Environmental news you can use when you're in there, ahem, using the toilet

When we bought our house I noticed that a Energy Star qualified dishwasher was installed in the kitchen, and I was like, "This is awesome! How green are we?" Here's the thing, though, our dishwasher could not possibly suck more. You put a mildly dirty dish in there and it comes out maybe 10 percent cleaner than it went in. To be honest, most of the time it comes back in the very same state of dirtiness, but with the added bonus a film of detergent. Nice. I often use our dishwasher as a storage for dirty dishes when the pile in the sink gets overwhelming. I run it, to see if maybe this time the magic will happen, and inevitably the load comes out even dirtier than it went in. This is because our Energy Star dishwasher takes, say, a piece of parsley that has been inconceivably left on a plate, crushes it into thousands of tiny pieces, and redistributes them all over everything else. Then I take everything out and hand wash it. Washing everything TWO times. AWESOME for the environment.

Maybe there's something we should be doing, I don't know. We're new homeowners and I will not be surprised at all if one day our dining room wall crumbles to the ground and we're like, "Oh, were we supposed to be emptying that weird canister thing in the basement?"

Whatever, I've gone a little off topic. The point is that I just learned something that's pretty interesting, and involves a sacrifice I think I can make. Soft, two-ply toilet paper? It's so bad for the environment! Read the story on findingDulcinea and then, that's right, buy some eco-friendly, possibly - I admit it - scratchier, toilet paper.

There's a good list of the worst offenders - and best alternatives - by Greenpeace linked from the story. I know most people don't want to sacrifice comfort, but try it, see how good you feel about yourself. Meanwhile, I promise to stop expecting miracles from my obviously defunct dishwasher. Hand washing and one-ply from now on. Because I love this planet.

Potential disaster (of the staying-in-my-robe-all-day variety)

A few of my friends have been urging me to read the "Twilight" book series by Stephanie Meyer but I've been a little nervous about delving in - I mean, remember the "Harry Potter" debacle? The last book in the series? Sobbing on the couch, like in the middle of a weekday when I should have been working? Plus, I don't read vampire books. And furthermore, I thought I was going to start on good literature again? Maybe read "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" or reread "Wuthering Heights." I've been stuck on mysteries forever and I need to move on. And moving on to a series of vampire books written for young adults doesn't cut it, I don't think so, not with the intellectual set.

But the thing is I got to Grand Central a few minutes early for my train last night and hopped into Hudson News to see what was happening in the celebrity gossip mags and there it was right in front of my face. "Twilight," the first book in the series. So I picked it up, and before I could get a grip and put it back one of the sales clerks was all "Are you ready to pay? Ready to pay??" and since it's insane with commuters in there at 6 p.m. and none of them had time for my indecision I said yes, and I bought it.

I haven't started it yet because I have been (and I really mean this) looking to become a little more productive lately on the creativity front. Maybe do some more freelancing or something. It's been a long winter - that is apparently never going to end - and Nora and I have been cooped up inside for way too long. The last thing I need is a book series addiction that will result in more time on the couch, and less time, um, OFF the couch.

So my entire ride home from New York, I didn't touch it, afraid to begin. Instead I listened to old episodes of "This American Life," ones I've already heard, on my iPod and tried to ignore the cover of the book, basically radiating from inside my bag.

We'll see how long I can hold off. Who knows, maybe I'll get real into an old fave from college instead, say Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." Probably I will! Take THAT pop culture.