The Hippie in Me

For some reason I’ve begun starting my period at night. I’m not sure when this started occurring, I’ve only noticed it for the last three or four cycles. I suppose, that’s when it started but I can’t be too sure. This cycle is also the second time that I’ve lapped Mirs. I have a wicked short cycle. For one month, two cycles ago, we were synced up; She started first and then I did a day later. Then last month I started two days before her and last night I started and she’s sure she will any day now.

Mirs has been going on and on about her love of the Keeper www.keeper.com since we started dating six months ago. (It’s been SIX MONTHS!) She’s been a Keeper convert for about two years. Apparently dumping a keeper in the deserts of Idaho is a lot easier and more convenient than carrying around dirty tampons for two weeks at a time.

Every time she got her period she’d tell me how amazing the Keeper was, how seeing her menstrual fluids so…collected, constantly reaffirmed her femininity and the power of her womanly body. I always nodded my head agreeably and went on using my unbleached organic cotton non-applicator tampons. Last cycle, at Whole Foods in Union Square right below my unbleached organic cotton non-applicator tampons sat the pale blueness of the Keeper box. It was neglected. A light layer of greyish dust had settled on the box, while the boxes of tampons still had a new shiny glow to its box. I thought about it for a split second before putting the box of tampons back on the self and the Keeper in my cart.

In my Green is Good tote bag were about 4 other canvas totes that I always had on me in case I had to go to a store. I never take store bags. On the rare occasion that I’ve forgotten a tote, I’ll buy another from a store. This would explain why I have over 20 shopping bags from Trader Joes, Whole Foods, and unmarked EcoTotes from Bed Bath and Beyond.

I’ve also given up my love of bottled water. This effort in going green has been slightly less successful than my bring your own bag effort, I’ll grab a bottled water if I forget my Oggi…that, is actually lost right now which would explain my plastic bottle of water next to my bed.

The point is that in my personal life and every effort I try to make, with no avail, in my home life is to make the smallest carbon footprint possible. There are places that I fail. Hair products, for example, is the place where I’m failing miserably. Unfortunately, I have natural hair that needs excessive moisturizers that cannot be found in paraben free, non-toxic, and organic products. Believe me, I’ve tried.

Purchasing the Keeper for over $25 seemed like the logical choice. If I thought about it, I spend about $5-7 on Tampons every month and even though I’ve switched from applicator tampons to non-applicator tampons, I’m still creating waste with the plastic coating of the tampons and the flushing of the cotton. Not to mention the cardboard boxes that they arrive in or the paper instructions inside each box. The Keeper, on the other hand, has about a ten-year life span. There’s only one cardboard box to throw away and only one paper instruction.

Since I just started my period last night I don’t have anything exciting to report. It’s definitely taking some getting used to. Mirs offered to help me put it in for the first time last night but having her poke around down there should, and always will be, for fun.

It started with my crystal deodorant stick last year, then my Pangea Soaps www.pangeaorganics.com and my crazy shopping bags. Then came the trail mixes, Tofu, and Soy Milk. My diet is all organic and now this, the Keeper.