A profane rant and a tiny leap of joy

[neadods]

THE PROFANE RANT:
It always makes me apeshit when the price of gas goes up beyond the ability of people to, oh, afford to go to a job not near public transport in their reasonable-mileage cars, and someone starts snotting about how "You don't bitch about the price of milk or bottled water and they're even more expensive."

Of course I don't. I don't need the latter at all, and I don't need to buy 10 gallons of the former every week just to go to work.

So when I click a link about "if you use these oil-based products you are partially culpable for the BP spill" and read "sweaters, dresses, clothes" on it and I'm sitting here in second-hand all-cotton clothing, my immediate reaction is "you can back that bullshit down several notches right fucking now, mmmkay?"

Acrylic and polyester clothing are made of oil. That's only one of the reasons why they're not your best choice, another being that they don't breathe and thus will kill you the hell dead if you wear them for long outside in a Southern summer.

On the other hand, second-hand clothing businesses are thriving in this economy, and you can get some really good stuff for prices that match or are lower than the budget "straight from the Third-world sweatshop to you!" chain stores. And the quality is often better because it has *survived* to be sold for a second time. I'm just sayin'.

And that's before I get to the rant about how there's plenty of excellent old wood furniture and not-plastic tools out there.

THE TINY LEAP OF JOY
For once, a home improvement possibility that doesn't cost me lots of extra time and money! Long story short, the smallest sheet of linoleum I could buy for the 3 x 6 pantry was 6 x 9. Rather than spend the time and $$ refinishing (or hiring someone to refinish) the coat closet floor, I'm going to have plenty of leftover lino to put down there as well. And then I won't have to worry about the carpet cleaner leaking onto wood or the vacuum cleaner scuffing up the finish. I doubt I'm even going to glue it down; just use vinyl tape to make sure it doesn't crawl.

Comments

[steviesun.livejournal.com]

I remember an interview with Tony Blair, so it must have been a number of years ago now. And he said that if the government in the UK were to take back control of the trains that it would ten years before people saw much benefit. Well it's years later and the prices keep rising for train travel and they still can't provide the service that we want.

I wish I hadn't been feeling so mentally unwell or I'd be getting more made. No item of clothing I have worn has ever been so complimented as the lovely full green skirt I made myself. Homemade can be the size you want, the colour you want, and will have a smaller carbon footprint. I need to learn to knit better/faster now I've discovered a shop in town that likes to sell not only yarns that are natural fibres but from local sources. She even sells a yarn where she knows the name of the sheep it came from.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

She even sells a yarn where she knows the name of the sheep it came from.

That is freakin' cool!