earthgirl

by Jennifer Cowan

  Even if my family failed to hear it, this was my wake-up call. The beginning of something potentially huge. The way people treated the planet mattered. Pollution, destruction, corruption and greed mattered. Not that they hadn’t mattered before, exactly. Just not to me.

  How else could you explain garbage in the face! It was so obviously obvious. And I, Sabine Olivia Solomon, could no longer pretend I was more interested in hair extensions and fake eyelashes than the real world. The real, living, breathing and now choking-on-the-crap-we-throw-out-there (through car windows or otherwise) world.

  Someone had to step up and speak for the planet and the trees and the water and the animals. To give them a voice. And even if mine was only a little whimper, I had plans to make a whole lot of noise.

  “Fine,” I sighed. “You go back to eating, shopping, idling the car and consuming till you fall over. Maybe if you’re lucky nothing will happen. But don’t get on my head because I see that this is about something bigger and actually means something.”

  “That’s my girl. You rant and rage till the cows come home,” Dad said as he kissed me on the hair, having clearly not absorbed even an iota of what I’d just said. “And be a sport. Take down the video thing after school, okay? For your mom.”

  •••

  “Gotta say, Solomon, you surprised me with that little outburst of yours.”

  I practically skidded to a stop at the husky drawl of Shane McCardle, an elusive sound rarely heard by most and never heard by me. Then again, I rarely heard the sounds of any smokin’ guys, unless you counted the nonstop jabbering of Carmen’s lunkhead boyfriend Darren Mankowsky.

  “Thanks,” I stuttered, wondering if he meant good surprised or bad surprised and also amazed he actually knew my name.

  “Yeah, had you pegged for one of the clones,” he nodded with a raised eyebrow as he loped away. “Dare to be different.”

  And just like that he was gone again, the knotty head and vibrant blur of his Guatemalan jacket blending into the crowd down the hall.

  “That was Shane McCardle!” Ella bolted toward me, practically knocking me over. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing, really. Same as everyone else,” I lied.

  This morning’s journey across the lawn and through the front doors had been definitively different from most days. A slew of nods, winks and props mixed with scoffs and the occasional slag greeted me. Even the generally absent (in all senses) mousy Somerville gave me big ups, saying she saluted my “moral indignation.”

  “You and Shane McCardle. That so rocks,” Ella sighed, clearly imagining Shane and her.

  “He just said hey,” I shrugged, though admittedly I was a bit frazzled and electric he’d done even that.

  “Looks like you’re e-famous,” Carmen said matter-of-factly, looking around at the other students as if they were her subjects. “You should milk it while you can, cause sadly fame, especially your kind, is fleeting.”

  “I’m not interested in fame,” I scoffed, feeling a tad out-raged that my profound life-changing experience was being distilled down to something so trivial.

  “You have so much to learn about playing the game,” Carmen sighed. “Why do you think I posted it in the first place? To help you out, get you to the next level.”

  “Of what? What happened yesterday meant something.”

  “I’ll say,” Ella grinned. “You’re on YouTube and not having a pillow fight or something pervie like the one Alexis and her posse posted. The skanks.”

  “No, that we should be paying attention to the world around us. It’s in crisis, stressing out.”

  “No offense, Sabine. But there aren’t a lot of people we know or hang with who care about the planet being stressed. We’ve got enough of our own stress, thank you very much.”

  “I concur,” Carmen said, as she gathered her books.

  “But the world is in trouble, crying out for us to help. We can’t ignore that by obsessing over guys and clothes or what movie we should see on the weekend just so we don’t have to look at the horrible reality we’ve created for ourselves,” I rambled, clearly on a roll.

  “Hey, it wasn’t our generation that messed things up for us,” Carmen said, snapping her locker shut. “And for the record, I vote for that spooky cruise ship movie opening Friday.”

  “Whatever, as long as it gets me out of the house,” Ella chirped. “And just so you know, Sabine, it’s not exactly cheery to hear the world is about to end. We’re only sixteen and besides, we don’t even drive yet and I’m pretty sure my brother can drop us at the early show, but someone’s units have to pick us up.”

  “It’s not depressing,” I answered, amazed but not at how they were trivializing something so important and somehow by extension also proving it so incredibly relevant. “I mean, it is a downer, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s also empowering. The only way to fix problems is to know what they are so you can do something.”

  “Good for you,” Carmen smiled. “Go forth with your newfound fame and glory and be a fixer of the world and hopefully I can fix the C I got on my history test before the parentals find out and my almost-perfect universe falls apart, too. Cause that, girlfriend, would really, really suck large.”

  b e i n g h e r e

  why-a pariah?

  [ Sept. 27th | 09:41pm ]

  [ mood | confounded ]

  [ music | Hawksley Workman — Goodbye to Radio ]

  Despite the parental haranguing, I left the video up. For now. It’s hardly the international show stopper I’d figured, getting nothing near the hits and visits it deserves (apparently becoming a YouTube phenom involves phenomenal amounts of energy, promotion and email contacts).

  Still, what reaction i have had has been overwhelming.

  Huge hugs and thank yous to the peeps offering support and encouragement.

  A pox on you slaggers. Yeah sure, sticks and stones hurt more, but names sting too! It’s weird. Am I the only one in my corner of the world who sees the validity of this new focus? Or am I delusional in thinking I can make a dent in the problem? In the complacency of my friends and their friends and so on, etc?

  Yup. I guess I am. But I will do my very bestest to embrace the epic new challenge. I owe it to myself and the planet.

  link 3 comments I post comment

  www.savetheearth.org

  onederful 09-29 11:22

  Saw you fight the power! Good on ya! And don’t be discouraged – there are 70 million video clips out there and it’s hard to distract people from bad karaoke and sleeping kittens. Sad but true. I’ll fwd yer link to everyone I know! even the kitten lovers.

  lacklusterlulu 19-29 23:53 (link) select

  easy peasy get some new friends!

  MachFhive 09-30 02:03

  Yo bike freekz, if it had been me, Id have run you down. Splat.

  “How much?” Carmen asked sweetly as she waved a little pink purse in front of a bored-looking street vendor setting up his table.

  It was a sunny not-quite-crunchy fall Saturday after the incident, and my girlz were hanging with me before my shift at a popular retail outlet that rhymes with nap. Somehow, at barely eleven a.m., we were downtown roaming Queen West for bargoons. Not that we exactly needed anything. It was just our ritual.

  But today’s version felt different for me. I felt different. It was like I was there but wasn’t, watching the action like a spectator. And honestly, I didn’t much like what I saw.

  “For you, fabulous deal,” the street vendor smiled. His right eyetooth was capped in gold. It flared in the sunlight.

  “Well, I know that,” Carmen cooed, blinking her eyelashes, “but you still didn’t say how much.”

  “Twenty dollar each, three for fifty dollar,” he said as Ella checked the zipper on a little yellow bag.

  “Thanks, I don’t want one,” I announced.

  BTI, or Before the Incident, I’d have gone for the deal. But standing there looking at the table full of trendy plastic purses, I lost my app
etite for shopping. I lost my appetite for having something for the sake of just...having it. Zap, gone, just like my appetite for plum-goo-slathered chicken fingers after I found myself wearing them.

  “But it’s a pseudo Prada!” Carmen insisted, sniffing it and rubbing it across her cheek. “And even better, it’s a steal.”

  “What do you need another fake bag for?”

  “I prefer to call them tributes,” Carmen said. “How much for two?”

  “Two,” the vendor said very slowly, like he was considering whether or not he’d donate his kidney. “For you, twenty dollars each. And these not fake. Real quality, top notch.”

  “That’s not a deal!” Carmen pouted, putting down the pink purse abruptly and starting to walk away.

  It was always like this. She loved haggling with the guys who sold things on the street. Especially pretty things she wanted to have, but didn’t need. That all of us didn’t remotely need, but would definitely be a better deal if we bought in bulk. For her it was a form of entertainment. And ours by default, I guess.

  But at this particular moment it wasn’t the least bit entertaining to me. It was actually a tad nauseating.

  “Take three,” the vendor insisted, holding out a lime green bag to me. “Is very beautiful. Very in.”

  I took the bag and unzipped it, then pulled out a wad of rough tissue stuffing and looked for a label to see where it had come from. How far this stylish thing had traveled to end up on this folding table in downtown Toronto being sold for a pittance.

  “Where’s it made?” I asked as Carmen pretended to look at the silver rings and trinkets on the next table.

  “Italy,” he grinned without missing a beat. “Is genwin Prada, see label?”

  “They are very beautiful,” Ella agreed. “And an excellent deal.”

  Carmen gave her a little hoof in the shin followed by a glare.

  “What?” Ella moaned.

  “They’re not an excellent deal,” Carmen hissed at her through clenched teeth. “But they could be.”

  “The person who made this probably got paid five cents an hour,” I announced. “That’s why they’re so cheap.”

  “Not cheap.” The vendor snatched the little bag from my hands. “Very top quality.”

  “Well, things probably don’t cost as much where they are,” Ella answered, running her hand softly over the stitching. “And you don’t know, maybe five cents an hour is a lot of money there.”

  “You can’t really believe that,” I said. “That’s less than a dollar a day. Nobody can live on that.”

  “You don’t know how much they get paid, Sabine,” Carmen chimed in. “Besides, I thought you were all hopped up about garbage. Since when did you start caring about someone making Prada knock-offs in China or Bolivia or whereveria? You work at the Gap.”

  “It’s Gap, not the,” Ella corrected. “Hey, can you get me one of those kicky orange hoodies on your discount before they sell out?”

  “This is garbage. It’s unnecessary, disposable crap,” I replied, almost slamming my fist on the table. “Your life is fine without it.”

  “I’m aware of that, dummy. It’s a little purse,” Carmen said sensibly. “But that doesn’t mean I want to live without it. Seriously, Sabine, you can’t possibly think if we don’t buy these they’ll suddenly stop making them? Besides, then that poor worker in the Third World armpit won’t even make a buck a day and their whole family will starve. Then how will you feel? Two for thirty, final offer.”

  Carmen held out thirty dollars to the vendor, who hesitated for a second before accepting it with a greedy grab.

  “Have a nice day,” the vendor beamed as he added the money to a honking wad of cash from his pant pocket.

  “You, too,” Ella sang, waving her shiny yellow bag at him.

  “Don’t be doing that again,” Carmen warned as she leaned up against a fire hydrant and transferred the contents of her practically new tiny red purse into her extremely brand spanking new miniature pink one. “Swear off shopping if you want. It doesn’t mean I have to.”

  “Don’t you realize that just because something is a good deal for you, it might be a crap deal for someone else?” I said.

  “So?” Ella asked as she modeled her little yellow shoulder bag in front of a store window. “Look how stylin’ it is.”

  “So,” I said, “maybe we should be thinking about things like that when we buy things, that’s all.”

  “That’s a relief,” Carmen laughed. “I thought she was going to say, IF we buy things.”

  “Thinking about everyone else, huh?” Ella mused. “Nice idea, but I’ll pass. Kinda takes all the fun out of it.”

  b e i n g h e r e

  consumer defiance!!!!!

  [ Sept. 29th | 06:39pm ]

  [ mood | empowered! ]

  [ music | green day — boulevard of broken dreams (apropos or what?!?!) ]

  SPONTANEOUS NON-CONSUMPTION: The impulsive instinct to NOT buy something. It’s exhilarating and liberating! Seriously.

  Think about it. Is fashion really worth enslaving someone on the other side of the world? Is tyranny and selfishness actually fashionable? Rhetorical question.

  The point is let’s just try to think more about NEED versus WANT. What we actually, truly, definitely require to function in this world and not just all the things the ads and commercials TELL US we want or SHOULD have. To be better, cooler, wiser, more complete!!!

  Maybe the secret of being a good consumer is not being a consumer at all.

  THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT INCLUDE A GIFT SHOP.

  link 2 comments | post comment

  www.storyofstuff.com

  www.responsibleshopper.org

  lacklusterlulu 09-29 22:22

  Looks like you’re a green bean now :) Welcome to the light side sister.

  www.behindthelabel.org

  three_

  “You know that big natural food store beside Thompson’s Hardware?” I asked Mom as she tore into a jumbo-sized box of garlic marinated chicken breasts. Like we were a family of fourteen rather than a garden-variety family of four.

  I was fishing for her reaction to a place that didn’t sell things in packages of a thousand so you could stock up for the next two hundred years every other weekend. Fishing to see if the sudden, subtle changes happening in me could influence or inspire any changes in her.

  “I know if I’m ever in the market for chicken raised at a spa or thirty-dollar lettuce that’s where I’d go,” she answered.

  “It’s not thirty dollars for lettuce. And if the food is slightly more, that’s because it’s organic. Certified, even, chemical and pesticide free, which is better for your health.”

  “Oh,” she nodded, looking up at me from the cutting board. “And this public service announcement wouldn’t have anything to do with the little incident the other day, right?”

  “Not exactly. Well, indirectly, maybe,” I blurted. “And I start working there tomorrow.”

  To avoid her gaze I opened the fridge and snooped for something to munch. There were regular probably pesticide-soaked apples and processed cheese sticks in an unnatural shade of fluorescent orange. I settled on a kosher pickle.

  “That’s nice for you,” she said, trying to not sound surprised but sounding incredibly surprised. “What happened to your other job?”

  “I quit. They needed people at the Fresh Co-op and I thought it would be more interesting, maybe educational. And don’t worry, I gave notice and all that.”

  “But they gave you such a great staff discount,” she sighed.

  “And I spent half my pay there on things I don’t really need, while selling other people things they probably don’t need,” I answered as I crunched the pickle loudly to drown out her voice.

  “So you don’t need to wear clothes at the co-op? I didn’t realize you’d turned into a nudist, too. Grab a few potatoes from under the sink,” she pointed. “And if you’re suddenly a vegetarian, see what’s in the fridge th
at you approve of and get cooking. I’m not running a restaurant.”

  “Why are you making fun of me? All I did was get a new job. You should be encouraging me. I’m a good responsible daughter, you know.”

  “I know you are. I just didn’t think your little encounter would, I don’t know, change so much.”

  “You mean standing up for cleaner public spaces or waking up from the consumer coma we call life?”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic, Bean. You know I’m proud that you stood up for yourself. Just don’t blame me if I wish the entire world didn’t see you having a scuffle with someone.”

  “And don’t blame me. I didn’t litter and I didn’t video it or post it for that matter. I can’t help it if I lived it, you know.”

  “You’re right, honey,” she said, washing her hands with antibacterial dish soap and wiping them dry on her jeans.

  She stepped over to hug me and I stiffened. I was mad she wasn’t happy that I was suddenly interested in the world. Moms are supposed to be supportive. At least to your face, anyway. If they have to make fun of you it’s usually with your dad and behind your back. At least it should be.

  “It’s just one minute you’re this fashion-obsessed teenager and I blink and you’re a tree hugger,” she sighed. “You can see where I might be a bit confused.”

  “I’m still me. I’m just trying to be a better me.”

  “I am proud of you,” she smiled. “I really, truly am. And I’m sorry if I overreacted or was a little embarrassed. That’s my thing and I shouldn’t make it yours. Just like if something is your thing, you shouldn’t make it ours.”

  “Even if —”

  “You want respect, show a little back,” she answered. “And please, promise me you won’t stop showering. And if you decide to go live in the forest and I don’t visit, it’s only because I really hate bugs.”

  b e i n g h e r e...still

  UP A TREE WITHOUT A LADDER (or a paddle!!!)

  [ Oct 1st | 11:03pm ]