green LA girl FAQ

In case my bio didn’t answer your questions….

When and why did you start writing green LA girl?

I wrote my first post on July 12, 2005 because I needed to recycle a broken DVD player. Out of e-waste, a blog was born.

You used to have this green calendar that listed all the eco-events happening in LA. Where’d that go?

That calendar still exists, but due to time constraints, I’ve stopped updating it. This leaves you with 2 options:

1. For an up-to-date but slightly differently curated list of green events happening in Los Angeles, or to get your green event listed on a local green calendar, visit Go To Green LA.

2. For green LA girl’s personal calendar, see Where in the world is green LA girl?

I keep entering the freebie drawings to win stuff, but I never win! Am I doing something wrong?

Maybe — Or you may just be unlucky. Keep trying.

I have an eco-friendly service / product and would like to sponsor a freebie. How can I do that?

Just check out the short criteria for freebie sponsorships on my advertise page. If what you want to give away matches up with what my readers want, then email me at greenlagirl@gmail.com to set up the giveaway. Thanks for your generosity!

My comment went into moderation and/or disappeared. Why? Do you censor your comments?

If your comment doesn’t publish immediately, it’s probably been put into moderation by my spam filter. This usually happens when a comment has more than 1 link or a word spammers often use. Usually, I’ll manually approve these comments within 24 hours.

If it’s been over a day since you commented, your missive’s somehow bypassed the purgatory that’s the moderation box to get directly jettisoned into the black hole known as my spam box. This happens relatively rarely, but because I’ve given up even looking over my spam box (current number of comments in there: 14,761), the only way I’ll even know your comment’s been tossed is if you email to let me know — in which case I’ll try to fish it out by searching for your name in said box.

More rarely: Unduly derogatory or malicious comments will be deleted.

Lastly, if your comment includes any of the following words — ambien, cialis, nexium, phentermine, phpbbforfree, prevacid — it’ll get automatically deleted. Why? Find out here.

I commented on your blog, and you never responded, you heartless bitch. You’ve never even met me. Why the cold ‘tude?

If your comment asked for a response, I prolly somehow missed your comment in my inbox! If you’re antsy about a response, email me with the post and comment in question, and I’ll hit you back.

I respond to the vast majority of comments, but comments that are off-topic AND unduly self-promotional bug me, and will be ignored. I encourage all readers to stay relevant and on topic :)

Can I advertise on green LA girl?

Yep. Find out more about advertising on green LA girl here. I also do trades and barters; visit the barter page for more info.

Can I send you [insert item] to review?

Yes, you can send me stuff — Email me at greenlagirl@gmail.com for a snail mail address — but only if you’re okay with an honest review. If the stuff you wanna send sounds eco-questionable, I’ll ask for more details before letting it into my teensy apartment.

What I’m likely to say thanks but no thanks on due to sheer lack of interest: Products or ideas that have to do with 1) babies 2) religion, or 3) group sports. Please — No more PR pitches for breast pumps –

I love your blog design! Did you create it yourself?

Thanks, and no. The current header was designed by Cassandra Davis, the one before that by Jasmin Chua, and the ones before that cobbled together by me from creative commons-licensed photos.

As for the overall design: The original Wordpress theme was created by neuro, but I fiddled and fiddled with it once I installed it, successfully making it look slightly more like I wanted it to but also successfully totally screwing things up on the back end. My tech guru Kim Woodbridge then came in and cleaned up my mess; she’s since taken over all the design tweaks — including the nifty, totally-automated “today’s freebie” box to the left. I highly recommend Kim’s services to anyone with or thinking of getting a Wordpress blog.

I don’t want to get emails everyday, but sometimes I forget to read green LA girl for weeks! What can I do to remember, without having to deal with a daily reminder?

May I recommend a feed reader? If you have no idea what a feed is, here’s an explanation; it’ll clear up all your questions about what the hell RSS or XML is too. For when you get back from that link, here’s my feed. I personally use Google Reader as my feed reader.

I love your blog so much I linked to you from my own blog. Can you reciprocate?

I don’t do link exchanges, but I do enjoy hearing about new blogs and will link to your blog once I find myself reading it regularly.

Can I write a guest post for your blog?

Possibly, but probably not. green LA girl is, first and foremost, a personal blog. And while I occasionally do have outside contributors — like Damien Newton of Streetsblog LA, who catches readers up on the latest de-car-ing news once a week — I keep this blog as much for my own personal enjoyment and expression as I do for my readers’ enjoyment and eco-edification. Too many guest posts, and my personal voice and curatorial touch — whether you enjoy its strange quirks or find it obnoxious and narcissistic — gets watered down.

Honestly, I’ve never said yes to a request to write a guest post here. All guest posters on green LA girl so far have been people who were kind enough to grant a personal request from me asking them to contribute.

What kind of PhD are you?

I have a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from USC.

Got a question for the FAQ? Ask me.

Photo by orphanjones

[last updated 9/9/09]