. According to Lovelock, it doesn't matter how much we recycle, ride our bikes, switch to solar power, or take canvas totes to the supermarket: it's just way too late. By 2040, our planet will have crazy severe weather to a degree we haven't yet experienced (tornadoes in Boston, Katrina style hurricanes are the norm), and by 2100, the Earth will be 90% uninhabitable, with areas like The North Pole being the only places still temperate enough to host human life. Or any life for that matter.

This idea - even if Lovelock is a total loony - scares the crap out of me. I mean really. And this guy has you know, degrees, and has devoted his life to science and climate study. I feel like his theory is probably based in some verifiable fact. Right?

So, if this is true, what does it mean. Personally, I have taken to saying quite often, "Why are you worried about this trivial bull? Didn't you know the world is going to end soon?" Of course, then I feel like Chicken Little, or Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory. You know, he was kind of right, but kind of paranoid schizophrenic?

Lovelock has some great ideas. Like immediately switching to nuclear power, and having us develop some kind of bio-engineered food and start planning to live in bio-domes. You know, when the apocalypse comes. In like 90 years.

The funny thing about these ideas being, the peace-nik types who are usually on the front lines of environmental issues, like members of the Sierra Club and Kyra Sedgewick, would never, ever, ever, not in a million years go for them. So, as in many instances in life, it appears that even though we desire the same outcomes, we have different agendas, and thus, we are at an impasse.

I personally am ready to start lobbying for nuclear power, mandatory black outs, demolishing of cars, and whatever else it takes. I mean COME ON! With the way modern medicine is leaning I could still be ALIVE in 90 years. I don't want to have to move to the Arctic Circle when I am 120 years young. With my children. And my grandchildren. And our pets. We probably won't all fit, and that would totally suck.

I don't really know what the solution to the problem might be. I know that this, like skunk overpopulation, the carbs vs. low-fat debate, or poor writing in the new 90210 series, is not a problem I can continue to ignore. I'm doing some research into this whole crazy nuclear energy business, installing the low wattage light bulbs, and shopping local. But I realize these things are mostly for me. I want to do something for you, too. That's why I'm telling you this. Because we're all in it together. And we've got to get past this impasse and make some progress. Or you, me, the kids and the pets, and Santa Claus will all be fighting for a square foot of space in the balmy New North Pole before this crazy party is over.

Marriage is like running a small, boring non-profit

This morning, MSFAM sent me the below article:
Marry Him! by Lori Gottlieb.

Incredibly long but funny and interesting treatise on how single women should settle instead of holding out for Mr. Right. When I laughed out loud twice, my co-workers insisted I forward them whatever what helping me to procrastinate.

I guess being a 30-something single, this kind of stuff really gets my dander up. I don't need someone to tell me to settle. And I really don't need anyone to tell me I'm being picky...we've already talked about the men I've dated. I don't think I'm that picky. And personally, I think my mother or best friends would have murdered me due to pity had I settled for one of the self-absorbed, criminally insane, drug addled Mama's boys of days past.

I can't say I don't believe in settling. For the better part of a year my new dating philosophy resembles the author's "marriage is a boring non-profit" stance. Like, I'm not looking for passion. I'm looking for someone who, despite his treacherous mother and inability to put dirty clothes in a hamper, would still be worth hugging and cooking dinner for. Someone that I could be pissed at but still be pleased to be spending my life with. That sounds like settling to me. I just try not to think of it as settling.

The author makes a lovely point, though, and one I've thought about alot. "The man of your dreams doesn't exist. Precisely because you dreamed him up." By this logic every married woman has settled. Right?

I think I have a pretty "settling minded" brain when it comes to marriage. I remember a married friend telling me a story about how her husband is so good because he cleans the floor. She then went on to verbally lambaste him for not doing alot of other stuff to help with their house and baby, to which I replied, "Dude, you love him AND HE CLEANS THE FLOOR!"

Compared to some other husband stories I've heard, that seemed pretty awesome to me. Plus, no one cleans my floor but me. I'd let any stupid, ugly guy hang out at my house at least for a few days if he promised to clean the floor. Never mind love, honor and obey.

The thing that really bothered me about this article though was that it seemed so black and white in terms of age and the need to settle. Like Ms. Gottlieb really believed she would have had better chances finding a less horrible guy in her younger years that she does now as a 30-something single mom. She describes the older men who her older single friends took up with, as:
"a recovering alcoholic who doesn’t always go to his meetings; a trying-to-make-it-in-his-40s actor; a widower who has three nightmarish kids and who’s still actively grieving for his dead wife; and a socially awkward engineer (so socially awkward that he declined to attend his wife’s book party)."

To which I respond: these men were young and single once, and on the market. Someone even married that one with the nightmarish kids...and then she divorced him. Marriage and settling isn't a permanent state of coma/limbo/eternal predictability. You can get married or settle or whatever you want to call it at any age. The reality is the person you settle for is a HUMAN BEING. They grow, change, make mistakes, do stupid things, and will, inevitably, disappoint you. The young ones eventually turn into the old ones. With the problems described above. And us being adults, we should be able to accept that that's part of the deal.

What Liz seems to fail to see is that the story doesn't stop after marriage. It's not a fairy tale. Lots of things happen during "and they live happily ever after." Like adjustable rate mortgages and crushes on people who aren't your spouse and nasty in-laws and kids with colds, and disagreements on where to take the family vacation. And all those things, along with the good things, made it into the qualifier "happy." Happy is a state of mind.

But the whole article just seemed so fixated on marriage as some kind of end goal over which there is so much competition with her married friends. Relax, Liz Gottlieb. You seem like a complainer anyways. If you got married you'd just complain about that, too.