I stop in Lincoln because it is the Berkeley of Nebraska supposedly – and because I’m hoping to track down my sweet coming out lover! I don’t find her but I do find a copy mat I spotted while driving around, as I’ve run out of ‘pink slip bush’ flyers.
While I’m waiting at the counter, a younger white womon smiles at me and says she likes my truck but she’s worried that bush will get re-elected. I remind her that he wasn’t elected in the first place and she quickly agrees. She tells me they’re in the 4th year of a drought there and she thought the ‘next war’ was going to be over water and what did I think? I told her I just thought it was incredulous that we live in a society that pisses and shits in such a precious life-sustaining resource as water and I think it is such a statement about our social and cultural values and perceptions of life.
“Wow,” she exclaims “I’ve never thought of it that way – but what else can we do?”
It is my turn to exclaim “It is not what can we do, it is what are we willing to do.” As I see visions of corn cobs and lime dancing in her horrified eyes, I reassure her we do not have to revert to out-houses or pooping in the woods but tell her about self-composting toilets, waste-eating algae, and other technologically-advanced ways to rid ourselves of waste. she promises to look into it further!
