Woulda Coulda Shoulda

One of the interesting side effects of having cut waaaaaaaay back on working and marketing myself last year is that I am no longer a Hot Internet Commodity. Bloggers are a dime a dozen, after all, and the thing is, I always had really mixed feelings about that whole Hot Internet Commodity thing, anyway. So now I’m doing all of this Restructuring and Goal-Setting and Planning For The Future and blah blah blah (wake up! I’m getting to a point here!) and trying to decide whether I even WANT to “raise my visibility” to where it used to be.

Even writing that out makes me want to punch myself in the face. I never did any of this because I wanted to Be Someone. I think a lot of people do it to gain some sort of fame/notoriety, but I also think more people than you might guess are more like me—there’s a love of storytelling, an impulse to write, and an oft-whispered wish that mostly, you are just normal, and therefore, forgettable.

So next week I’m going to do an Interview Thing, and I don’t do a lot in the way of actual on-camera stuff, EVER, and I told myself I should do this thing because it’s good practice for me and will give me another recent something to add to the resume as I ramp back up, work-wise, but over the last two days I realized that’s not why I want to do it. I want to do it because I feel like I need to do some penance. (more…)

I feel like I could make with OH SO MANY WORDS about the suckage of 2012, but frankly I am sick of it and have no desire to rehash. If you were here, you already know. If you weren’t, well, I guess we could do an in-a-nutshell retrospective as a sidebar if I could do one for real.

[I can't do a real sidebar, so here's a fake one. Sidebar: 2012 sucked hairy donkey balls. Chickadee spent half the year in the hospital and I spent months fighting for Medicaid coverage for her while fighting for decent treatment, and then she decided to go live with her dad. (Single bright spot during that: You all helped me do an amazing thing for the hospital and I love you for it.) Otto's car imploded in Atlanta one day and then we had to rush Monkey to the ER with suspected appendicitis and my mother-in-law passed away. For further hilarity, I then broke my hand on an apple and became bionic. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, we capped it all off with it seeming like Licorice might be deathly ill (though, fortunately, that one turned out okay). It was kind of A Year, is all I'm saying.]

Was there ever a year I was so happy to see end? I can’t think of one. Though we all know that the human brain is a miraculous thing; if there HAS been a year similarly awful, I have clearly repressed it. Lalalalala! I can’t heeeeeear you! I look forward to this year’s razor-sharp edges dulling in my mind, as well. The sooner the better.

Naturally, there was nothing left to do but get my woo-woo on. (more…)

So I’m trying to keep busy while the world continues caving in, because I hear that helps to pass the time and make things seem less dire. HAHAHA. It’s not working, yet, but hope—and MIIIIIIIIINT!—springs eternal.

This means, of course, that I am turning all of my energy to my gardening efforts. Because school never calls to tell me that my tomatoes are poorly behaved! Basil never screams that it hates me! And although I’m no fan of the slugs, they are entirely predictable and survival-oriented in their quest to ravage my harvest, whereas the Mother’s Day discovery that a certain surly someone managed to send $40 worth of texts IN A SINGLE DAY maybe shouldn’t have surprised or infuriated me, but did, on both counts. (P.S. I know we will look back and laugh someday, but someday feels a very long way off, today, and may as well have been Pluto, yesterday.)

I shall find salvation in my garden. It’s a little reassurance from Mother Earth that not everything I touch turns to despair. I’ll even take credit for the mint, which as we all know hardly needs my permission or coddling to flourish. I know. I’m still taking credit, so shut up. (more…)

I know that every year I get a little loopy about my garden; in much the same way I can barely believe I’m an adult (with a driver’s license and kids and everything), it still amazes me that I can grow things that turn into delicious food. I must’ve slept my way through botany in high school, because it still blows my mind. Soil and seeds and water make FOOD? It’s like some kind of wonderful black magic.

Of course, it’s also a pretty nearly-instantly gratifying kind of thing, too. Plant, water, wait a month or two, enjoy the fruits (and veggies!) of your labors. For a devotee of Short Attention Span Theater such as myself, that’s a pretty rewarding payoff in a not very long period of time.

Of course, there are demons to slay along the way: Two years ago I focused on vanquishing the slugs, and last year I dueled the tomato horn worms in the Battle of Squick. This garden thing is not without its trials, is what I’m saying. (more…)