: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

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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.