i have hurt my back.  it started throbbing last week.  the two hour drive in the giant box truck to pick up toys didn't help, I'm sure.  especially the part where i was scrunched up from stress trying to find the marine distribution center.  then when i had to get all slidey with the boxes so we could unload. 

now i'm on the couch with a rolled up pillow prop, a bag of ice and a restless mind.  simply-cannot-afford to be laid up this week.  i have ten days of toy wrapping projects ahead of me and i-am-stressed-out.

it hurts.  a-lot.  yikes!

so i'm in the in-between of my body doesn't work right and my head is filled with all the tons of crap i have to do. 

i think i want to break up with my therapist.  but that is just a phase. probably, right?

i need to buy 500 "holiday" cards by tuesday.  and wrapping paper.

i'm reading god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens.  it is great.  he's persuading me that i think like an atheist.  except that i am unwilling to let go of my personal experiences with the divine.  i guess. 

i'm depressed about recycling and my environmental footprint. i seduced myself into thinking i was this awesome person b/c i tried to recycle everything.  stupid crap. then i found out that a lot of it is just self-soothing activity that doesn't make a damn bit of good. of course not.  the real emphasis should be on reducing my usage of environmentally damaging items, not patting myself on the back for rinsing and reusing.  here's what i learned from the PA Resources Council

they don't recycle the plastic bags in which we store our recycling.  doesn't that seem silly?  why not recycle into paper bags which can be recycled? 

you can recycle plastic peanuts at the USPS.  however, there's no place to recycle those little plastic sauce containers that come with takeout.  so extra sauce from Giorgio's means death to yet another baby turtle. so much for meat-free.

if you contaminate your bag of recycling with too many items that aren't recyclable (like all those lids), they sometimes just toss the whole bag into the landfill.  i think every adult i know tosses lids into the blue bags. damn.

biodegradable plastic bags don't biodegrade in landfills.  so is it all hype?  i asked the Co-op and Whole Foods to look into blue biodegradable bags made from recycled plastic b/c it seems silly to use a virgin bag just for recycling.  now it seems silly to worry about it. the damn bags aren't recycled and don't biodegrade.

i feel a bit foolish at my presumption that it would be so easy. all those pizza boxes crammed into the bins at Construction Junction prove that i am not alone in my self-delusion.  and to think i made fun of the earnest men and women driving their SUV's especially out to Point Breeze every weekend.  ha. the joke is on me, I guess.  because it is hard to reduce. 

now that's a double entendre, she thoughtfully notes as she sips her gingerbread flavored coffee and nibbles a cookie from the Priory Bakery.

i'm not really depressed so much as feeling crabby and skeptical.  i'm trying hard to use my current work assignment (toy drive) as a educational tool and not merely another facet of sopping off our consumer guilt with one giant tax deduction.  i want to get excited when people care, but it can be a bit of a challenge when i doubt their motives.  it just makes me want to shop. 

this would be a great time for an unexpected wallop from the ghost of christmas present.