Hi, lovely readers.  I'm sorry I've been gone so long.  This blog thing is hard: with a struggle I can get 1-2 entries up in a normal week; when I've got a project going on, everything goes out the window.  This month's projects have included a film shoot and a massive reorganization of my office.  I've been taking the (four years' worth of!) white paper to the office where they say they recycle because I know for sure my apartment building doesn't.  I will investigate this in more detail during the Trash unit later this year.

The "patio" tomatoes are still chugging along, producing golf ball-sized fruit at the rate of 4-5 a week.  They are flavorful, if kind of an awkward size. I'm still not sick of BLT's, and I've been having fun trying the different kinds of locally-produced bacon from the farmer's market.  The beefsteaks, on the other hand, had some kind of trauma while I was away and never fully recovered.  The few that came off without blossom end rot were delicious, far better than the patio ones and quite a bit bigger.  Now the plant is doing this weird thing where it's producing new growth and flowers but the older leaves are turning hideous shades of purple and yellow.  It looks terrible and seems unlikely to produce more fruit.

I've run out of a few more things: mascara and mints.  The mascara is no big tragedy - I rub my eyes a lot so it ends up looking bad anyway; just an eyelash curler is serving me way better.  The mints I was trying to justify as a food item, but then I found some promotional Listerine tape thingies from a million years ago.  I'm sure that they could survive basically anything, so I'm not too worried about it.  When they run out, I'll have to make sure to carry my toothbrush with me.  And then it will be time to see the dentist, who is very generous with free toothbrushes.  All this stuff makes a lot of packaging and trash.

Now that the year is two-thirds gone, I've been fantasizing about the items I'll buy in 2008, things I think I need or that I really want.  Which makes me think this whole thing is kind of ridiculous: did I just put off my buying to Dec 2006 and Jan 2008?   Should I extend the experiment even longer to see if I can determine where/when it breaks down for me?  Maybe it already did - I've been lax on the food thing, and some art project materials and gifts have provided a little pressure valve.  At the same time, I really won't be that much better off financially (especially since I think my rent will be going up astronomically), so I won't even have the means to buy a lot of stuff at once.  We'll see - I'll do the numbers at year-end.