What's less recyclable than a plastic bag?
the madness of canvas totes
Hi pack rats of the planet:
I’m drowning in recycled bags. Not plastic or paper ones - those we dutifully recycled out of existence. We used up our last plastic bag cleaning out the rabbit’s litter last week. And there are none to replace it, so I guess I’ll be forced to BUY plastic bags in order to have something to put her litter into.
The bags I am drowning in are the lovely tote bags that come with nonprofit subscriptions, or that are one dollar add-ons when purchasing large amounts of groceries. We probably have thirty wine-totes that came for free because we bought two bottles at a time. For a while a close friend worked in a food pantry and gladly took my bi-weekly donations of empty totes, but she has since relocated to Canada. What to do with all these bags?
Alexander Chee, who knows how to sew as well as to write, showed up at a Literary Ball wearing a floor-length cape made entirely of these canvas tote bags. I suppose I could learn to sew and create something similar, though I doubt that this “made of recycled bags” bag would be comfortable in hot weather. (or cold weather, frankly)
I currently have two (recycled) milk crates full of these bags. Throwing them away feels wrong. I can’t use them for garbage (I buy new plastic bags for that now) and I can’t use them to wrap presents (I buy wrapping paper for that now), and although they do appear between the pots on our shelves, under books, around random posts to muffle sound or air flow….they are a nuisance.
What do YOU do with your leftover bags?
What I’ve been working on:
April 15 is only a month away. Need a little levity? Read: The Bittersweet Tragedy of One Writer’s Taxes.
My think piece on parenting with a second language “You Know How Americans Are” is coming out March 15 in Mutha Magazine! And in one of those crazy gifts from the universe, as I was searching to see if there was a link to post here, I discovered this awesome article about writing about your kids that quotes me extensively! I have no memory of being interviewed for it (2017) and I suspect that these quotes were taken from a panel I hosted long ago in LA called Privacy Matters: Sell Your Book, Not Your Baby. But I don’t know. But maybe she interviewed me! Anyway, I like the article a lot. Still relevant.
Meanwhile, light a candle, I’m querying agents.
Final thought:
Why are alarms always such obnoxious sounds? I can’t think straight when a blaring alarm is going off. We have the technological capability to, for example, blast “Burning Down the House” at top volume—it would be so much easier to air out the burnt toast smell in your kitchen feeling a little embarrassed and flummoxed instead of attacked and frantic. And in the event the alarm was actually alerting the house to an actual fire in the middle of the night, wouldn’t a sudden, loudly played song be just as effective in waking everyone and getting the house cleared? Once you realized what was going on, you could gather your thoughts to do what needed to be done: whether that was to find the ladder to replace a dying battery or to grab your go-bags and leave.
(Follow this link to view some gorgeous enormous international murals in the Ukraine. Hopefully there will be a stop to large-scale destruction and this art (and all the lovely old buildings, not to mention the humans) will be left intact. #standwithUkraine)
I donate excess tote bags to a women's shelter. They seemed happy to get them. Residents need bags.