A friend challenged me to share the ways in which I'm insecure about Fix.  I'm a little scared of doing this for a year - both that it's too hard to keep up for a year and that it's too easy to do for a year: people make do and mend all the time (homeless people, very poor people here and in other countries).  I'm afraid that someone will write to say what a spoiled, entitled brat I am, and in some ways, I wish they would - only someone who has access to so much can call Fix an "experiment."  I'm also afraid that people are thinking it's a bigger sacrifice than it is: I've gotten so many emails from people expressing how they could never do such a thing.  I don't want to tell the people at my office: I'm afraid they'll think I'm taking advantage, lying, or stealing somehow; it's a given that they'll think it's a ridiculous enterprise.  I'm afraid of my few friends in business school - that they think I'm shitting on what they really care about, disrupting their dreams or something.  I'm concerned for myself in that I wonder if it's too neurotic, that the experiment is about control in a way that isn't healthy for my life right now.  I've been feeling lately that my world is really small - maybe this will make it even smaller?  The idea is to make it bigger, by learning about how my own life connects to that of my family and my community in ways that go beyond consumption.  And finally, as with every project I do, I worry that the documentation of this experience might prohibit me from actually having an experience: when you keep a blog, do you start to think of everything in terms of how it reads when you post it?

You've heard the trash-treasure adage a million times, and I'll probably repeat it often in Fix.  But it's true!  Last week 8 or 10 friends got together in Brooklyn to offload the random clothes that never worked or gifts we couldn't bring ourselves to wear.  The good thing about clothing swaps rather than giving to Goodwill is that you have a relationship with where your stuff is going and some of the emotional details remain intact.  I can get rid of the silk shirt I spent too much on because I can see that it looks way better on my friend.  Even if no one bites, everyone gets a laugh out of the aunt who insists on giving her neice elaborate monochromatic outfits.  Plus, among friends the respect factor goes up a little: we throw the disgusting t-shirts out rather than try to pass them off as acceptable "donations."

I'd estimate that at least 40% of my wardrobe consists of swap items at this point.  Almost my entire work repertoire came from other nine-to-fivers who make more money than I do - I'd like to spend as little as possible on bland button-downs, sweaters, and slacks.  This time, I managed to assemble a decent bag of discards despite moving a lot recently and going to a good number of swaps in the last year.  I ended up with three brand-new t-shirts, a perfectly cute coat my friend's boyfriend disliked, an apron, and a book.

Treasure?

 

        
Trash!                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slippery slope?  I was hungry and it was Friday and my work friends invited me out to eat.  And I was tired and I didn't really feel like talking about the project or defending its imprecise terms.  So I caved: I wanted to eat something delicious. Tapas, paella, and sangria fit the bill. 

As you might guess, food is the hardest part of Fix so far.  Not eating in restaurants means that I have to think about how to feed myself for the whole day, examining what my plans are and figuring out if I have time to run home and fix something.  And this weekend I reached a critical point: I'm almost completely out of convenience foods like cereal and crackers, and I've used up my stores of mac and cheese, frozen spinach pie, and some turkey chili I made and stashed in the freezer. 

When I designed this part of the experiment, I was imagining putting more consciousness towards what I put in my body, and integrating food preparation/consumption more intelligently into my lifestyle.  I was also envisioning myself as more self-sufficient somehow, not susceptible to the lures of drunk food or street food because I'd already eaten a balanced healthy meal that I prepared myself.  Though I've enjoyed a few Fix food experiences very much - some meals I've made myself, an adventurous eating weekend in Boston, making pancakes and bacon with my friend Chad - so far I've basically had the equivalent of what happened in high school when I decided I was a vegetarian and ate pizza, cookies, Cheez-its, and bread instead of the meat my mom prepared.  This year I haven't eaten in restaurants - I get drinks or coffee when I go out with friends who are eating - but I also haven't done any serious planning or cooking yet, relying instead on leftovers from work or the aforementioned food stores.  The little cooking that I have done relies on the recipes I've used forever: my friend Laura smiled knowingly, "you been making a lot of stir-fries, haven't you?"

So here are the issues:

I'd rather not buy processed packaged stuff -- and I've got to figure out where the line is.  I know I can't go without buying any dry pasta this year, but I'm not sure that things like cereal, crackers, and granola bars should be allowed.

I'm athletic and I'm a grazer: I eat often and I require a lot of calories to get through the day.

I'm away from my apartment for long stretches of time, meaning that I need stuff to carry with me (not too heavy!) as well as quick stuff to fix when I get home. 

Like anyone trying to solve these problems, I did the logical thing and participated in an email recipe chain letter that came my way a couple of weeks ago.  With a cry for help referencing Fix, I received five responses. (I also got a couple "what the hell are you doing sending me a chain letter!" responses - sorry!)  I organized my recipe book: of the 60 or so that I have, half are everyday kinds of recipes, and half of those I'm not sick of -- 15 new ideas!  Looks like I'm going to have to do a big plan-shop-cook this week...I'm hoping that I'll get used to the process and actually enjoy it eventually but for now it feels really painful.  Let me know if you have any better ideas...

 P.S. I'll be looking for a crockpot and a blender in my secondhand forays - email me if you have one you're not using.

I've gotten a lot of questions about this endeavor: puzzled and probing, curious and dismissive.  I've created a page for feedback sent by email - people have raised compelling issues and applied Fix to a range of scenarios.  Thanks for sending me your thoughts and suggestions.

I find it interesting that my friends with money define the experiment as about spending money; one of them explained Fix as making a project out of my poverty.  My artist friends, on the other hand, envision me going to great lengths to make things myself or achieving some kind of enlightenment through discipline and careful consideration of every move.  And then there's my mom, a great re-user, who takes the practical view: she mailed me this when I noted I didn't have the right size travel bag for my soap and shampoo.             

 

 

I spent the weekend describing Fix with varying degrees of articulacy.  One of my favorite conversations went like this:

text #1: what if you need to buy shoes
megan: i have at least 10 pairs
text #2: and if your phone breaks?
megan: let's hope that doesn't happen
phone call: "ok, then, what about a manicure?"
megan: "um, I'm not sure.  When you get a manicure are you paying for the nail polish or the experience of a manicure?"  (I think at it's most fundamental it's an experience, really, but never having had a manicure, 2007 won't be the time to start.)

"Wait, so you're allowed to buy experiences but not things?  But you have to buy food, right?  Are you eating in restaurants?"

"No, I'm not eating in restaurants"

"What?! Who came up with these rules?  Don't tell me you're the director of it?!"

"Yeah, I am. I made up the rules."  

"Can I buy you food? My sister says no manicures.  You know what, I can buy you stuff, I'll just buy you things." 

This guy has given me some of my favorite books but I can't remember any other stuff he's bought me besides food in the 18 years I've known him.  I'm looking forward to how this conversation will continue.

 

I'll mark today as the first that I really broke my rules.  I bought a plastic folder at Staples for $2.16 - I have to submit a press kit tomorrow and I couldn't find anything to reuse at home or work.  In my defense, I only bought one (even though I have a bunch of other applications this month), with the rationale that I need more time to come up with a Fix-appropriate solution.  This area will be the source of most of my transgressions, I think: things I buy - and they've got to be brand spanking new! - for applications, presentations, and projects.  I know I'm out of dv tapes, and I'll soon be out of dvds - and I definitely feel like I have to have them in order to play the art game.  In her year of Not Buying It, Judith Levine made exceptions for anything for business - but I'm not exactly sure I can call my artmaking a business at this point...it's more like an expensive and persistent habit.   I promise to do my best to plumb the depths of my surplus supplies and seek other sources for paper goods -- and I know that to present myself as having my shit together and going places, I've got to pass out crispy photos on beautiful paper in sleek folders.  It is art, after all.

Last week the New York Times covered the publication of Cambridge’s “Well Dressed?,” a report on the clothing and textiles industry in the UK.  Clothing’s recent shift to disposability -- with stores like H&M and Old Navy pumping out cheap new stuff every week or so – spells trouble for landfills, the atmosphere, human rights, etc. etc.  While generally I love H&M (basically everything in my wardrobe that I didn’t get for free is from there), I’ve been thinking a lot about this problem myself of late, and was happy to spend a little time on the subject.  

The Times article lingered on the idea of leasing clothing -- probably because they hypothesized that readers would find this an icky and unrealistic idea -- and got some choice bits from a head honcho at Marks & Spencer, who thinks that the “green-ness” of clothing will soon influence consumer choice like it does for food (in some countries).    I appreciated the additional voices, and was disappointed that the article couldn’t draw any comparisons between the US and UK industries.  (Probably because most of the data doesn’t exist.)  Most alarmingly, the NYT article glosses over the report’s decisive view of the US cotton industry, burying mention of “so-called organic cotton” at the end of the second page.  

The primary ideas I took away from the “Well Dressed?” report were: 1. US cotton is catastrophic for the industry and the environment, and 2. a shift in consumer behavior is the most important way to alleviate the environmental impact of the clothing and textile industry.  Perhaps I’m the last to know, but I had only a very vague notion of the energy, water, and pesticides required to produce cotton by conventional means; I also didn’t understand the extent to which US subsidies impact cotton production in other countries. [Admittedly, the report is written from a decidedly EU point of view -- I’m very curious to see what kind of conclusions an American think tank would come up with.]  Of course I’d like to think greater awareness of the issue combined with better choices could enable me to make a difference.  A quick inquiry revealed that American Apparel has 6 or 7 organic t-shirt and underwear options (out of hundreds of conventional options); additional organic choices come from companies that appear to make mostly yoga clothes.  By the end of the Cambridge report, my choices as a consumer, to buy the right things – durable, organic – and to do the right things with them – repair them, wash them in cooler water, and hang them dry – are the “simplest action that would reduce the environmental impact of the sector.”

Which leads me to a big question: how can consumers successfully transit between the current way of thinking about clothes to an opposite one (and then possibly back again)?  With the utopian ideology espoused by folks like those in Cradle to Cradle, the “fast fashion” impulse could be supported by the right design – if clothes were at once fashionable, produced with little impact on the environment, and easily disposable, we could buy as much as we want and throw away without worry.  In the interim, as “Well Dressed?” suggests, we have to resist fast fashion, make do, and mend.  Is this shift possible to achieve on a massive scale? Unlike the authors of the report, I think changing attitudes about clothes requires a wholesale rethinking of what we view as prosperous, safe, clean, and beautiful.  In the meantime, we just feel bad and do little.

New York Times: "Can Polyester Change the World?"

University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing: "Well Dressed?"

Marketplace Money Report's story about the "fashion" part of eco-fashion

I have the best hairdresser in NYC.  But she charges what a woman making three times what I make could comfortably afford and is taking maternity leave right now.  So I signed up for a free cut at a high-end studio.  It's not too bad.  Perhaps next time I'll try cutting it myself?

Sushi is something I've been thinking I'll really miss in 2007 - except for days like today, when my boss ordered $300 worth of sushi and handed over plenty of leftovers.  I certainly couldn't buy stuff this good!