Month: June 2019

A Friday Night, a Rock Concert, and an Asshole Boyfriend

I went to a concert last night.  The tickets were general admission seating, and I’d gotten there early enough to secure a spot one person away from the stage. Having a feeling I’d be close to the stage and the speakers, I brought ear plugs with me. Which was a good thing because I needed them. I’ve gone to, and continue to go to, a lot of rock concerts. I need to protect my ears. After the show, walking to my car, I heard a guy complain to his friends about how loud the music was and that his ears were ringing so bad he couldn’t hear a thing. I’d been there many times, which is why I finally got smart and now bring plugs with me.

Anyway, the concert was great. Four hours, five bands.  A great way to spend a Friday night, and for the most part the people around me were cool. Which is important when you’re standing in tight spaces for hours. A short woman who looked slightly older than me was next to me. She was very sweet. She kept asking me if I was okay. Three hours into the show, she offered me a sip of her beer because she noticed I hadn’t left at all to get a drink. I thanked her, but declined her offer. I hardly ever drink when I’m at concerts. I have the bladder of a small child. It’s very annoying. But it was a very nice gesture from the woman.

It just makes the night that much better when you’re surrounded by nice people. People who just want to have fun on a Friday night. I was by myself, as is mostly the case when I go to concerts. Not too many friends like the music I listen to, which is fine. I don’t mind going to concerts alone, but being around friendly people definitely makes for a better experience.

A woman near my own age with long thinning red hair stood next to me, and her boyfriend, wearing a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers T-shirt, was in front of her at the stage. Off the bat, there was something about the guy that screamed dickhead.

The woman and I talked between bands. She was pleasant, but had a sadness about her. Without judgement, I noted traces of addiction on her face, and the more I observed her, the more I wanted to put an arm around her in a comforting way and tell her everything will be okay now. I could see she lived a tough life and probably hadn’t gotten a lot of breaks.

Take in point, in the middle of the show something sailed past me and nailed her right on the head. She threw her hands up and ducked down.  I touched her shoulder and asked if she was okay. She looked at me with tears and asked what that was. I didn’t know, and she used the flashlight on her phone and we looked around the floor for anything, but we saw nothing. Her boyfriend was in front of her and didn’t see anything, not that he would have done much if he had. When the band finished, and she told him what happened, he showed no concern or interest.

She was visibly shaken up about it. The nice older woman on the other side of me inquired how she was and asked what hit her. We never found out. Throwing an object into a crowd is such an asshole thing to do.

Standing in front of me, and next to the redheaded woman’s asshole boyfriend, was a friendly young man in his early twenties. He left his spot, and when he came back he touched me just to get by, and I jumped up. He laughed and apologized profusely for scaring me. Not sure why he caught me by such surprise. I was surrounded by people and should have been expecting to get or touched in some way. But he was genuinely sorry and called me ma’am, and I felt old.

The jerk boyfriend wouldn’t move when the young man got back to his spot, even though that’s a courtesy we were extending to everyone. We’d hold people’s places when they left and make sure no late-comers pushed past us and took spots that didn’t belong to them. The older woman next to me was really nice about saving spots. But the redhead’s boyfriend wouldn’t budge even though the young man had been in that spot since the start of the show. The young friendly man was visibly shocked at the level of dick-headedness, and the two argued. The redhead told me that it didn’t bother her, but that her boyfriend didn’t like that the young guy kept leaving his spot. She said something to her boyfriend and whatever he said back to her upset her and she started crying, though she tried to wipe the tears before they showed. But I saw them, and wondered what the asshole said to her.

The young man pointed to all the space to the left of the guy and forced his way into his spot. I don’t know if the asshole said something to the redhead but next thing I knew the woman suddenly left and never came back. The headline act came on minutes later, and the boyfriend looked back once, saw that she was gone, and never looked back again.

I’m not gonna say I didn’t enjoy the headline act, because I did, but I thought about that woman often while the band played.  Last night was probably not the Friday night she had anticipated. You go to a concert expecting to have a care-free fun night. And then you get pelted in the head with a flying object and your boyfriend makes you cry.

I hope wherever the woman is now, she’s happy. Maybe life will get easier for her. In my limited time of knowing her, I’d say she deserves that.

 

 

 

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Living a Greener Life

 

I’ve been trying to do my part in combating climate change. Individually, my greener-friendlier changes may not seem to make much of a difference, but collectively, they do. The more people adapt to a greener lifestyle, the bigger the overall effect, and mother Earth really needs our help.

By now most of us have probably seen images on social media showing dead whales washing ashore with tons of plastic in their bellies. There is so much plastic and waste in the oceans that marine mammals are mistaking them for food, and are dying because of it. These images are heartbreaking. Whether it’s whales dying of plastic consumption, or dolphins dying in fish netting, or sea turtles getting their heads caught in plastic pop can holders or choking on plastic straws, it is beyond time that everyone starts to do their part.

A goal of mine has been to eliminate as much waste as I can, and I thought I was doing a good job until a neighbor of mine was going on vacation a day before trash was to be put out and asked if he could put his trash in my bin. I told him he could, but in my head wondered if a family of three’s trash would fit into my bin, along with my own trash of a household of two.

I was stunned when he came over with one bag of trash…for the week…for three people! For a household of two, in one week, we usually put out four, sometimes five bags of trash. Everything that can be recycled, gets recycled, and yet it seems we still have too much garbage. When my neighbor gets back, I’m going to have to ask him his family’s secret.

Composting is something I’ve been considering. That should help reduce the amount of trash I accumulate, and maybe even make my grass greener. I’m rereading a book I bought about nine years ago, when my interest in green living began. It’s called green chic: saving the Earth in style by Christie Matheson. Even though there is nothing very “chic” about me, I was interested in the green aspect of the book and how very simple some of the changes were.

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So much energy can be saved by simply changing the lightbulbs we use to CFL’s, compact fluorescent lightbulbs. According to the book, switching to a CFL “in just one lamp that’s on for four hours a day will reduce your annual carbon emissions by around 150 pounds. “[E]lectricity…accounts for 39 percent of all carbon emissions.”

On top of changing the lightbulbs we use, I’ve also become a stickler for turning out the lights when no one is in the room. This is probably the easiest way to be green. Another easy way to be green is to cut your plastic water bottle use. I bought filters for my faucets and I refill a glass bottle from the tap. When on the go, I use a stainless steel reusable bottle that keeps the water nice and cold, even for hours in the sun.

Since I was a little girl, I’ve been turning off the faucet when I brush my teeth. It was in my fifth-grade science class. We were reading from out text book and there was a section on water conservation with an insert of a picture of a child brushing his teeth. It said to turn off the water while we brushed, and so I did and the habit has stuck with me for almost three decades. According to Matheson, “[t]he average faucet runs through three gallons of water per minute.” That’s a whole lot of water being wasted. Here is another easy way to be green – turn off the faucet while you brush your teeth or wash your hands. Individually it may not seem like much, but as a whole if everyone did this, the amount of water saved would be phenomenal. (Taking shorter showers would add even more water savings).

So here is a brief list from the book of some more easy green changes everyone can make in their daily life.

  1. Unplug chargers and appliances not being used. Plugged in charges still draw energy even when not being used.
  2. Wash your clothes in cold water. Hot water uses way too much energy and it’s not very green.
  3. Keep your thermostat one degree cooler in the winter and one degree warmer in the summer. These simple changes can hundreds of pounds of CO2 a year.
  4. Buy eco-friendly household products like detergent, hand soap, and dish soap.
  5. Eat less or no meat. It takes over 13,000 pounds of gallons of water to produce one pound of beef.

 

These are just some of the simple way a person can live a greener life. What are some of your favorite ways to live green?