Sad, But Also...

Tonight I'm grieving a young man I never met. But he was someone special to someone who is special to me. So I grieve for both of them, the one who is gone too soon and the one who is left behind. Because there is, unfortunately, more than enough grief to go around when someone takes his own life.

I feel sad, but I also feel dumb. I ask myself inane questions: Did this happen despite all the holiday spirit whirling about, or because of it? Was it an act of passion or dispassion? Was there a moment when he changed his mind, but it was too late to choose survival over capitulation? The questions get increasingly desperate the longer I think about them, because the only person who could have answered them has gone silent forever.

I feel sad, but I also feel angry. Because suicide is an act of supreme selfishness, of self-indulgence, of arrogance. Goddammit, what gives you the right to decide that ending your pain in the moment is worth the pain that will be endured forever in your memory? I don't want to be angry, but anger is a stage of grief, and the only way past it is through it.

I feel sad, but I also feel solidarity. Because I've sat in a dark room in the middle of the night, crying because I couldn't find a reason to choose life. I've felt the sharp, quick fear that I could only see one choice before me, and I knew it was terrible and permanent but felt helpless to resist it. In the end I, many years ago, found just enough strength to turn away and make a different choice, as difficult as that was. Why didn't this young man find just enough strength? What if I had been just like him?

I feel sad. The life that was taken had promise, had potential. This was a person who was loved, not the way a celebrity or a statesman is loved, ostentatiously and ultimately impersonally. He was loved by real people, in the small ways that can easily be missed if you're too focused on the voids in your life. The ways that don't seem like enough when you don't feel you're enough.

We're enough. Every last one of us. And I wish it wasn't too late for this young man, and I wish I could say it to everyone who needs to hear it and believe it in their bones. Maybe everyone reading this can help spread the word.

Please call the Suicide & Crisis Hotline by calling or texting 988 if you don't believe you can choose life. You're not alone.

The Spring Crap. Crop. Whatever.

 It's Spring, and that means I'm a-plantin' again.

I wish I had a pitchfork.

Since I've lived here at Apartmente Baudelaire, I've made several attempts at balcony gardening. I had great success with beans.

Still maybe my favorite graphic that I've made 
for this blog ever.

But then last year I got ambitious and decided to grow peppers. This started out well...

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions
 and Hot Salsa Blend.

...but ended up an utter failure. Which turned out to be such an apt metaphor for the entirety of 2020 that I can't even be mad. 

So now it's 2021, and I thought, what the hell, let's take that giant leap of faith again. After all, life in general is feeling more hopeful, I've gotten my first Covid shot (I'm what's known as half-vaxxed, and rightfully so), and I've got two empty planters full of dirt sitting on my balcony looking kind of silly.

It was time to get growing.

Aside: I feel as if this post has the potential to become uncomfortably folksy and filled with mom-puns. I'm going to do my best to curb those inclinations, but no promises. When I'm talking about the loamy soil of the Earth and the simple joys of suburban cultivation, my writin' can't hardly help but reflect upon my soul's gleanings and -

See, right there. Stop that nonsense right now.

Anyway. 

I agonized over what to plant. Beans were done. Peppers were right out. Tomatoes are perfect container plants, but I don't like tomatoes except in marinara and ketchup, and there are only so many evenings and weekends I can see myself devoting to making homemade batches of either. Like, one. One batch of (admittedly awesome) spaghetti sauce, maybe a pot of BBQ sauce, and then I'm the crazy lady who brings a bushel basket of unused tomatoes to the office and sets them out in the breakroom with a sign reading "Free to a Good Home!" 

I got enough problems without being that lady.

I'll spare you the litany of rejected fruits and vegetables, but ultimately I settled on spinach as my 2021 crop. I love spinach. I'll put spinach in almost anything. It's healthy as fuck. It doesn't have to be harvested regularly. And it has the distinct advantage of being literally just leaves. Basically, if it grows at all, I've succeeded.

Also, it might turn my biceps into TNT,
which is always a bonus.

Back in March, I started my spinach journey by germinating some seeds in wet paper towels, as one does. This went well, although I didn't document the process with photos because I didn't want to jinx it again. Also, I kind of forgot to take pictures until they had actually started sprouting. 

This year, I decided to add an interim step to help ensure the success of my fledgling leafy greens (which would be a great name for an EP by some indie group from Austin, by the way). Once I had a couple dozen well-established sprouts - with roots at one end and a tiny leaf or two at the other - I put them in dirt in individual flats. I improvised the flats using an ice cube tray.

That is a stock photo, because a) I didn't document any of this with photos and b) my sprouts weren't nearly this successful. The plain truth is, most of my spinach sproutlings died almost immediately in this medium. I don't know why, but I think any reasonable explanation would include the word "cursed."

At this point I became a little desperate, a little pissed off, and a little pig-headed determined not to fail. When Steve Jobs got to feeling this way after hitting roadblocks to his dreams, he created Apple. Spoiler alert: My story has a dissimilar outcome. 

I quickly transferred the remaining plantitos, along with a few more that I had kept in wet paper towels for just such a contingency, into one of my outside planters. Where the majority proceeded to die almost immediately.

OK, so at this point I was beginning to feel like a serial killer. I was filled with remorse for the senseless destruction of life I had wrought, yet compelled to keep going to try to achieve some elusive meaningful results from my actions. I was the Jeffrey Dahmer of spinach. Netflix could have made a third season of "Mindhunter" about my efforts.

Maybe not. But RIP Mindhunter. Great show.

I took such good care of my few remaining spinach sprouts. I watered them, I turned the planter to make sure all the soil was getting even sun, I checked on them every morning before I went to work and every evening when I got home. After a week or so I had a few little plants that were struggling but surviving, and one or two that seemed hardy enough to actually go the distance and become viable members of vegetable society. It seemed my diligence would finally pay off and my spinach plants would become a fitting metaphor for hope and recovery in 2021.

And one day I came home to discover that a goddamn bird had dug them up and eaten them.

That day I came very close to discovering the sound made by a 12.5-gallon planter filled with dirt landing on the ground after being chucked off a fourth-floor balcony.

This metaphor was going badly. But like a raccoon scaling the side of a Minnesota skyscraper (remember that?), I persisted. I bought another batch of seeds. This time, I applied all my gained knowledge and experience in horticulture to arrive at a new strategy: Fuck it, I'm going to bury them in the dirt and see what happens.

I'm pretty sure this is how George Washington Carver achieved his greatest successes with the peanut.

That's next-level gene splicing right there.

If this radical planting strategy was going to bear fruit (or spinach), I figured I had about a week before tender green shoots began to poke their way through the soil. In that time I had to find a way to protect them from predatory beaks, because FAILURE WAS NOT AN OPTION, PEOPLE.

I needed some sort of mesh covering that would allow sun and rain to reach my plants but shield them from dumb-ass hungry birds. It had to be weather-resistant, easy to remove and replace (for plant maintenance), and it had to fit snugly over my planter. In short, I had more stringent requirements in place to protect my spinach sprouts than I ever did when I chose my ex-spouse. Live and learn.

Drummer Boy did some independent research and said he'd found something that might work at Hobby Lobby. Don't get me started on the fact that Hobby Lobby is a shit company with terrible owners and harmful policies. I still shop there on occasion. Because free-market capitalism is a dealer with the good shit and we all go back for a fix from time to time.

Anyway. DB brought over his find, which I thought was going to be some sort of container-gardening apparatus made of wire and mesh. Which for my purposes it was? But it was actually one of these.

Yep, one of those little pop-up tents that you put over Aunt Wendy's potato salad at the family picnic so the ants don't get at it (and presumably die of food poisoning because potato salad is toxic to all living things). With a cunning umbrella-style mechanism to lock it into the open position. Oh, and a darling lace border, because we're not savages.

Drummer Boy is the best, you guys. 

This little gizmo is a goddam miracle. It happens to be exactly the right size to fit snugly over the sides of my planter, and wedging the edges between the walls of the planter and the corner of my balcony makes it secure enough to stay put. Until one of our Texas spring storms comes along, but a whole-ass car can get taken out by one of those, let alone a three-dollar Hobby Lobby find. It's an acceptable risk.

I currently have three or four teeny-tiny spinach shoots that have appeared over the last couple of days, with more hopefully on the way. And they're safe from the goddamn birds that love to visit my balcony to preen, shit, fuck, and eat my precious baby plants. At least I hope they are.

If they survive past infancy, I'll post pictures. And maybe build a shrine to Popeye, the patron saint of spinach. I'll post pictures of that, too.

Wish me luck.

Mask-erade

Things are changing so fast.

On Thursday, Dallas County (where I live) decreed that we must wear "face coverings," i.e. masks whenever we go out in public.

Look.

I've been pretty good during this pandemic. I have.

I go to work every day because I'm employed by an essential business. I encounter fewer than 10 people a day. I go to the grocery store once a week. I haven't bought freaking toilet paper in more than a month.

I'M TRYING MY BEST, PEOPLE.

But something about the face mask order just broke me.

Because face masks don't protect the assholes I encounter in the course of my *extremely limited* interaction with them.

They literally...marginally...protect other people from my random coughs, sneezes, and utterances of the words "thank you" and "stay six feet back, mofo."

(ASIDE: I totally got into it with some asshole who acted all offended at a retail store when I told them to get the fuck six feet away from me. Word to the wise: I will kick you in the real or imagined balls if you don't respect my social distance, fuckers.)

Anyway.

I was feeling so low, Drunkards. SO. LOW.

And then I got home and told Precocious Daughter about the masks order. And I asked her if she would be interested in going through my fabric stash to find material that we might use to make masks.

Guys.

What would I do without this  20 yo wonderchild?

We've been making masks, you guys. She's my cutter and pinner, and I am chief sewer and assembler.

Ten hundred million thousand thanks to Tiana's Closet for providing the pattern and instructions we've been using. Seriously, guys, send her some love.

We now have masks to die for. (Pictures coming soon...promise.)

Just the act of sewing these things - maybe 15 minutes each, tops - has given me life, and hope, and has made me smile. Not bad for one little face mask.

I will live to see another day or week of this pandemic nonsense.

(If you want/need a mask, I'll soon post a link on my FB page to request one. Promise.)

For Mom, With Love

This is for all the moms out there.

Have you ever just wished you weren't a fucking mom?

Has your child (or have your children) simply rejected you, insulted you, publicly expressed their distaste for you?

I mean, ewww.

If you're like me, then you try. You try so fucking hard. But sometimes your spawn simply treat you like shit.

Do you deserve it?

Should you try to make amends for it?

I don't know.

I am honest to God not that smart.

In the end, whatever. Yes? We both have more important people to impress, to convince, to embrace.

If your views about the present and future of America differ from mine...Fuck you. I don't care.

The point is, love your parents and don't treat radicals as if they were sages.

I'd like this message to spread.

But if it doesn't, OK.

Possibly the  resistance will see it.

Or if not, then maybe some rogue right-winger with an actual conscnice. Or something.

Good night, America. Let me know how everything went. In the mornin.

Mom out.

Bean Update: For the Beans

It's been a tough week, you guys. For me, for my city of Dallas, and for my beans.

The good news is, we are all surviving.

We will all continue to be OK.

It's pretty much what we do.

The thing is, I'm on approximately Day 55 of my bean-growing odyssey. Here's what that looks like.

Mostly green and leafy.

My sproutlings have weathered wind and rain and Texas heat, as well as the pitiful track record of their bean-mother when it comes to growing things.They continue to grow, to creep, to push out new leaves.

Every day there is a new leaf to replace one that has withered in the sun.

I'm so pleased with the overall growth and progress of these scrappy plants. The thing is, they're supposed to produce actual, edible beans in about 65 days.

That's 10 days from now. And I don't see anything that looks like a fledgling bean on my five plants.

I know that a lot can happen in 10 days. My beans may simply appear one morning soon and grow like wildfire. I certainly am not in charge of these plants. I simply provide water, sun, and good vibes. If they decide to provide me with tasty green beans, it's all on them.

As yet I see no evidence of that.

Not going to lie, I will be quite disappointed if I prove to as successful at growing beans as I was at bearing children

That would be two of three dying in utero, for those keeping score.

Meat Loaf can suck my dick, too.

The point is, I really really want my bean plants to produce happy, healthy, tasty children. Imma eat them, sorry not sorry. Anthropomorphization doesn't extend to yummy green beans. Call PETA if you wish; I'm standing by this.

Please send positive growing energy to my beans. I really want them to succeed. I promise to post pics of their delicious birth if it happens.

Peace, love, and legumes, you guys.