Image c/o Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Once a week I ask the same bleary-eyed question: “What about Wednesday?”  It’s my day to post whatever the hell I feel like, with no regard to fashion, eco-consciousness or, occasionally, even coherent thoughts.

The best part?  Today’s What About Wednesday falls on Earth Day.  That’s the one day I should be making a big deal of, right?  Wrong.  There are tons of blogs doing inspiring Earth Day posts, but since I talk about conscious shopping every day, I figure I’m allowed a holiday off for my new tradition.

What About Wednesday?

• Strangers never smile at each other.  Every time I give someone a wide toothy grin I get a double-take: people on the street seem to be surprised that I’m looking them in the eye, let alone smiling directly at them.  Men often think I’m hitting on them – “How you doin’?” – and women look away before my attempt at friendliness even registers.  At first I loved catching people off-guard, but after a few weeks most of the high has worn off.  (You can only get hit on so many times without starting to get cranky at your fellow women for being so timid.)  The one thing that still makes my day is when I say hello to a homeless person before they ask me for money: the eye contact catches them off-guard (so I don’t get hassled about change) and the genuine happiness often gets a return smile I wouldn’t trade for the world.  And yet,  people with houses and jobs rarely smile like that…
• When my self-esteem gets rocked, something always reaches out to balance it.  To be truthful, I’ve been feeling discouraged about this whole blogging thing lately.  I want to spend my time writing, but it seems that if I don’t put tons of energy into marketing, tweeting, researching, and analyzing, no one will ever read it.  I know that it’s just a moment in time, and that the stress and frustration will fade, but nonetheless, it’s been present.  Yesterday was especially bad, and I was in a pretty down mood when I got home.  An hour later, while watching Scrubs to cheer myself up, Boyfriend caught my attention, looked into my eyes, and said, “I love the way you laugh.”  If that doesn’t make a girl (or guy) feel good, I don’t know what does.
• It’s all about baby steps.  Whether you’re going green, losing weight, revamping your wardrobe, or what have you, it doesn’t have to be all at once.  Even though this blog is all about taking baby steps toward a green lifestyle (I’m wearing my LekkerLife jacket with Wet Seal jeans, for goodness sake) sometimes I forget that baby steps work everywhere else, too.  Like my waistline.  (Damn those cupcakes.)

What’s on your mind this Wednesday?

Tags: conscious shopping, Fashion, people, self esteem