Kyra's Big City Stories

I never really had a grasp on this city, what it really meant IN ITS SOUL. I think it was 'Eat Pray Love' that offered the idea that every city has an identity that can be summed up in a word, and if that word doesn't work for you, you'd best be moving on. In Tokyo, I realized that that word was 'Correct'. Everything you do there had better be the 'correct' way of doing it, because that is the heart and soul of Tokyo. I had my yukata on and the bow was coming undone a bit, I had tied it wrong, and a lady there stopped me and retied it for me, and when it was tied and fixed, I realized it wasn't due to kindness but because it was incorrect, and she looked awfully glad to have righted that wrong. Here in New York, the first year I lived here I got overwhelmed and just couldn't get a sense of the city's soul, what makes it inimitable and quinticentially so. So many people, and so many *types* of people, are living here that every person might h...

Hi! Did I scare you away with my previous post? No? Excellent. On my very tough quest to reduce single use plastic, I decided to take a li'l look at what I use the most on a day to day basis. On the top of the list is single-use coffee cups. The best cheap coffee available to me is in the company cafeteria, where we can get a big ol' 16 oz Starbucks drip coffee for $1.50. Nice! Problem.  these paper with plastic lining cups have sort have been collecting on my desk. I want to use a reusable tumbler, but the cafeteria ladies are very surly. Basically I am afraid of pissing them off by not using the OFFICIAL DISPOSABLE CUPS and making their days just that much harder. Terrible solution 1: Once or twice I kept the disposable cup and used it a second time... feeling like a sneaky criminal smuggling in the dirty (I rinsed it) paper cup. And then I kept noticing these cups disappearing at night. I guess the cleaning crew correctly identified them as garbage, not allowing my d...

So let me tell you a little something about plastic: it's super convenient, light, durable, can contain corrosive liquids safely and will protect produce in the refrigerator. It will not break when your toddler helps you unload the dishwasher and drops it on the ground. It can be made for fractions of pennies and provides a super cheap watertight container for your takeout lunch. You can get little fun toys for your kids friends that attend his birthday party, and they cost little so you don't feel bad about tossing them in the garbage.  It is also slowly taking over the world.  Let's think about how pervasive plastics are.  The mouse I'm using is made of plastic.  My morning disposable coffee cup is lined with plastic so it won't leak. The diapers I put on my baby this morning (probably the worst offender of all the things we use on a daily basis) are made of plastic polymers, which absorb water up to 300 times its own weight, allowing a deep sleep and clean...