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My Profile
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone... - 2009-11-05
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10:30 p.m. - 2005-05-10
 Was lead to the above by Alex, she of the STILL not working comment dealie. Made me laugh, the quiz result, not Alex’s non-functioning g-book. For a ‘useless’ quiz result it sums up rather accurately where I’m at these days. I didn’t touch a single phlox today. They’re still in the big plastic storage tubs we use when hauling plants and other loose stuff like groceries from Sam’s. Bought a whole stack of those tubs way back when and have used them in so many ways that they’ve paid for themselves many times over. The tubs are lined up along the path under the trees. Funny how tidy and organized everything looks out there. Next to the tubs are the sacks of soil in a trim pile and next to those are the bigger tools neatly lined up with all the handles going in the same direction. Really very odd since my approach to gardening is chaotic, haphazard and totally by the seat of my pants. I do very little research. Couldn’t give two hoots about the ph of the soil. Or what kind it is. Sandy? Loamy? Clay? It’s dirt. Can’t identify most of the things I grow until they flower (makes perennial gardening quite the adventure). I try new plants simply because they appeal. I read package directions and those little plant tags that are jammed in the pots, but that’s about as ‘scientific’ as it gets. I do learn from my mistakes though. That’s my saving grace. I’m a learn by doing type. Never have been able to absorb a lot from manuals. Nor am I an obedient student. I’m impatient to get going. I get antsy during lectures. Crabby with methodical types who insist on 140 hours of reading before they let you anywhere near the project. I’m willing to make mistakes during the learning process. When I was in high school the elder brother of one of my friends started a wooden toy business. Greg shanghaied us into doing piecework and put us to work in his sweatshop (aka: Dad’s basement). Now maybe learn by doing isn’t very smart when it comes to power tools, but I still have all my fingers. After a few bungled attempts I started churning out jump rope handles like a champ. Sammy, another co-slave, was going over every instruction sheet, reading safety manuals and meticulously lining up every push stick and blade guide before running his first jump rope handle through the lathe and I’d already made $12. I was like, “Hey man, it’s jump rope handles, not rocket science!” But that was Sammy all over. He was the only guy I knew who’d completely memorized the DMV test booklet before ever getting behind the wheel of his mom’s station wagon. Sammy’s little brother Walt had been sneaking out and doing donuts with his mom’s wagon since he was in the 8th grade. I don’t know if Walt even knew how to read. But he was hell on wheels, I tell you what. Today I worked in the back garden. Ripped out all the grass. Worked in a bag of soil. Put in the tomatoes. Made space for the broccoli. See this year I know how big broccoli gets. This year I mounded the earth around the tomatoes and made a rain moat. I also planted them with a decent amount of room between the tomato cages. Last year things were too crowded and the lowest branches of the tomato plants got soggy during a long rainy spell in July. Learning from my mistakes. Now we come to the product endorsement part of this evening’s program. With all the crazy digging and rock picking I’ve been doing you’d expect that my fingernails would be raggedy stumps. Not so! I haven’t lost a single nail to the garden this season and it’s all due to The Wonderful Nail Polish. Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Nail Hardener. This stuff is amazing. My flimsy bendy peeling nails are tough thanks to the wonderful polish. Absolutely delighted with how well it works. What does it say about the triumph mediocrity that I, the Retail Avenger, am surprised and overly grateful when something I buy actually works as promised? The world has become a sad, sad place. Speaking of which, do I have this correctly? There are blogs out there devoted to bitching about other people’s blogs? Not critiquing the writing style or the lay-out, but stooping to tear apart the person writing? Heaping abuse on a diarist and scorning how they live? Mocking and doubting and even accusing the writers of lying? That’s the fricken saddest thing I’ve heard in quite some time. Reminds me of my step-sisters. Drucilla and Anastasia would bitch and moan and be all pissy about people who didn’t even know D&A existed. Seriously. My step-sibs would get all righteous and absolutely tear their ‘victims’ to shreds. Accuse these strangers of all sorts of villainy and evil. Make nasty comments about their clothes, their girlfriends, the color of their houses. I always thought this was so weird! Why did D&A invest so much energy in people they only knew by sight? The people they got all bunchy in the panties over had never done anything to them. Had never hurt them personally in any way. Didn’t know them at all, yet D&A got totally wound up because they had nothing better to do. They had very few friends of their own. Didn’t try new things or go anywhere. Their lives revolved around making mincemeat of people who actually had lives of their own. People who had no clue the two twits down the street hated them and spent hours and hours being horrible about them. Weird, pointless and very sad. I’m trying to imagine what kind of people could be so devoid of purpose that the only thing they have going for them is reading and then abusing somebody else’s diary via their own journal. What a miserable ugly way to live. Or not live, as the case may be. I’m a middle-aged, mostly housebound unemployed cripple and MY life has more going on than these poor sad sacks who devote their time and energy writing vicious things about what other people write about? That’s just pathetic. Where is this place, www.losers.com? On second thought, don’t tell me. If I want bullshit and self-righteous cruelty I’ll stop by www.whitehouse.gov. Thanks, ~LA
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