The Tragic Saga of My Garden

So, about ten years ago we moved into this house with a huge garden space. It hadn't been kept up--the woman we bought the house from was no gardener. But the woman who owned the house before her was an avid gardener and you could see the potential: huge flowerbeds, big space for vegetables: in short all the things a gardener could want.

At that time, I fanicied myself a gardener. It kind of runs in the family. My mother spent all her summers gardening and my sister does and my grandmothers both did...you know how it goes. Plus, we were friends with an avid gardener who thrilled us with lush descriptions of Ratatouille made with vegetabloes fresh from the garden: plump ripe tomatoes, fresh sweet corn, peppers, eggplants, potatoes--the whole lot. Well, if I'm not a gardener I DO like to eat and I couldn;t resist. The result? I became, perforce, a gardener.

The vegetable part was relatively easy at first. The neighbour had been growing tomatoes and a few other things, so the space was all ready for a fresh crop. And boy did we enjoy those first few crops. It came down to saying things like, "Do you think we could put in a patch of wheat and mill it for our bread?" You know, crazy stuff like that. Of course, we didn;t think it was crazy at the time. We were gardeners.

The flowerbed was something else again. It was severely overgrown and I spent a year just looking at it trying to figure out what to do. Then I spent another year digging. And digging. And digging. I dug up weeds. I separated day lilies that hadn't been separated for ten years. I put in bulbs and removed others. And the next spring I was rewarded with something that looked very much like a flowerbed.

I felt good about it. I kept it up for about two years, always thinking of the five-year plan, at the end of which I would have a glorious garden that pretty much did its own work, with maybe a guiding hand or two every so often.

Then I got sick. I was sick for a couple years. And the flowerbed went to hell, as did the vegetable patch. And I realised in that time that I don;t really like gardening. I know this because there's a real gardener across the stret from us and she's out there in all weathers, pruning, planting, deadheading, and basically keeping the whole thing running. She's out there in 100-degree heat and in freezing cold, So much for my concept of a guiding hand or two. She made me realise tat gardening is really a full time job--one I don't want.

Now I should have realised this early on. Like the first july, when the bindweed came up and I spent about two hours pulling it before getting that I had better things to do than bend over a patch of stubborn weeds coaxing them out of their nice home in the blazing heat. And so, for the months of July and August, I tended to let the whole thing go to the proverbial pot. Which, of course, made my job all the harder the next year.

In any case, it took getting sick for me to get that I don;t like gardening much. And now, after three years, I'm right back where I started except worse, because the vegetable patch is also so overgrown that I can't even find it. Of the flowerbed, it's better not even to speak. I think a lot of things have died. Unfortunately, none of those things are weeds. Why is it that the weeds can stay alive even when you've given up on the whole business, even to the point of stopping watering?

Now I fantasize about having a landscaper come in and take care of the mess for me. 'Cause it's sure that I'm never going to do it. I feel guilty every time I look out the window and see the lone rosebush struggling to put out blossoms amid the waving orchard grass. I can't see another well-kept garden without feeling sick at my stomach. I'm even contemplating taking out a second mortgage on my house to pay someone to deal with it. My father would be rolling in his grave. If he had one.

Someone please come and rescue me from this situation! Some gardener without a place to garden maybe.

Or maybe I'll just let nature take its course. The sunflowers don't look too bad, really. It's the ragweed that gets me every time...

grey and gunky day

so today is one of those days when it can't decide whether it's going to rain or just threaten to rain. I tried to go for a walk and the sky started spitting down on me, which of course gave me the perfect excuse to come back home after about a block, which I wanted to do anyway. Now I'm sitting here smoking, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my day, if not the rest of my life.

There's this woman in town. I used to know her very well, in fact we were close friends for 25 years. But some BAD STUFF happened and my therapist told me, "This person is toxic to you; break off contact." My therapist, BTW, usually doesn't go around telling people what to do.

So I did break off contact--not without regrets. I really wish the BAD STUFFF hadn't happened. I really wish I could have made it better. But she wasn't going to change and in fact seemed bent on sabotaging the projects we were involoved in together. Well, you've probably heard it all before. The point is, I have many regrets and think of her often and wish it could have been different.

Well this woman has lost an AWFUL LOT of weight. She claims she did it all through Weight Watchers. But man, if she's going to meetings someone ought to tell her to stop. She looks like the walking dead. And having some experience with anorexia myself, I wonder what I should do... My first thought is she's got anorexia; my second thought is she's on speed and my third and distant thought is that she's ill. I really want to go to one of her associates and ask, "Have you mentioned this weight thing to her? because people around town are talking." But if she's ill that would be really tactless and I'd feel like shit. On the other hand if she's in a place where she needs an intervention.... I'd feel bad for not speaking up. I know when I was anorexic no one tried to talk to me and I felt such contempt for them. This woman, in fact, told me when I weighted like 85 lbs that I looked great and I couldn;t believe it. I knew I didn;t look great. I knew I lookekd like hell.

I wonder if she knows she looks like hell. From what I've heard, she doesn't... It's a problem having compassion for people you don;t associate with and don;t really like. What do you do?

It's still not really raining. But I don't feel like doing much. Does that make me a bad and worthless person? Or just human? I don;t have to be superhuman, but I have problems knowing the difference sometimes.

very random indeed

Why is it so hard for me to keep up this blog???

I used to journal all the time. I have boxes and boxes of old journals that I read from time to time and I'm amazed at the content....just the volume of it. I had so many more thoughts then, it seems.

Maybe it's because I actually have people in my life now that I can share these thoughts with. Or maybe it's just that I don't have anything to say. That's a terrible thing for a writer: to feel like you have nothing to say.

But anyway: The Unquiet Grave is finally finished except for a few polishing touches. I have it out being read by a few people and so far they all think it's brilliant. Which leads me to the question: Do I go the self-publishing route again or do I try to do the traditional publishinng thing with its depressing round of submissions and rejections? I just can't decide on one or the other.

The big problem is marketing. I'm bad at it. If I thought I could self publish and market the book effectively, so that I made up my costs at it, there would be a big "DUH" factor in this approach. I have to say, I'm not all that fond of the "traditional" publishing route. It takes a long time to get a response IF you get any, whether from an agent or a publisher. Mostly you get "No thank you's." It's just really depressing. And they don't help you market much anyway. But at least I'd see some money up front without putting any out.

So if you;re at all interested in seeing The Unquiet grave in print, please coontact me. It would be nice to have some contact from my website other than spam offering me cheap rolex watches, which I have no interest in.

Is anybody out there?

I suppose I should update my website more: write another rant or something but I just can't be arsed to do it right now. It seems like I have no strong opinions anymore. And as that takes me back where I started I'll leave it there....

So sue me.

I haven't written a blog in three days when I said I was going to try to write every day. So sue me. But right now everything just seems so hard. I don't really want to post my pity party on the web; just let me say that I've been spending a lot of time sitting around staring at walls. Bored but nothing appeals to me. Ever felt that way?

But if I don't post a pity party, what do I post?? I just don't know. Sitting here trying to come up with some happy joy thoughts isn't working.

Bleah. This whole deal isn't working. Calgon take me away.

maybe I'll try again tomorrow.

Did I Mention...

...that we saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at the midnight show on Wednesday morning? I kind of don't think I did.

I'm getting pretty upset with these movies as they go on. The first two were cute and the third was excellent. But as the books get longer the movies get more and more compressed, with more and more left out--which causes more and more to have to be left out--which causes.....you get my drift.

For example, in CoS, the scene between Harry and Filch where Harry discovers Filch is a Squib never takes place. So Squibs are never explained. So when Arabella Figg shows up in OotP, it's like, "Who is this batty old woman and why is she appearing right now?" You don;t know she's a squib; she can't be a squib because in the world of the movies squibs don't exist.

And what about Bill Weasley? He never got introduced in Goblet of Fire. So the connection between him and Fleur hasn't happened. How are they going to handle that in movie six where a great deal is made of the fact that the two are engaged? And I can't know for sure, but it seems like the Weasley wedding is going to be a big scene in book seven--I'm actually imagining bad things happening. Are they just going to cut that or are they going to introduce Bill at the last minute or what?

Don;t get me wrong-these movies have some fine things about them, not the least in the casting. But I think all the script cuts really detract from the experience. And the inconsistency in direction with the constant change of directors is really starting to annoy me. It seems to me that would leave way too much burden on the actors--especially the ones who have been recurring characters--for making their characters consistent. You can see that in the change in Dumbledore from movie three to movie four to movie five--he's different every time and though I like Michael Gambon I can't say I like all the changes.

These movies are made for people who have already read the books, because if you haven't read the books you can't understand them, especially the later ones. But they do the books a great disservice by rushing through plot details and compressing scenes to the point of incoherence.

rant over and out

okay that's weird.

I just tried to sigh in and they wouldn;t let me sign in but when I came back to my blog page, there was the option for a new post. I don't get it. Magic.

I am following my vow--I hope--to post something every day even if it's trivia. So today's trivia is: the weather is better than it has been. Cloudcover maing the sky grey but the temps cooler. Not the blazing hot above 100 degree temps we had last week, thank whatever god you prefer.

getting life stabilised: that's another weird thing. since finding out I'm bipolar--and I still can;t believe no one got that sooner in my life, I mean HELLO!-- and getting on meds that make me have a normal thought and emotional process....well, I can understand why most bipolar people go off their meds, can;t I? Even now I;m thinking, okay, I'm stable, can I stop taking some of these pills please. Eventhough I know it's early for that.

But I miss....I don't miss the lows so much, although they were feeling something. But I miss those rare and ...infinitely valuable highs when everything felt like it came together and made sense and everything was going to go right and I was so inspired I;d forget to eat and just work until my eyes fell out. How much harder it is doing the work from this flat place, how do people function like this???? Is this what normal life is? I just can't bear it sometimes. Is this health? I suppose these are questions for my p-sychiatrist when I see him next

I doubt I will like his answers....

where have I been?

I last posted in February. It is now July? Where have I been?

Hanging around various forums.

playing casual games on my computer.

not reading as much as I used to.

learning to play the new flute I got (yes I got it).

joining Weight Watchers.

Doing radio.

Trying to work on a new book.

Trying to wrok on an old book.

basically trying to get my life together.

I'm going to TRY to make myself post something every day even if it's not much. As a discipline.

that's all for now

K.