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the latest waddle:

good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03

elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01

building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19

ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09

my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04


2002-08-09 ... 10:41 a.m.

GREENISH ACRES

I am not a gardener. Gardens are usually outside, and I tend to whither in the sun. Mosquitoes love me and ragweed makes me sneeze.

I have houseplants. Houseplants stay safely within their little pots. Houseplants make you feel like a cock-rockin' Martha Stewart without very much effort at all. (Perhaps I have just had a small stroke, because I have no idea why my fingers chose "cock-rockin" as an appropriate adjective for Martha Stewart.) My living room contains several houseplants: some I purchased and some are inherited, some I acquired recently and some have been with me for years. My plants receive a very small amount of attention from me and they pretty much do okay. (In fact, recently one of my more girly-girl acquaintances was over at my house and asked, "How do you keep your jade plant looking so beautiful?" Uhh...by neglecting it?)

The point is, if I AM guilty of neglecting one of my houseplants, and it dies, I may feel briefly bad but I don't sweat it too much. Sometimes I make an effort to nurse it back, and sometimes I just pitch it in the dumpster. But here's what really hacks me off.

WHAT REALLY HACKS ME OFF

When I give a plant every advantage and it DIES ANYWAY. That makes me so angry. I actually sit down with the ailing plant and have a chat. "Look," I say sternly. "You have the perfect amount of water, food, and sunlight. I even sang that Velvet Underground song to you while you got repotted. Remember that? Good times. If you insist on withering and being sickly like this I will GET RID OF YOU. Shape up or ship out. This is my house and we'll have no dying here. Don't test me, Plant." (Note: all of my plants are named Plant.) To some it sounds harsh, but I discipline out of love. Tough love.

Today I am on mini-sabbatical. Remember all the grand plans I had to work on Big Important Long-Term Projects? Yeah. Me too. Today I did get one huge errand out of the way in the early morning (up at six! Even after staying out drinking until one in the morning!), but then, I must admit, there was a whole lot of reading and napping and puttering about. I have to get my act together, though, and make some phone calls soon. I'm trying to get Gordon Moore to speak at a science conference that I�m organizing. Of course I don't know Gordon Moore from a hole in the ground,* so this involves a lot of explaining myself over the phone to sympathetic secretaries and PR people. (Hi, will big-deal executive Gordon Moore come and speak at a science editor's conference, for not very much money? Please?) If I can't get Gordon Moore I'm going to try for Thurston Moore. Personally I think he'd make a fine keynote speaker but it would be quite a surprise for the rest of the organization.

*This is just an expression. I feel fairly confident that I could distinguish between Gordon Moore and a hole in the ground.

NO LOITERING

I just got locked out of my own house for nearly two hours. See, I'm feeding my neighbor's cats while they are on vacation. The neighbors are on vacation. Not the cats. The cats are right upstairs, becoming increasingly resentful every time I show up instead of their regularly scheduled people. So I have my neighbor's keys to their house and the key to their mailbox. One thing I don't have is their key to our front vestibule (man, I love that word) door. There would be no need to give that key to me, since I live here too, and I have my own.

Except that I didn't bring it with me when I went to pick up their mail, and I casually let that vestibule door close behind me (because hey! It�s casual! I live here too, after all!) Oops. I tried buzzing all the other neighbors but since they are NOT on mini-sabbatical no one was home. I was stuck outside for two hours, sitting on the stoop like a vagrant and reading the magazines* and catalogs that were in the mail to pass the time. Finally I heard one of my neighbors come home and I was able to get back in the building.

*The latest issue of Venus Zine arrived in the mail today, with Sleater-Kinney on the cover, and they are so cute I could eat them up with a spoon or even a spork. The new album comes out on August 20, and I'll be at the record store that very morning like the biggest geeklicious fan-geek in the world, and I'll be at their show in October hopping up and down. Only Sleater-Kinney could induce me to hop.

I HEART CRAZY PEOPLE

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray for maniacal men with burning duffle bagsand apocalyptic theories! News story of the month, as far as I'm concerned. (Registration required.)

---mimi smartypants helps you with your homework.

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