Dumpster diving to get trashed

The third time is not the charm at “Raider Rose,” but then again it really is.

Erin Lee and I recently went on our third food-lunking adventure only to discover we had likely become the antithesis of Robin Hood and his merry men. Instead of finding dumpstered items in their typically nondescript garbage bags, we found items in bags labeled “donations.”

In a moment confusion and incredulity we decided to take the loot and vowed to learn more about whether or not these items were truly being donated. We reasoned that at 11:43 am it was a fair bet that these items would go to waste, and that no one in fact was going to pick them up.

This was five days ago, and since then Erin has had an enlightening talk with a staff member at Raider Rose. It turns out there are philanthropic deals worked out where items such as flowers and foodstuffs get donated to churches and other establishments. Erin’s discovery, however, proved we were bastards stealing from the poor.

With a new light shed on our combating foodwaste endeavor, it appears I will be retiring from dumpster diving. (Though, I may check in from time to time to learn more about the donation process.) Despite personally losing a treasure trove of delectable food items, I am happy to concede that this third trek to the dumpsters was actually quite positive and made me very excited for the plight of the American wo/man. Besting the idiocy intrinsic in our sue-happy nation, Raider Rose has found a way to circumvent litigious shenanigans and give a good portion of its food waste to those in need.

A revelation that knocked my socks off

I slid my bookmark into “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay,” turned off my overhead light, and began the process of letting my brain go into free thought mode – the ultimate preemptive measure before falling asleep, but then it happened. A true revelation. I know it because I still have the goosebumps as I’m writing this. I feel like I did when I was listening to “Politik” on A Rush of Blood to the Head, and for 30 seconds my whole world was this wave of purity.

I don’t want to be an environmentalist! I just want the world to be in a place where everything is beautiful and clean, where we can drink the rain or the water pouring out of streams. But, I don’t want to spend my life talking about carbon credits, picking up garbage, or hounding people to hound the government about the maladies of nuclear energy. I don’t love the pursuit. I don’t love the thought of making my life revolve around telling people to change their habits. I don’t love nit-picking over what is better in the long run, nuclear energy or Orwellian wind turbines.

It’s not sexy or fun. I’m the kind of person that needs a rush. I like to climb buildings, do needless backflips, longboard down hills that make the wheels on my skateboard wobble. I like fighting for love, the kind that only comes from true wild abandon, spark of the moment intrigue, or a familiarity that radiates from knowing someone intimately. Ileana, I’m looking at you right now.

In the same token, I don’t want to teach English abroad. I sure as hell want to go abroad, and I sure as hell will teach English if it will pay my way, but I don’t love the idea of filling somebody’s head with the English language. I love the idea of being in a place, like a Taiwan or a China, where I’m completely immersed in different. A place where I have to use actual knowledge to exist. I love the idea of surfing at daybreak and climbing over rock faces in a world that is entirely new. I love the idea of staying up endlessly into the night, making moments under radiant city lights or breathing in Gaia's majesty in the country.

This is what I love. This is what I want to pursue. Those people that wake up in life and want to be doctors, they’re not so different from what I am. Just like someone who adamantly knows their profession, from the outset of high school I’ve known that I don’t want to specialize, I don’t want to give in, I don’t want to become part of a system that chews people up and steals their identities. I want to be that fun-loving, crazy, adventurist that drinks in all the resplendent that the world has to offer. I don’t want to settle and become an occupation or a title, because I am so much more. We all are.

So, as I ready for another dumpster dive tomorrow night, I say thank you Gaia for the clarity. I am a universe away from where I stood last week. I entered into the equivalent of an Imperial Death March, as I met my dad’s contacts for my job hunt last Friday. They were great people, but guess what, I wasn’t. I was phony, fake, and while I was airing my busted up elevator speech, I felt as hackneyed as an oil barren.

The funny thing about the job hunt, is that the person who is hunting for the job, is all too often the person who winds up getting sacrificed in the end.

There’s too much in this life to go see. There’s too much growing to take part in. There’s too much love to grab onto and fight for, versus becoming a ghost in a shell.

Arlandria nears EBT glory

Like Bilbo Baggins I’m there and back again

I hit up Arlandria’s Farmers Market with my board in hand

Snaggin’ free range beef, I’m ‘bout to have a cow

I’m talkin’ grass-fed goodness, yeah real local chow

For those who know what it is like to be continually hungry, like serious tapeworms from Zambia hungry, you can relate to the pure satisfaction that hails from schnarfing peanut butter right out of the container. You could framboliate a whole song and dance about the delectable attributes of avocado and mozzarella or the mouthwatering properties of eggs over black beans. But alas there is something leagues better, greater, and more zestifantastiskt than anything on earth:

Beef, guilt-free and fabulous.

With the sun on my face and longboard underfoot, I voyaged to the Arlandria Farmer’s Market today to take part in an unsuccessful food stamp transaction. It turns out the April 3, start date for electronic benefit transfers (EBT) has been pushed back, due to what was explained to me as a delay from the state of Virginia to provide an EBT training session. Yet, it wasn’t a total loss. I purchased some beef for making kabobs from Whats For Dinner Now LLC housed in Timberville, Virginia, (113 miles away) and I was informed EBT cards will definitely be good to go by May 1^st.

Also, I owe this treat entirely to my Aunt Gloria and my cousin Mandy. They came to DC for the Cherry Blossom festival and despite my attempts to block their charity, they gave me money to take them to the airport. My aunt and cousin are phenomenal. They spoiled me rotten all week taking me out to Bugsy’s, Asian Bistro, and they even treated my girlfriend and I to dinner at Fontaine Caffe & Creperie, all in scenic Old Town. Nothing in the world is better than sharing time with the people you love.