Somewhere, Al Gore Is Gently Weeping

The whole point of Anya Hindmarch's "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" campaign was to save plastic bags from being used. Somewhere between 500 billion and 1 trillion of plastic bags go to landfills each year, and it's nice to think that someone might walk into Whole Foods, buy one of Ms. Hindmarch's bags for 15 bucks, and use it to carry his groceries home (shown, right), thereby saving a plastic bag.
Hindmarch's bags, as her Web site notes, have sold out in the United States. Is this because the U.S. is finally jumping on the Gore bandwagon and becoming a bastion of environmental responsibility?! Nope, no, of course not. It's because we love fashion!
I've seen many girls in New York carrying the sold out bag -- as a purse. No one is using it for groceries, no one is logging anything as much as a bottle of wine or a magazine in it.
Then, today, my co-worker reported that he actually saw a picture of irony walking down 23rd Street this morning: A girl wearing an "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" purse on her shoulder while carrying a plastic bag.
Was the offender too dumb to note the irony? I would have at least been smart enough to stash the plastic bag in my Anya Hindmarch bag, thereby escaping such uninvited scrutiny.

Maybe the Only Two English Degrees That Ever Paid Off

Inside my recent issue of Conde Nast Traveler, I noticed a pull-out advertisement (complete with excerpts) for a new book, The Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys. The pull-out guide contained a nifty preview to four or five of the writers who contributed to the anthology, including Nicole Krauss. I have always been a huge fan of her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer. Who seems like a nice guy. Not spoiled. Despite that $6.7 million-you've-got-to-be-kidding-me brownstone in Park Slope. V. Woolf said one needs a room of her own, not a fucking palace. Anyhow, I digress. Below, a sentence from Ms. Krauss' excerpt about Japan:

"We have come to Japan in part because we've had the brilliant idea of turning the patch of nothingness behind our Brooklyn house into a Japanese garden—only we don't know how."

Don't most people just buy a book for that? Like this one? Ah, to be a Krauss-Safran-Foer...

Rule of Thumb: Don't Assume a Woman's Pregnant Unless She's Crowning

So yesterday I get on the bus after work and I step up and slide in my card and the driver says, "Oh! Having a baby, huh?" I didn't quite know how to answer this since, no, I am not having a baby, so I just frowned and said, "No, not a baby; maybe I'm just fat."
I took one of those single seats next to the window and took some time to reconsider my dress choice for the day. Sure I had tied a large yellow belt around my waist so that the gold dress kind of poofed out below it, but still! Come on!
I might not be a Nicole Richie, but in the grand scheme of things, I'm not a big person. A Kate Winslet, perhaps, a Drew Barrymore in her less svelte stages, Lily Allen even. I eye other people getting on the bus: Some have obvious, huge tummies -- hefty muffin tops bubble over too-tight jeans and satin shirts showcase big, big bulges, surely much bigger than my stomach, but the driver doesn't say anything to these women!
So then I run some errands and get on the train to go home and I'm standing, holding onto a pole and my bags and then, a girl. actually. gets. up! And, eyeing my stomach area, she tells me to sit down. And I'm like, no I'm OK, thanks. And then her boyfriend says, Oh, C'mon.
I kind of go along with it: "I'm just going one stop, but thank you for being so sweet."
So, can I blame this on the tent-dress trend? Or am I doomed to spend eternity looking like I swallowed a beach ball, even though I am not with child?

How I Spent My Summer Vacation (Away from Blogging)

So you might have noticed that I've had one whopping post in the last, oh, three months or so. Here are some things I did instead of blogging (although I kinda missed it):
1. I got a new dog (right, center).
2. I read this and this and this. And I tried to read Don Quixote, but felt he just kept having the same adventure over and over and I grew kind of tired of his inability to realize that he is just a guy, not some great knight, and really wished Sancho would stand up for himself more, and waited for the story to give me some kind of jolt, but it didn't, so I gave up.
3. I waited outside Warsaw in Greenpoint for an hour until some kind soul sold me a Wilco ticket. This time could have been better spent, but the show was nice.
4. I visited my mother.
5. I saw Ratatouille and then a few days later found a mouse in my apartment.
6. Purchased humane mouse trap online. Mouse apparently was as disappointed in my neighborhood as I am, because she left and never came back.
7. Readings, work, drinking, etc.

Woo-Hoo, Gay Republicans

NY Mag makes an inadvertent suggestion with its headline placement.