Woo-hoo! Looks like the car repair problems will finally be resolved. I was able to procure a credit card. While I posess an inherent antipathy for the things, in this case it appears to be the only choice left, short of groveling ad nauseum until I could get someone to co-sign with me for a loan. Obviously this route is more dignified and independent.
::happy::happy::happy::

Got a few more minutes left (at the library, when Tim left he took his computer, too). I'm finally to a point where I can organize the house, get rid of excess junk, cook what I want to, and regain some sanity. I need to get the strawberries and irises (given to me by a former co-worker) in the ground ASAP.

Groan....it's going to take me a while to walk from here to home to the store and my hips are already sore...before 8 hours of standing on them on concrete. I'd better get home and at least eat something first.

Wait! Do I really want to go through life as a mask, playing a role, a facade? For what? To make other people happy? So they'll like me? That's twisted, because even if it worked (I'm no good at faking in the first place, however much I wear myself out trying), they still wouldn't like *me*, just the flipping mask. No.

And, maybe there aren't people who will like me the way I am, maybe there isn't even one, but it's still better than playing a role, putting on a phony face (at times literally) in lame attempts at inclusion, because in doing so, one sacrifices their own integrity.

I'm not talking about character flaws, issues, things that can be worked on. I think those things are entirely reasonable to strive for improvement in.

Well, I'm offline for a while except for the library (as now). The tomatoes have all been picked ( I think I may have posted that already last time?) and I've been freezing them. The plan for the newly vacated bed they were in is kohlrabi, beets, possibility of kale or even peas...nah, I don't think there's enough time for peas...maybe spinach. The Rosa Rubrifolia seedlings are ready to divide into individual pots, and...let's see, what else....ah yes, the apple seedlings from the "Pink Lady" apple, and the Japanese maple. I am reluctant to plant it until it has been definitely ascertained that I'll be buying the place. Suppose I could buy another, but....pathetic as it sounds, I get pretty attached to my trees and other plant life. My treasured hemerocallis "Brocaded Gown" died this spring despite my best efforts to save it, and I'm still sort of upset about that. I'll probably make an order to Oakes Daylilies and get another one at some point.

I haven't made a lot of progress towards getting my car fixed. This is primarily because I have no major purchases on my credit history. I have no idea how people ever get major purchases on their history so that they then can take out loans or buy on credit (which, to be honest, has never been a priority for me since I view debt with fear and suspicion). I can only conclude that they've all had a parent or friend co-sign for them at some point in their life. And so now, when I see other people driving nice cars (which in my mind, is anything other than a junker), I think about how someone must have loved them very much sometime in their life. It makes me feel very lonely and isolated.

OK, so that's a pretty pathetic way to look at things.....

Well, my car broke down. It blew its head gasket. This is a real pain to deal with, not because I mind walking, but because the children are in need of transportation almost every single day. I need to get a running vehicle very, very soon.

I must have close to 10 gallons of tomatoes on my kitchen table right now. They could probably have stayed on the vines another week or two, but honestly...I didn't feel like I could afford to be wrong. Besides, picking them frees up room for fall crops of greens, beets, carrots...and I'm wondering if I could get away with peas or spinach.

Work is going really well. I love being a cashier, except for the crackheads and the occasional person who is both dumb and rude (an impossibly annoying combo). A guy came in today who had a fresh and clearly inflamed needle mark on his neck. He was all hyped up and jittering through the store...and as he walked away, I watched him. Not only was his color not good, his legs were stick thin, making his socks and shoes look too large for his body. It's sad. Handling all this money...from people like that, makes me extremely glad that I got hepatitis shots when I worked at the hospital. The money is so filthy. It leaves grayish marks all over my hands, gets into the cracks and crevices of my skin...makes me feel defiled. Ick. I don't mean only the money from the druggies, I mean all of it...it's dirty.

What else? Ah...I got a loom...not a little homemade deal that makes potholders or that sits on your table, but an honest to god floor loom, from the thrift store. I just happened to be there when the people who donated it unloaded it from their truck, and snapped it up as soon as it hit the ground, to the tune of $25. The lady who donated it was ticked, said she'd paid over $450 for it, used. I knwo how to weave, and I've always wanted aloom. In fact, I've been intending to build one, but I wasn't quite sure what to use for the heddle. This one had pedals and all that jazz...it also folds up for storage, which is handy. I feel like it was a splurge, but my mom sent me birthday money, so....and it isn't like it was something frivolous. I can use it to make rugs, blankets, shawls, clothing, tableclothes...heck, you can hardly get a new blanket for $25. I sort of wish I had a spinning wheel again, but maybe a few years down the line. For now I can just recycle and make rag rugs.

I've been cooking a lot more from scratch lately, partly due to the surge of fresh vegetables from the garden. A sampling of what we've been eating: fried green tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini, fresh salsa, pasties. I hadn't had a pasty since I was in the Midwest...oh how the memories came flooding back. :-) I've dried about half the peppermint, need to do the other half, and the lemon balm, thyme, marjoram, sage....and to dig up the basil so it wont get frosted.

Midnight already?! Time for bed!

I occasionally wonder what I look like to other people, from the external eye so to speak. I try not to think about this too much. I know that I must look and sound like a total dork. I've seen the videos, and they make me want to hide indoors and never show my face in public again. The disconnect between what I think and the inadequacy of how I'm able to express it in speech (nowhere near as well as I can in writing), the way I feel and the face I present to the world (it seems blank, cold, robotic even when I don't feel that way, or otherwise, caricatured in its extremity), the gap between my inner identity and my external presentation is so wide that I don't feel like I can bridge it.

And I am desperate to share my true self with someone, and to truly know them, but there's this hideous shell around me, and I hate it. I wish I could shed my stuttering, awkward, inept ways like a carapace or an old skin, even if only for a few minutes or days, just long enough to matter, just long enough for someone to see I'm not really this ugly. My heart breaks within these confines, condemned to a solitary existence.

So I've been reading a little more about dysthymia. Learning the cashiering routine has been a little stressful, and to my extreme chagrin I started crying in front of the customers yesterday (cringe). So today I downed some St John's wort before work, and I felt fine all day. I don't know how long it's going to take before I have medical insurance again, but I think in the meantime, it would be a good idea to adhere strictly to a regimen of St John's wort every day. It makes such a difference, and I sure as hell don't want to start crying in front of people again, ugh!

The thing of it is this: I can hardly remember a time when I haven't felt depressed. If I had to select a time when I felt happy, it would be first or second grade. You can see the difference in my school pictures; I went from this happy little kid to a morose, depressed looking child. Before that, I was undeniably strange, but I was *happy* and strange. This is consistent with the course that dysthymia often takes. It's like....like everything is covered in grey, well, almost everything. When I find something that isn't grey, that I feel strongly about, I get obsessed with it, addicted to the pleasant feeling associated with the activity, object, or person.

And now I wonder, when I feel that way about a person, am I really in love with him/her? Do I love them, or do I love the feelings they evoke in me? Maybe it's why I'm usually content to simply be in their proximity, usually not even broaching anything personal...just soaking up the happy vibes that being near them provides. Maybe I'm selfish that way.

I often fantasize of what it would be like if I were a type of ghost that could see, but not be seen, feel without being felt, hear without being heard, etc and follow the people I love around silently and unnoticed. I think I would be utterly happy with that, creepily enough. I would never have to risk rejection again, I could just be near them, love them, soak in the sound of the voice, a man's scent, and I'd have all the time in the world to hang around and hear their thoughts. I'd never have to grieve the absence of a loved one or to say goodbye, I could just follow along. And again, this seems somewhat selfish to me, because it absents myself from any sort of action except enjoying the aura of the other person. It would take all the pain out of loving someone, and if I think about it, all the responsibility. That's not very mature.

Bringing the thread back around to cashiering, it's actually working out a lot better than I had thought it would. I don't have to multi-task, the interactions with customers are limited to scripts ("Hi, how are you today?", "Thank you, have a nice day", etc), and there are no extended interactions with the other workers throughout the day as there were in the deli. My ability to remember numbers and to associate them with objects will be useful, and I don't have to obsess over sanitation. I was worried that I'd be bored there, but so far that hasn't been a problem. I've been slammed with customers pretty much all day long. One thing I'll need to work on is recognizing people. Today a guy bought a gift card for $100 and said he'd coem back for it. Well, after awhile I realized that not only had he not coem back for it yet, I had no idea what he looked like! Luckily, he was standing right in front of me (blush).

In production in the garden:

plums
green beans
tomatoes (picked red ones already, it's been really hot here)
kale
carrots
beets
eggplants (yeah, that's how hot it's been)
peppers
broccoli
zuchinni
herbs of various sorts, including basil

The onions are spent. I pulled them and replanted the area with carrots and beets for a fall crop. All in all, it isn't doing too badly for 5 small raised beds in their first year of production. The apple and pear trees look like we'll be getting edible fruit this year, as do the European prune plums. It's amazing what a bit of pruning, weeding, and watering can do.

I'm returning to the grocery store. I'll be keeping two of my landscape customers for now, probably dropping one of them after a month or two (the bulk of the work will be finished by then) and keeping the other couple on a long term basis, because I really enjoy working for them. I'm very happy to be going back to the store, albeit slightly apprehensive. I like the landscaping, but the physical nature of the work, while enjoyable, is so taxing that I can't rack up 8 hour workdays on it anyway. I'm lucky if I make 6 without jeapordizing the next days performance. Besides, winter is coming on and I need medical insurance. I'll miss the landscaping, the option for creativity and ideas....but of course I can always implement all that on my own place.

I went to another voc rehab doctor appointment, this time to a psychologist. He seemed like a nice person. Anyway, an array of questions a history, more questions, and he informed me that not only do I have Asperger's, I also have dysthymic depression, another type that is more severe but fairly sporadic in my case, and post traumatic stress disorder. I've known for years I was depressed, that's no surprise, but the PTSD...wow. That actually makes a lot of sense. It really explains the severity and frequency of my panic/anxiety attacks, and a lot of other stuff that I had just attributed to the Asperger's. I am inclined to feel that these two are a bad combination: I get all stressed out and feel liek the world's falling on top of me, can't calm down, can't relax...and then all the aspie issues are not only compounded, but I feel that they actually prevent a rapid recovery from the anxiety. Well, that's my spiel on the matter anyway.

::sirens::...someone got hurt...or a fire? No, ambulance?....God, I hope it isn't one of my kids. That's so selfish of me...whoever it is, someone loves them like I love my own kids. At least they're getting help I guess.

Also, he ran an I.Q. test on me! That was a lot of fun. I wish I had studied for it, though. The worst of it: he recited a string of numbers, and I had to repeat them back to him in reverse order. Arrgh!!! There were too many to visualize easily, and besides the previous strings of numbers got tangled up in it. But there were all sorts of lovely visual puzzles and tests. I told him I juts hope the test doesn't score out lower than my previous one...that would be...disheartening. Numerical proof of diminishing intelligence....

There are a lot of social things I don't understand, but one thing I have noticed is that nearly all people are consistent in nature unless they're seriously mentally whacked or doing drugs, drunk, etc. For example, a person who is strong willed and mouthy in one area of her life will generally be that way elsewhere, too. Someone who bends and twists morality to suit his own ends in the realm of employment or business practices probably isn't going to be a very faithful mate- he'll find a reason why it's OK. People who are violent to animals are generally dangerous and intimidating, especially if they don't feel bad about it or give it a secodn thought, or do so needlessly, out of habit. People who are decent and calm even when they don't have to be, when they're in an advantageous position but decide that they [i]want[/i] to be that way...are probably inherently decent and have good character. People who have all sorts of rotten thing to say about racial minorities, gays, enviro-whackos, etc, are looking for an excuse to depsise humanity...not worth spending 5 minutes with.

That's my logic anyway. I feel sad. I'm tired of kvetching about how I deserve love and don't have it. Screw that. Love isn't something that's deserved anyway. It isn't a package with your name on it that can be plucked up lightly from a table and possessed. We've all seen people who didn't deserve it and got it anyway, just like so many other things in life. Stuff happens. Life, society, circumstances divide. It isn't fair but that's the way it goes. But that blue, that beautiful blue blurs through my mind...and I do feel sad.

Got the tooth pulled. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than the last one. This tooth's roots were fused together at the tips. It had to be cracked apart in pieces, a truly unfun experience. Once I saw the pieces, the reason for the intense toothache was obvious. That tooth was awfully bad...I'm really surprised it didn't give me grief sooner. How many others are lurking in my mouth waiting to pull the same trick? Who knows?

And, I gave up on the bully Whippet idea. After a small amoutn of research and attempts to email local whippet breeders and ask about the bullies, I learned that Bullies apparently are not destroyed at birth immediately, at least, not typically. For one thing, you can't always tell right away at birth. For another, it seems that they go to pet homes. Also, they aren't as common as the article made them sound. Some Whippet breeders had never heard of bullies before. There's hardly an epidemic of them needing to be rescued by the likes of me.

Instead, I adopted a dog from the local animal shelter. I had a gut feeling that if I were patient and didn't get a dog impulsively, I would eventually find one that I really loved. I went into the dog area to view a puppy who was completely uninteresting to me, but in the adjacent pen, Jack Russels? Wow, two Jack Russel Terriers! They were happy to see me. I went in to meet them. One of them ran away as soon as she smelled goat on my pants leg (a goat gave birth that day). The other ran right up and I fell in love. :) Her name is Bebe, 5 years old, completely housebroken, no real vices, loves everyone in the fmaily except for being afraid of the baby who tried to grab/hit her (working on that) and is in every way the best dog I could ask for. I am so happy with her!

Anyway, I'm tired. Heading for bed.

_Oh_My_God._ The worst toothache in my life grabbed me by the face yesterday. I can only describe the pain as 10 on a scale of 1-10, and very similar to an electric shock tapped in directly to a very sensitive facial nerve. Jesus Christ. I went from happy one second to total, quivering, wreck the next. Got to love anxiety attacks + severe pain. Aside from wanting the pain to stop NOW, I found myself longing for something spandex that would squeeze me tightly, or for a lead blanket, or anything confining, to weigh me down, to make me feel safe. Ugh.

And so, for the first time in my life, I drank hard alcohol (Barcadi Rum, 151). It was the only thing that dulled the pain. Nasty stuff...raised up bumps all along my inner cheek and burned my mouth. I cannot conceive of drinking the sutff for pleasure. I mean, exactly what would be the appeal?

---

I've been screwed over by three customers in the past two weeks. And the lesson I've never quite learned is beginning to sink in slightly: if you don't defend yourself from users, they will keep right on using you, and noone else is going to do it for you. You have to defend yourself. It isn't wrong to do so even if the other people get angry and confrontational. In fact, it kind of feels good.

:Relief: The book has been found. I should hurry and read all of it before it gets lost again. Ever notice how boring, non-essential, or superfluous items never seem to get lost? They just clutter space up. For example, if I am non-menstrual, the odds are extremely good that I will find tampons in every crevice of the bathroom, every drawer in my bedroom, in the basket on top of the microwave, in the glove box and (never used) ashtrays in the car, in my baskets of seashells, desk of art supplies, and on various windowsills throughout the house. It's almost as if they breed and place themselves in ideal locations for embarrassment in case anyone ever be brave enough to come and visit me. However, should I commence hemorrhaging with the only clean pair of work pants I have, they will all vanish abruptly. That's right. I swear they feel threatened and scurry off to hard to access places so that you have to go to the store and buy an entire box of companions for them. LOL.

More Murphy's law: so far, I have had the following parts replaced on my car in the past 2-3 weeeks:

• right front axle
• tie rods
• spark plugs and wires
• fuel filter
• air filter
• rear wheel bearing
• rear brakes
• calipers for rear brakes

In the past year, I have replaced the gas tank, the battery, the alternator and the tires. And now, guess what? Having just fixed the brakes, the master cylinder went out! Just my luck, heh. I have to laugh because really, what else can I do? I'm just thankful that the master cylinder didn't go out while I was driving the van with the children in it. Also, I am becoming somewhat nervous about something in the engine going bad. And the thing of it is, this vehicle is only 11 years old! It's the nicest car I've ever had and the thing is falling apart every other day.

Horticulture: Yesterday I planted St John's wort (ornamental, though possibly useful medicinally), a European hazelnut, another kniphofia, 2 columbines, and a heuchera. I've decided where to site the Japanese Maple, but will wait on that until fall. The maple has already had a disadvantaged life and I don't want to stress it out too badly by planting it in midsummer. The only reason I was willing to transplant the hazelnut was that it was an absolute steal ($16 for a 4 foot tree/shrub), and was ball and burlap, so more prone to drying out if left unplanted. I also am guilty of deeply coveting a lovely gingko biloba that was 40% off. The original price was $49.99, so even at 40% off, that's still, what? some $30? Also, I don't have any place to put it.

Hummm. I need to set up that other blog with comments by haloscan. I don't like the blogger comments, because it takes you away from the page, whereas with Haloscan, you get a pop-up window (which has annoying qualities of its own, I'll concede) that you can click out of and still have the original page intact. Oh, whatever. It isn't like I've got oodles of comments anyway, heh. Megan took off some time ago.

I keep meaning to draw or paint, but between work and doctor appointments (which are typically grouped in one day so as to save gas and time) and cleaning (oh, haha, that's funny) and getting the car worked on, there just doesn't seem to be any free time. When there is, I feel obligated to clean the damned house.

Actually, what happened is that I misplaced this fascinating book I was reading: Why We Get Sick. It's been gone for a couple of weeks now, and I am supremely frustrated. It was one of the most interesting things I've laid my hands on for some time. There were some important appointment cards tucked among the pages, but I think I've attended all the appointments by now. The aggravation of having lost this is consuming me. :shrug: Anyway, it's good incentive for cleaning the house. I'm thinking it might be in the car, now. The car is crammed full of gardening tools and debris from eating snacks (fruit, Luna bars, granola bars, coffee, wasabi peas) and mail that I'm dreading to open (dumb, huh) that to be perfectly honest, I can't find much of anything in there. I should just empty it out, categorize all the useful contents and process them, and put the pertinent contents back into the car after ascertaining that the book is not, in fact, in there.

And I'm also trying to think of income generating possibilities for winter (more on that later), for when the yard work dies down.

Shit. BF got drunk again (after nearly a year of staying sober). Looks like I'm probably going to be single again. Back to 7 day workweeks. Got to love alcoholism. Fact of the matter is, I just don't think there is an easy path through life (and at times, I wonder why people mind getting sick and dying so badly- I mean, sure it's painful, but....am I missing something here?).

Which reminds me: I saw the movie Children of Men recently. I think the movie portrays with some accuracy what the world would be like without children. The primary reason people behave ethically when there is no fear of a god or of retribution is because they have children. Why not trash the earth? Because the next generation should know what brids are, they should be able to walk through a forest and pick the flowers and chase the butterflies as we did in childhood. Why not nuke it all? The children. The drive to reproduce and to preserve the future for the carriers of our genetic material is incredibly strong. In a very real sense, I think it is the reason for our existence.

Being aspie or whatever the heck is wrong with me is like living life behind a pane of glass. I talk to people, they talk to me, but most of the time, I don't think that what I say really gets through to them, and their words frequently lack depth to me, so perhaps it's the same for me. I would hope that the world isn't actually as shallow as it appears to me, but I have no real basis for that kind of optimism. People touch me, most of the time it feels invasive. I touch them, most of the time I'd rather not touch them, or touching them does nothing for me. Hugs are particularly awkward that way. Kissing...ugh....I don't want to talk about kissing. I think one of my most prevalent erotic fantasies is to kiss someone and really enjoy it, for it to having meaning and color. I would like to be close to another person, but it's like pressing my face to the pane of glass with them on the other side.

I don't know. I suppose I'm just bored and frustrated. This town is so boring. And I so tired of feeling isolated from people when they're all around me.

Someday, I'd like to see Elton John in concert. I'd like to thank him for his music, for the consolation it's given me, for all the times when I wanted to off myself and his music helped pull me through. I don't know exactly why his music has this quality for me, but the best way I can express it is this: he vocalizes pain so well, he makes it liquid and beautiful, and having done so, he makes it also seem bearable. It's like having a sympathetic friend who's there with no questions asked, just a CD or a cassette slipped into the player, who knows how badly life can suck and understands what it's like to be an outcast (albeit for different reasons, but I have a soft spot for outcasts in general).

Lawns

---

I've ranted before about the senselessness of planting, watering, fertilizing and harvesting a crop which cannot be eaten or used for anything, and which doesn't even provide much enjoyment- just work and a way to use up perfectly nice land and soil. I suppose I shouldn't complain, because mowing lawns is now my livelihood. However, I never realized how frightfully extravagant grass is until now. One yard I care for is pretty big...maybe an acre all told. There are trees and shrubs and flowerbeds and spigots that have to be maneuvered around. With a riding lawnmower, mowing the whole lawn takes me about 2 hours, maybe 3 (I like to do a nice job, and as I said, there is a lot of maneuvering). If it were a flat, square plot with no obstacles, of course it could be done in half an hour, probably. Weedwhacking the areas the mower can't get to takes another 2-3 hours at least, but this only has to be done once for every 3 times the lawn is mown (thank goodness!). I hate the weedwhacking because it endangers my eyes with flying objects (yes, I do wear eye protection). That lawn has to be mowed at least once a week! If it gets longer, then the walk behind mower is pulled out, because it has a bag and the riding mower doesn't. The grass clippings would kill the lawn (which doesn't sound like a half bad idea to me). Mowing this lawn manually takes me a very long time, especially since it requires constantly emptying the bag.

So- at about $40 a week, this is $160 a month, a pretty hefty price to pay for a patch of green lawn, in my opinion. For a summers worth of lawn mowing, you could buy rhododendrons and hydrangeas and fruit trees and daylilies and all manner of wonderful things, plus bark mulch and landscape cloth so they wouldn't need much weeding and grass wouldn't grow. After a few summers like that, you could have quite the showcase, while your neighbors would continue to have the same, ordinary, boring, and ex$pen$ive lawn that everyone else has. I haven't figured in the costs of planting the lawn of herbicies or fertilizer, either...

The yard could have a monoculture of grass that is useful mainly for earthworms and small insects (which are fastidiously sprayed against)and only seasonally attractive, or it could have a variety of plants to provide interest throughout the year as well as providing food and shelter and habitat for birds, butterflies, wildlife, and of course, humans.

I don't understand it.

All right, I'll say it. I don't think I've been fair to the manager, the one that I thought hated me. I think what it might be is that I've got a somewhat abrasive, forthright personality, and a near inability to conceal conflicts or problems, whereas the last thing he wanted to hear about was more problems. The way I looked at it was this: how can the problem be resolved if it's never addressed or brought into the light? And I still feel that way, actually. I think at least 90% of the problems in that deli could have been solved quickly by simply being discussed openly. Sweeping shit under the rug doesn't hide the smell.

It has also come to my attention that he didn't lie to me, the new cashier was already hired when I'd applied.

Water under the bridge, but I wanted to fix what I'd said before, because teh more I looked at it, the more I realized I hadn't been quite fair.

I'm still a little ticked that they won't hire me back, though. A mere glance at the deli is all it takes to confirm that they need either me or someone who will actually care about the place. On the other hand, maybe, for those three years, I wore myself out, imagining that everything had to be stocked and fresh and pretty and all that jazz, getting stressed and cranky all that time for nothing, because they don't really seem to care. The fourth of July is coming, Timber days is coming....it's going to get really danged interesting there, and I'll be standing back with a raised eyebrow smirking inwardly and wondering why I got so freaked out once upon a time.

The gardening and yard work is going really well, paying about the same as what I got at a regular job, but with fewer hours, I get to call the shots, I get to be 100% honest and ethical, when I feel sick or really crappy, I can go home, if a customer is insufferably rude or a job is too hard, I have the choice not to do it.....in a lot of ways, it's pretty ideal. Besides, I get plenty of solitude and get to work with plants all day long. People give me cuttings and divisions of their plants....I can see that I'll quickly run out of space to plant them in.

I've decided a few other things, too. I want to get a dog, and to hell with the bulldog and the "friend" that sold my goats. If I can, I'm getting a "bully" whippet instead. These dogs are being destroyed simply because they can't run. They're nice dogs, just...genetically different. I sympathize with that, so I'm going to do my darnedest to rescue one. Also, it's a matter of time before I run out of space to plant things here. I can still fit in another peach or pear tree if I esplaier them against the house, and hazelnuts, if I plant them along the boundary between us and the neighbors. There is room to expand the strawberry bed, and maybe room for several of many rubrifolia rose seedlings. Two of the apple trees died, so I'll be replacing them. However, what it comes down to is this: I'm going to have to prioritize, and to focus on the plants that I really want. And one of the things I really want more of is daylilies. Tulips and daffodils are nice, and of course I'll still be placing an order to McClure and Zimmerman (or Brent and Becky's bulbs, or both), but it looks like the order to Oakes daylilies will be first. Also, because teh space is so short and food crops are a priority, but I haven't the willpower to eschew flowering plants, I'm going to combine my perennial flowers and herbs with vegetable beds, as well as making the most of the space under and around the trees. NO LAWN. (saving rants about lawns for another day!)

::Sigh:: Enough of the pity parties. Crying over it isn't going to get me anywhere.

Besides, working for myself is going OK. I have a voc rehab appt tomorrow. I want to see if I can get into college. The notion of becoming a botanist/horticulturist is more appealing all the time, now that the mystique of working in a hospital has been breached somewhat.

Plants: I just got "curly Wurly" a corkscrew rush. If you like cool, strange plants, this is an inexpensive one and well worth trying. Also, Alcea Nigra (black hollyhock). The vegetable garden: eggplants, more tomatoes (heirloom varieties), peppers, romanesco broccoli/cauliflower, golden beets, red russian kale, white russian kale, yellow crookneck squash, rogue vif d'etampes pumpkin, a winter squash of my own breeding, zucchini, and...I don't know..other stuff, heh. I just realized that my bean seeds (black valentine) got wet and I need to hurry and plant them.

In bloom: Salvia (both the culinary type and a red ornamental type), allium rosacae, geranium (Bowles Blue is actually purple, people), dicentra spectabilis, centaurea, aquilegia, bellis, many irises, oxeye daisies, hydrangea, and a single hellebore. Indoors, the phaleonopsis orchid has two ethereal white blooms- stunning.

I think the garden and gardening work for other people is what keeps me alive and sane these days.

I am still blue (heartbroken) over the goats. Losing Reflex would have been bad enough, but for almost the entire herd to be gone....and for meat....it leaves me almost mute with pain. Twelve years of life, love, passion, and hard work down the drain.

And here I am planting and landscaping this place like an idiot. I haven't bought it yet. What asurance do I have that I'll actually be able to buy it? I still don't have a job yet...or not a steady one. I've been filling in here and there with odd jobs, which is better than nothing. Nothing seems worthwhile anymore. I'm tired of trying to get people to like me, tired of getting burned. There's no purpose to life except for the children.

As for me, I'm a failure. All the things I wanted to do in life or to get out of it have miscarried: art, love, animals, being a doctor, being anything at all, staying married, living out in the country......the only thing that hasn't completely failed is the kids.

I hate it that the fucking developers, realtors, and rich people from other places have driven the prices up so high. I'm boxed into living in town, surrounded by the place I love which I can't own a part of, because of greed. I saw an ad today, 20 acres with a shop and utilities for $250 K!!! There is not even a house on it, and the ad reads: "Buy 20 acres for the price of ten!". WTF??!!

There doesn't seem to be a way out.