"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."*

   So, when listing my life skills in my head while trying to fall asleep at night, I rarely come up with more than a few solid entries. I have delightful penmanship. I can fry a mean egg. I know most of the cast and crew of just about any film from the 40’s. Yarl. See? Boo. Lackluster at best.

   But if there’s one thing I’m really good at, it’s correcting people. I do it all the time. It’s like I have a special government-issued license for telling people they’re wrong. And I’ve been consciously trying to NOT do that for…well, not very long. Maybe just the last month or so. It was a sort of subconsciously decided New Year's Resolution. And it’s really hard. Because I think I know better about everything than everyone. And it makes life super difficult for me. Wah.

   But the thing is, I don’t know much about much of anything, so I’m not entirely sure why I think I’m the proper person to correct someone’s grammar, or suggest that his/her way of making coffee is off, or point out why her/his opinions are stupid. 

   I’ve analyzed this shortcoming and I think it has a lot to do with my inherent feeling that people should think I’m really smart. Not that I’m the most intelligent person that ever was (read: not that I am ACTUALLY SMART), but because being passably smart has often been the only thing I felt I had going for me. You could say that I’m not quite pretty enough to model or funny enough for my own sitcom, and maybe you don’t want me on your soccer league or as a member of your band, but please think I’m smart! Please! I don’t know why this is so important, but clearly it is. And I maybe need more some therapy. 

   I’ve always been average. Average height, average weight, average hair color, average face. I hate average. I want to be AMAZING. At something. 

   So I tell you that you shouldn't eat your fish cooked past a sear or that you shouldn't shift into second gear until it feels right to me or that you shouldn't wear that shade of mascara with your skin/eyebrow color. It's so annoying, right? I thank my lucky stars every day that I have anyone that calls me their friend.

   I think I’m the classic case of the gal who could dish it out, but couldn’t take it. And part of that is my supreme sensitivity (I guess I’m above average in that department, but, again, boo, because who wants to be above average at being sensitive?). But part of it is also that I’m so easily discouraged. Fear often addles my brain and makes me inclined to do and say stupid, WEIRD things that I don’t even think about before they leave my mouth, but that if they were said to me by someone else would kill a little part of me.

   [Whispered aside: I wonder if Seth McFarlane or Rob McElhenney feel this way when people say shocking, offensive things to them. They’re hilarious, in my book, but they’re ridiculously offensive. When I’m offensive, I’m often just trying my best to be hilarious. But is it so offensive that it doesn’t work? I’m not a TV show. I’m just existing in the world, trying to maintain at least semi-healthy relationships with semi-regular people. Maybe the whole thing is just the setting? Like, if I were to channel all my “humor” into a book or an art project or TV show, would I stop being horrible in life?]

   Whoa, excuse me. That was a tad too much free styling, wasn’t it? I have issues, clearly. But the end-all-be-all is this: if I correct you, it’s not because I think I actually know things. I DON’T. But because I want you to like me. And, obviously, I just want to make you a better person.

*Ayn Rand.

"Benjamin Franklin said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes. But I'd like to add a third certainty: trash. And while some in this room might want to discuss reducing taxes, I want to talk about reducing trash."*

   It’s true: I’m hypersensitive. I think I’ve mentioned this before. I’m one of those HSP’s you’ve read about in the media. (Side note: being sensitive, I’m aware that you may not have read about HSP’s, so I’m sorry if I made you feel weird about not knowing about us. Read this.)

   Anyway, so that means “sensitive” on many levels:

   I’m easily startled.

   I cry a lot. At weird stuff. Not just because I’m a woman.

   Loud noises disturb me to the extreme.

   I cannot function outdoors during the day without sunglasses.

   Et cetera.

   I’m not OCD, so don’t get the wrong idea. I can eat food off the floor or pee and not wash my hands. (Hmmm...does my lack of a comma over there make it seem like I eat pee off the floor? Cuz I don't.) I’m super normal. But just very, very sensitive. I’m a delicate robin’s egg of feelings and senses.

   Anyway.

   Today I tried to recycle a bunch of crap at the student Co-op by my apartment. I have lots of packing paper, newspaper, boxes, etc. And cans and bottles and egg crates and what not. My apartment has no recycling. My car was straight-up full.

   There was an Eminem-looking dude smoking a cigarette by the recycle bins. He watched me park. He watched me unlock my car. He watched me walk halfway to the bin before he said,

   “Ma’am, you can’t dump here.”

   Okay, let’s start with “ma’am.” I know it’s a Texan thing. Maybe even a southern thing? But I’m having a lot of trouble adapting to it. It makes me feel like I’m 200-years-old. I know it’s just a “polite” mode of address, but it drives me bonkers. Ugh. I’d rather have someone say, “Bitch, you can’t dump here.” Anyway.

   Next let's talk about how he waited for me to get all up next to the bin before he bothered to say anything. What a master of the dramatic pause. Fuckface. 

   “I’m not dumping, I’m recycling. See? These bags are full of newspaper!”

   I felt really proud of myself. In Los Angeles, you’re encouraged to recycle. They provide bins for it. You can even make money from it (remind me to tell you about the time I read in the LA Times about a family that sent their oldest kid to MIT on recycling money…then they sent their second-oldest to Irvine, so that was a bit of a come-down. Ok, never mind, that’s the whole story).

   “That bin is already full.”

   “Oh, okay. Do you know of another recycling bin?”

   The woman that had joined him on his smoke break shook her head like, “Stupid, stupid person. She doesn’t know about ANYTHING!”

   “Um, maybe the recycling center?”

   He said it like I was some sort of fucking dickhead moron who was being intentionally obtuse.

   As if my California license plates and dumbfounded expression weren’t proof enough that I had no idea where that center might be.

   “Do you know where it is?” I asked, determined to turn the situation in my favor somehow. The color was rising in my cheeks. I could feel myself wanting to cry or scream. Okay. At this point I was pushing him so he could find an opportunity to be less of an asshole and I could find an opportunity to feel less embarrassed.

   “Maybe if you look it up online you’ll find it.” Drag. Puff.

   “Okay.” I started walking back with my bags of newspaper.

   “You know, it’s illegal to recycle here.”

   “What?”

   “It’s illegal to recycle in this bin. This bin is just for the Co-op.”

   “Ok. I didn’t know that. My landlord told me I could recycle here.”

   “No. It’s illegal.”

   “Okay, well I certainly wasn’t trying to commit a crime. I'm not, like, a criminal or anything.”

   Thought in head: why is this person working so hard to discourage me from recycling?

   “I understand.” Puff. “But it’s illegal." Puff. "Ma’am.”

   “Gotcha.”

   It was strange. I didn’t feel embarrassed anymore. I felt angry and a little confused, but not embarrassed. I got in my car and found the nearest recycling center on my phone.

   The recycling center is downtown and not too far from my apartment, so that was a plus. It looks like a place you might get stabbed at night, so that was a minus. And one of the boxes got stuck in the backseat of my car so it took me twenty solid minutes of ripping and tearing to get it out while at least 5 different men drove up with their recyclables and never offered to help. (What, you can call me “ma’am” but you can’t help me get a goddamn box out of my car? Chivalry my ass. Not cool. And certainly not what one (i.e. me) expects in The South.)

   The whole time I was driving down there and during the sweaty scenario that involved wrenching that fucking box out of my car I got to thinking really hard about garbage (both literally and figuratively). I’d been afraid on my drive to the center that they’d have objection to the size or contents of the boxes, insist that I break down even the enormous, reinforced, unbreakable one, that they’d insist that I drink all the water in my recyclable water bottles or something. I don’t know. I guess I was just intimidated by the amount of criticism I’d already experienced while trying to RECYCLE.

   And then I thought, "What if, at some point, we just can’t get rid of the garbage anymore?" I remember reading about that disgusting, floating island of rubbish that exists somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean (The Pacific Ocean Vortex). What if, someday soon maybe, we have nowhere to take anything so we just have to keep it? I’ve never personally experienced a garbage strike, but it seems like it would be mind-numbingly disturbing and terrifying. I can barely get rid of my recyclables in a doable fashion in a decent-sized city that cares somewhat about recycling (at least, they don’t provide shopping bags, so I assume they care…though that seems more of a cost-saving ploy than anything else, really).

   I’m not trying to give you the idea that I’m one of those amazing change-the-world types, because I’m far too lazy for that. But I do try to be conscientious. I try to recycle, I try to use less plastic, I try not to waste. But for each day I take a huge pile of packing papers, boxes and newspaper to the recycle, a new pile grows in it’s place. What if I’m creating the Austin Garbage Vortex all by myself? Or at the very least contributing to it? And those a-holes at the co-op won’t even help me! I’m virtually living on an island in a sea of recyclables. Am I gonna have to buy a truck?

Me being sad in front of my garbage. Which, incidentally, is in front of my door. Not a good fire plan.

   It took a full two days, but my feelings stopped hurting. I will continue to drive down to the corner of Murder Avenue and Drug Deal Lane to recycle (only during operating hours, of course), but I would appreciate if the fine men of this city would stop calling me ma’am or hurting my very sensitive feelings and help me change the world instead.

   Reduce. Reuse. Drive 12 miles. Recycle.

*Ruth Ann Minner, D-Del, 2001-2009.