My wonderful husband put out the recycling last night. He was SUCH a trooper, hauling it down three flights of stairs. There was lots of it, because we'd emptied out our fridge last week before traveling, opened a few presents, etc. Plus, I'm trying to be less of a pack rat, so I decided I could probably part with a few of the 14 early drafts I still had lying around of book #1. I hemmed and hawed about recycling these because--as any writer knows--you don't really want people seeing your first attempts at something; they're usually pretty embarrassing. BUT I'm also trying to care more about the environment (which sort of goes against the whole "be less of a pack rat" goal in ways I've yet to reconcile), so I couldn't throw 42 trees worth of paper into the trash (and yes, before you ask: I had printed on both sides). I reassured myself that no one would ever see them because they'd go straight into the truck the next day before dawn, and stuffed pages upon pages into that blue container.
I just got home from running errands. When I pulled onto my street, I made a grim discovery: today is NOT recycling day. What today is, on the other hand, is windy. Very, very windy--like a tornado in Chicago. Because of this, our stuff--including every page of those 14 early drafts--is now strewn out across our sidewalk, down the street, and into the lawns of all our neighbors. Given our peculiar location, it's entirely possible that our abandoned paper now covers three different cities in the greater Boston region.
It's going to be a longish afternoon.
5 comments:
Question: Why didn't you shred the pages? ;)
Poor doll. Our garbage recently turned over and the dogs got into it... There were awful -- unmentionable -- pieces of trash strewn all over my neighbor's yard. (A judge in the community.)
Oh wow. That truly is a bad situation! Good luck.
Anyone think to get you a shredder for Christmas?
Oh no!
If it's any consolation, I think you get big points with Mother Earth for the attempt to recycle it all!
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