Fueling The Economy

I want to share something with you that happened to me a few weekends ago.

Many of you know about certain health issues that I've dealt with in the past and continue to do so. I've been feeling great, but that's come with discipline.

I can no longer drink alcohol and it's actually been empowering to not "need" it. I workout on a regular basis and am in better shape than I've been in years.

Especially my penis. I thought it was big before, but now it's GI-NORMOUS. I'm looking into getting a reduction.

Will and I also try to eat as much whole, organic food that we can find. We've massively cut down our red meat consumption and mainly stick with chicken and fish. We also eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables.

It sounds COMPLETELY boring, doesn't it?

I can't tell you what discipline it takes for me to walk past the cupcakes that BRAG that they're topped with CREAM CHEESE ICING and not smother them all over my face and private parts.

I LOVE CAKE. AND PIES...not hair pies so much, which you've probably gathered, but most other pies. In fact, you may remember me proclaiming my love for Doritos?

Anyway, I've been very disciplined. And I feel the difference.

But, there are more than a few threatening things in our environment that are increasingly becoming known to me. They're things that I never thought of...and they're toxic.

And NO, I'm not trying to spread FEAR and make everyone afraid of their shadow. I'm trying to be more AWARE and spread awareness. And I just wanted to let you know, in the event that you have one of these things and well...you know, I don't want you to grow a third eyeball, or become sterile, or end up with toxic breast milk and not know why.

So, Will and I received a gift of a memory foam mattress for our bed. We put one on our guest bed LAST YEAR for my parents and it made the futon extremely comfortable. Well, on that Saturday, I unwrapped it and laid it out on top of our mattress to take shape. The smell was horrendous. I opened the windows and turned on a fan. And I left it to do its thing.

When I would walk into the bedroom, I couldn't get over the strong smell of the foam. I would hold my breath and I began wondering if this stuff was made of the same toxic chemicals that exist in new cars that are making people sick.

By the time evening came, I was sick, extremely sick. And I didn't know why. Duh.

I was extremely tired, but not sleepy.

I didn't want to eat dinner (which is VERY unusual for me because I can eat a house...and usually do. Although, aluminum siding isn't very good for me and rather difficult to digest.), yet I wasn't nauseous.

And I ached.

So...I went to bed. I might as well have lowered my hot, muscular frame and mongo peep into a bubbling bath full of chemicals.

I was restless all night and everytime I rolled over, my GI-NORMOUS peep just kept banging into the ceiling. And by morning, I wondered if it was the mattress. So, I googled it.

And holy shit.

"SEVERAL ENVIRONMENTAL advocacy groups, including the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (www.checnet.org) and the Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org), have raised concerns about a flame retardant commonly found in mattresses made of polyurethane foam (which would include memory foam). These chemicals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), build up in human and animal fatty tissues and have been linked to disrupted brain growth in lab animals. Scientists measuring the concentration of PBDEs in humans have found that body burden levels in North America have risen exponentially over the past few decades and are much higher than those found in Europe, where some countries have banned PBDEs. Studies suggest that these chemicals escape as a gas from certain plastics and polyurethane foam, and then adhere to dust that can be breathed by humans or enter the food chain by contaminating water and soil."

I really feel like we need to QUESTION EVERYTHING that we're used to doing that we think nothing of. We're poisoning ourselves.

When I wrote to Claudia about this, she replied; "Yes, we are poisoning ourselves.

"I recently saw a list of the top things with pesticides in them. It freaked me out because it's DIFFERENT than the list has always been - meaning the NEW - veggies are on the list - like celery? Yikes.

"So we fight wars to keep the oil prices down... so we can put petrochemicals on our food... so we can ingest pesticides and toxins.... so we can go to the doctor... so that we can take that pill... so that we can get cancer and support the hospitals..... In that one moment, I saw this chain of facts and death on both ends of the chain with "fueling the economy" in the middle."

Ahhh...Yes. "Fueling the Economy", in many more ways than one. We drive with it. We eat it. We drink it. We sleep on it. And we breathe it.

I feel like we should just start wearing these:



If you live in California and you'd like to tell Gov. Schwarzenegger: Stop the Aerial Pesticide Spraying, you may do so through the provided link. And if you don't live in California and would like to see a ban on these dangerous chemicals in your community, I would urge you to get involved.

And just to show you that I AM NOT KIDDING AROUND with my gi-normous peep;


SEE? SEE?? I told you. I kept my face out of it because you already know what I look like. But, do you have any idea how cumbersome this thing is??? And you thought I was exaggerating...