running errands; noticing toxic building materials; appreciating books again

4:47 PM 1/25/2012

I saw ‘The Descendants,’ and even though it had 4 1/2 stars, I didn’t like it a lot, and found it somewhat boring and depressing. Other movies will get maybe three stars, but I’ll enjoy them enough to watch them over and over again. I watched ‘Twilight – Breaking Dawn’ several times, partly because I really liked the music. One person wrote a review where he complained about all the ‘filler’ time, where no real action was happening, and it’s true, a lot of time was like that, but during those moments, good music was playing, which was why I enjoyed the movie so much. I’ve liked the music from all the Twilight movies. I’m embarrassed to admit it when I like movies that I know aren’t ‘high art.’ But, I watch whatever is available.

Today, I was running around doing errands. I just went to various stores looking for things that I might possibly use to build the tent-like object. I don’t want to buy an official tent. There are several reasons why I don’t want to. I’ve been inspired to be anti-tents because of reading about Rick’s ultralight backpacking experiences. He doesn’t use the kind of tent that has the metal poles and all the other stuff. He just uses a small piece of fabric whenever he goes hiking in places that don’t have a lot of heavy rain. I’m not sure what he uses whenever he goes someplace with a lot of rain. The piece of fabric is enough to block off a little bit of rain that might fall during the night. The goal is to carry as little as possible in the backpack.

I’m not hiking, so it doesn’t matter how much I carry. But still, I like the idea of a minimalistic, simple tent. I looked at all the other tents. They are just too huge. I don’t need all that space. I don’t even need to stand up. I don’t even *want* to stand up. I want the tent to be a tiny crawlspace, a little tunnel, which is so low to the ground that it will be hard for anyone to see from far away through the brush. Not only are the ‘real’ tents too huge, they also have these unexplained ‘layers’ and ‘panels’ and ‘flaps’ and things. Are all those layers and panels and flaps really necessary? Some little piece of fabric extends over the edge of some other piece of contrasting colored fabric, and it’s all complicated, and it’s some special design with some special purpose.

It’s the same as a pair of shoes. Have you ever looked at how unnecessarily complicated your shoe fabric is? The shoes often have hundreds of different little panels of contrasting colors and shapes, making it seem as though it’s some really special high-tech design with some special purpose, like it’s uniquely tailored to fit exactly on your foot, but in reality, they don’t fit any better (or they fit worse!) than shoes without all those little panels of fabric. The tents looked like that. I like something which is just made of one single, contiguous, continuous piece of fabric, without those little complex folds and things in it.

It’s supposed to suggest that the tent, or the shoe, ‘evolved’ over time. They added this extra panel because something was needed over there. They added this little ‘gutter’ on the edge of the tent to prevent the rain from dripping down, or something. Well, if I need any of those little evolutionary developments badly enough, I will add them on myself, but I suspect that I can survive without them, and if they were gone, the product (whatever it is) would cost a lot less. I feel that way about *all* products. I don’t like any kind of ‘design’ whatsoever. If something is just a plain rectangular box, I like it that way. I like computers to be like that too. Don’t get me started about how much I hate it when they upgrade Windows and change all the icons and everything, when they were just fine before, and you have to learn it all over again. I didn’t get Windows for the purpose of forcing myself to learn a whole new system every couple years. I got it to perform a function, which is easiest to perform if I can quickly and easily recognize what everything is and what it does.

Anyway, so I want to just get some kind of fabric to make my tent-like object. I did actually buy something today, but I’m not sure it will work, and I haven’t tried it out. I know it *will* work, but it might not be durable for very long. I got a particular type of vinyl which I know I don’t have any weird reactions to. Sometimes I don’t like the way a fabric smells, for instance, a bad-smelling tarp has some kind of toxic, petroleum-like smell coming out of it, and I don’t want to be sleeping on that. Those things weren’t made to be kept in contact with human skin for long periods of time.

That’s another thing. I went to Lowe’s Hardware just to look around and see if there was anything that I might find useful. I was overwhelmed with the hugeness of the store. In the past, I would have gotten a manic desire to buy everything and build everything, which is how I’m ‘supposed’ to feel when I walk in there.

But now, instead, I feel a negative feeling, I feel a dislike of all the unnecessary complexity. Our houses ‘have to’ be built a particular way, and it has to be the modern way, and it has to be modern materials, and that means perfectly-shaped lumber and nails and screws and metal siding and all that. We can’t build a house out of mud and sticks, because that violates the zoning laws, or the fire codes. Our modern houses have millions and millions of tiny little pieces that make up all the complex systems. Every little piece of plumbing has a unique, special shape. There are hundreds of different sizes of screws. You might choose something made of a special metal alloy instead of some other metal alloy because it has specific physical and chemical properties that you need.

Everything is made by the millions in a factory somewhere – usually China – by some automated process. If they’re able to make it, then they want to be able to sell it. They try to ‘create the market’ for something, create a need for it. There are many people out there who *want* us to depend on factory-made items instead of making anything ourselves from local materials.

A lot of these materials are toxic. Toxic building materials are a relatively new phenomenon, from what I’ve read. I know I’ve had reactions while handling various things that I bought from Lowe’s – I’m not blaming Lowe’s in particular, it’s the entire system and the entire economy causing this to happen – I was trying to use ceiling tiles a while back, and had horrible reactions to them. So I am very cautious about which types of materials I use for things. A lot of things weren’t meant to be in direct contact with human skin for long periods of time, and yet, there is no warning label that says that you shouldn’t be lying directly on a tarp, for instance, because of whatever horrible petroleum-smelling chemical is in it.

I said ‘What the hell?’ whenever I looked at a panel – I think it was a countertop, or something – and it said ‘melamine coating.’ Melamine??? Isn’t that the same poisonous substance that accidentally got into the pet food a few years ago, causing a large number of pet deaths from kidney failure? And they use that as a coating on countertops? Oh, I’m sure they would reassure us that it’s safe when it’s in solid form and when all you’re doing is touching it with your hands. But after my experiences, I know that a lot of things go directly through the skin, and I would not want to have a melamine-coated countertop or whatever it was at my house.

I just googled ‘melamine coated countertop’ and I saw some results that mentioned particle board. Particle board is another toxic building material. It emits formaldehyde fumes. – Yes, it turns out that melamine is indeed the contaminant that was in the pet food in 2007. They also say ‘cyanuric acid’ was in there, but I don’t know anything about that. Oh, it’s something added to melamine.

This is another reason why I don’t want to live in a house. Toxic building materials. Why should we be forced to build our houses out of this stuff, when we could just live in a much simpler house with less of everything? Just four walls, and nothing else. No perfectly smooth countertops or particle boards. But no, everything has to look a certain way, perfectly polished and smooth and modern looking.

When I was at Lowe’s, I picked up a book. I had picked up a book and read it for several minutes earlier today, actually. I was at Wal-Mart near the camping section, and I picked up an atlas of Pennsylvania, not an ordinary atlas, but a hiking atlas. It had a lot of information about trails and wildlife and things like that. I got very involved in reading it. The same thing happened when I picked up this book at Lowe’s. It was a do-it-yourself book about the self-sufficient home, or something like that, but I can’t remember the exact title. I’ve been reading about off-the-grid living for many years, but reading it in a book was much nicer than reading it on the web. Reading anything at all in a book is easier than reading it on a computer screen. It’s physically easier for the eyes. It’s also easier to flip through the book and glance around for things that interest you. I sat there for many, many minutes reading through that book.

Afterwards I was fantasizing that someone would write a do-it-yourself book, with pictures, of Primitive Arctic Survival. Or Inuit Lifestyle, or something. But it must be the primitive lifestyle, not the post-genocide semi-modernized lifestyle. That would be a great book for *all* indigenous cultures, not just the Arctic. How do they make their houses, their tools, their food, their clothes, their boats and carts and other forms of transportation? How do you do it? What’s the algorithm to follow? Do A, then B, then C. I want to know. I don’t want it to just be a book with photos of ‘all their cool stuff.’ I want it to be how-to instructions. First you cut along this length with a knife, and then you glue it together using this glue you made earlier, and so on. (I was watching a video about how to make homemade arrows with arrowheads made of flint, which is what I’m thinking of, but I want it to be in book form.)

That’s it for now. I will probably remember things I forgot to say afterwards.

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