A Bunch of Randomness

Deep breath.

Ok. I feel like life has sort of gotten back on an even-ish keel. So here are a bunch of random thoughts that have come out of my blog hiatus, some green, some not-as-green.

• If you're a regular follower of this blog, you may have been thinking: wow, that Catfish has been working a lot lately rather than blogging. And you would be right. My friend Kelly recently got me hooked on the British series Torchwood, which is about a secret agency that fights aliens. You can probably infer the level of work stress I've been having in that I completely related to Torchwood's many stories about how alien fighting is incompatible with daily life, just like my work (on the front lines of social justice, natch) is incompatible with daily life. (And if you want a good Halloween scare, check out the Torchwood ep called "Countrycide.")
• I like to shop. But consuming without thinking isn't too green. So, as Tim Gunn (yes, the "Make it work" guru -- one time I saw him at the Houston Galleria and he looks a lot older in person than he does on Project Runway) advises, I decided to take stock of my wardrobe before buying anything new. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday morning going through my closet. Luckily, my closet still retained some semblance of organization from the last time I cleaned it. This closet-organizing frenzy produced five bags for Goodwill (mostly because I'm in a new job where professional dress is a bit more professional than my previous job). It turned out that I mostly need to purchase basics: jeans, underwear, socks, and bras. Not romantic, but it's a lot greener to know what I really need and make strategic purchases than to just buy whatever I feel like.

The closet. So clean!

• Talk about recycling ... for work, I was recently in St. Louis. The conference I attended was held in St. Louis Union Station, which at one time was the world's busiest train station. Though train travel is no longer our main type of transportation, the station was not destroyed to make way for a Wal-mart. It was renovated into a hotel, conference center and ... okay, a mall. But it's encouraging to see how classic architecture can be preserved. This doesn't only save American landmarks, but it discourages sprawl from eating up American countryside.

Here's a 1909 image of the Union Station Grand Hall.

And here's the Grand Hall today, in a picture I took.

• I just like this picture. I took it at the Arboretum.

• And here's a song I like. I realize that this makes me a fourteen-year-old drama-club geek. So, I'm only 20 years off.