Always wanted to know what your ecological footprint is? I have. I have tried to live my life by one basic mantra: to somehow justify or at least modify the space and resources I am taking up on the planet (by being a middle class white person living in the United States) by contributing something back to the world and being conscious of the waste that I create. Some may call it white liberal guilt, I call it rational. What that something is, is heretofore unidentified, unless little things count, but that's another subject (that I really don't want to talk about anyway).
This nice website will tell you what your ecological footprint is in the world. Apparently the average for people in the U.S. is "24" or "25." Mine was a "9," but I think I fudged on my car's gas mileage. My footprint is much more to my liking now that I don't commute 60 miles roundtrip, and I ride the bus twice a week. Anyway, try it out if you want!
Wednesday
September 6, 2006
My 35th birthday fell on Labor Day this year, marking the traditional end of summer as well as my youth, as I dryly and somewhat morosely put it to a colleague yesterday. The end of one’s youth being a completely arbitrary point, of course. And I don’t really think of my youth as over, but the rest of society seems to. One of the most depressing-yet-strangely-liberating realities of turning 35 is that I am no longer in the coveted target demographic for marketers, 18 – 34. It is this growing irrelevancy to the mass market that depresses me, because I’ve always liked the fact that as a 20-something and early-30-something the world kind of revolves around you. Once the mid-30’s hit, it becomes abundantly clear that there is a whole crop of young up-and-comers behind you, who are probably smarter, more creative, and have more energy than you. Of course I’ve been on the other end of this tension and still am to a large degree because everyone in my field is 5 to 25 years older than me, and when I started out as a 25-year old with a master’s degree, well, I struggled to be taken seriously and was constantly asked by consulting clients if I was “in school.” Ten years later, I still don’t seem to be “old enough” to garner any sort of credibility with senior colleagues. But I digress.
Aging out of the target demographic should be freeing! Free to be me! A certain power comes with not being in the crosshairs of the marketing machine. Similar to my experience ducking the patriarchy in my early 20s by not shaving my legs, not wearing makeup, and cropping off all my hair. That sudden invisibility to men was both scary and exciting. I also take heart by looking to women I know who are pushing 40 and 50, and swear they feel like they’re 18 on the inside – though this also means the aging process doesn’t get any less weird-feeling the older you get. And as my mom said, there are plenty of cool, happenin’ women in their 80s to whom I am but a mere baby.
P.S. I highly recommend the black pepper sorbet with strawberries at Uchi.
Aging out of the target demographic should be freeing! Free to be me! A certain power comes with not being in the crosshairs of the marketing machine. Similar to my experience ducking the patriarchy in my early 20s by not shaving my legs, not wearing makeup, and cropping off all my hair. That sudden invisibility to men was both scary and exciting. I also take heart by looking to women I know who are pushing 40 and 50, and swear they feel like they’re 18 on the inside – though this also means the aging process doesn’t get any less weird-feeling the older you get. And as my mom said, there are plenty of cool, happenin’ women in their 80s to whom I am but a mere baby.
P.S. I highly recommend the black pepper sorbet with strawberries at Uchi.
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