Life in Austin

Some things:

Daniel has been an absolute saint for putting up with my hyperlame work ethic. The biggest obstacle standing between me and graduation and our future together is a couple damn papers. Just do it? Yes.

Some insect crawled into my bed two nights ago and bit me beneath both my breasts. I just hope he didn't lay bug babies in my chest. I'm disconcerted. I'll feel better when the red marks go away.

I switched to an all natural, no aluminum, no paraben, no propylene glycol deodorant. I'm slowly going to phase out bad health & beauty products in favor of organic natural ones. I've been having a debate in my head. If most everything has something in it that's going to kill you, should you just continue on the typical mass consumerist path to destruction, or slowly try to backpedal into an inevitably unattainable "natural" environment, in terms of what you put inside and onto your body?

Even after I read that antiperspirant != breast cancer because your lymph nodes aren't being filled with toxins they can't expel through your sweat glands, I'm going to stick with the natural stuff because really, how can MORE chemicals be better than LESS chemicals? Why has modern society become so enamored in making things unnatural? Is sweat a reminder that humans toil, that we're animals, that we don't smell like Pacific Mist or Vanilla Sugar all by ourselves?

One of the major arguments in debunking the antiperspirant "urban legand" is that antiperspirants are rigorously tested by the FDA, and THEY wouldn't let ANYTHING harmful on the market. Right. There are regulated amounts of poison in almost everything, "low" parts per million of a carcinogen is considered an acceptable risk when spread over the entire population. The FDA regularly gives the green light to substances that are banned in Canada, Europe and Japan. Are we all really comfortable with that? Do most people not know better? Is it too much to ask to make a change (in terms of lifestyle, money, convenience)?

I feel like the seachange is slow on this. People are starting to become aware of all of the antibiotics and hormones in milk and are asking for no rBGH. There's been some backlash against high fructose corn syrup, etc.

I probably sound like a crazed hippie. People do things that make their quality of life lower, that will possibly or definitely kill them, for the sake of a temporary pleasure and the knowledge that life is relatively short. And that's their right. I'm not speaking from a position of authority; I have a lot of changes I want to make. I suppose I see clean living as a type of preventative medicine. Who knows how healthy we could be as a species if we demanded higher standards in our consumer goods.

That's enough for now. Love.

Posted by Erin at 10:46 AM