should never have bought that tomato plant.

Recently, given the massive amount of sunlight pouring into our house daily, I branched out from the normal houseplants into a more productive vein - I bought a tomato seedling. Figuring that all the other plants had done so well in this new urban hothouse, fruit-yielding greenery seemed the next logical step.

Originally 6 or so inches high, the little guy looked like the perfect "cat salad." It was tender, young and vibrant green - just the type to fall victim to Doyle, our resident scourge. However, once planted in its own deep plastic green 12" pot and placed in the middle of the living room, the tomato took root and grew voraciously. We probably brought it home a month ago and the plant is now a bit shy of two-and-a-half feet tall, with six noticeable buds that will one day be heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. Doyle has thus far only managed to eat two tomato leaves, tending more toward decimating the mint, basil and (oddly enough) the palm fronds.

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The trouble is not that we're share-cropping our condo-turned-apartment. It's that I don't want to stop. Combined with a recent foray into canning (and subsequent realization that food preservation is nearly idiot-proof), my planting has made me very attracted to the idea of finding a little plot of land on which to plant and tending to it.

I watched hours of PBS a weekend or two ago, learning all about various peppers and how to grow the "three sisters" (corn, squash and beans) together in a mutually beneficial and higher yielding grouping. I picked up Novella Carpenter's Farm City about a squat garden and later full farm of Oakland and find myself eager to move to a rundown neighborhood if only to reclaim any abandoned span.

Though that last bit seems a big jump, I can see this evolving and against my best intentions am worried I am becoming a bit (oh, just a bit) of a hippie. Maybe not so much a hippie, as a back-to-the-land purist who would absolutely love to eat only what she grows and feel the rewarding exhaustion of a productive day.

I'm no idealist - growing takes hard work and even here, indoors, pests have been a huge problem. But if I have come to learn anything, it's respect for how hard each plant works to overcome the obstacles presented to it. (I feel this the right time to take a moment of silence in remembrance of the adorable white miniature rose who recently succumbed to spider mite infestation. You will be missed, little friend... and they will pay for this injustice.) All in all, each of our plant projects have done leaps and bounds better than expected, in spite of my fumbling, moldy soil, predatory felines or the aforementioned mites.

So well, in fact, that I will be finding a trellis and some sugar-snap pea seeds in the next week to move forward with my indoor farm.

coming clean.

In light of finally landing a job (hell yes!) I feel a need to start fresh. Consequently, I'm composing a list of confessions, mostly minor, meant to tell a little more of the truth about my actions, opinions and current state. Enjoy:

1. Like most people, when I say, "I work out everyday," I mean that maybe once or twice this week I got on the stationary bike. Other than that, vacuuming totally gets counted as a "workout."

2. I find inappropriate jokes funny. Sorry about the years of getting in your face about how "wrong" they are.

3. I ate sugar cereal, cheeseburgers and ice cream by the pint. I also put on my pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else.

4. Occasionally, I do miss New York. It's not as terrible a place as I would have you believe when I'm riled up and the people I left behind are wonderful.

5. I don't like drinking anymore. This is a shock to me but true - the cons outweigh the pros and put me at a loss. Am I going to become a coffee house socialite now?

6. I spy on people online. A lot. Pretty much all the time. If that's not the purpose of "social networking," I don't know what is.

7. On a similar and perhaps more embarrassing note, I play Yoville. Gross.

8. I can't trust any TV advertisement spokespeople. That's not much of a confession but my distrust of the Christian Children's' Fund guy needs to be voiced - he's getting fatter every year and that is straight wrong.

9. Even when I know I am wrong, I will continue in an argument to win.

10. Sometimes, I watch Tyra Banks, although, to be fair, it's mostly to make fun of her guests.

That ought to be enough though I'm sure updates will be in order.

recovering from Avatar.

Quick thought: for those of you that saw James Cameron's Avatar (a movie) and came out clinically depressed because you can never visit the world therein and live like its people, give me a fucking break.

You knew going in the movies are not real, that they are stylized fiction for "your viewing pleasure," yes? Well, then you don't get to lie on the couch complaining that the film has wrecked your life. There are no pills in this for you.

Shut up. That is all.

trading in tea bags.

Now that the economy has dragged its slump out long enough for advertisers to begin musing on how best to reflect on their newly-termed Great Recession, I've begun to wonder how I will tell future generations about my experience. Will I grossly exaggerate and talk of literal coke-bottom glasses, walking five miles in the snow uphill both ways? Will I flat-out lie and tell them when I was young, movie theater tickets were only a dollar?

My great-grandmother Isabel used to gift each of us kids two dollars and a handful of Lipton tea bags, informing us not to "spend it all in one place." Presumably she meant the dollars, though as extreme as her stories get she could have believed tea to be a currency in its own right. Regardless, in the '80s even a kid knew that spend $2 in multiple successive locations was impossible. I informed Isabel once that the money "won't even buy a cheeseburger." I believe she pulled my ear.

Her "cocktail hours" started at 2 and went until she fell asleep so an ear-pulling was an easy punishment. Vodka cran served in Mason quilted canning jars.

But the troubling question is, "What's so great about this recession?" Or better yet, did anyone ever determine how destructive it has been?

I've heard at separate times unemployment numbers that either far exceed the Great Depression's or that pale in comparison. While many people I know have gone through bouts of joblessness, never have we resorted to desperate measures. There seem to be no iconic bread line photographs, no TVA or CCC, no great folk musical and artistic cataloguing of the pain wrought from economic collapse.

Maybe this return to Seattle has softened the blow - Seattle has a reportedly lower unemployment rate and slightly higher home resale value than the national average. But on the whole, the outlook doesn't look so grim as to force one to begin bartering with Twinings and Harney & Sons (Lipton is shit, America, and the sooner you admit, the sooner I'll stop lecturing).

True, I have turned to some old methods of stretching the not-so-all-mighty-now Dollar - I can produce, I pickle beets, carrots and green beans and I bake banana bread so rotting bananas cannot make it to the compost heap. But a huge part of me is suspicious that this is just good practical math and I should have been doing all this all along. Why not always be economical? Isn't that what the recession in the '80s was supposed to teach us - the error of our extravagant ways?

Maybe this one, now that it achieves the "Great" title will help us recover from the yuppie and techno-hungry consumerism of the late '90s and aughts. Of course, such a learned lesson seems unlikely. The great American war- and advertising-machine will pump out feel-good patriotic campaigns to highlight our dutiful service as "true patriots of the Mall of America" so we can once more sleep at night, tightly tucked away in our Snuggies of Pride. We won't recover from this pattern of bloat and deflation until as individuals we realize the only vote that matters is the one made with our wallets. So we'll see the only truly "great" thing about the Great Recession will be the innovations in marketing made to steady the general confidence, to re-convince us that buying is good and we'd better outdo the neighbors.

As a friend just said let us "wipe away a red white and blue tear at [this] point or, rather, [let] the flapping of a bald eagle's wings dry it from my cheek." God bless the soldiers of the Great Recession.

men in cars with eyes

Today marks the end of my work in Brooklyn. To honor the day thus far I have had hugs, well-wishes and regulars come by to see me off. The most unusual and remarkable by far though has been a visit from our local delegate of the Neighborhood Watch of Children.

This powerful young man, age seven, has stopped in many a time before. He likes to check for candy, survey the premises for rats and shop for the "fancy dresses" he's going to buy his teacher as soon as he finds out her birthday. Today, he parked himself on the stool in front of my desk and offered to help slice up business cards with the paper cutter. I declined. I declined because he is seven and I don't have a car to drive him to the hospital when he lops off a finger.

However, he stated his main purpose in coming in today was that he had "seen the other ladies leave" and "wanted to see if [I am] okay in here alone." In the event, I was not going to be alright, he assured me that "if someone came to rob you, I'd just punch them." Aw seven-year-olds are so protectively violent.

During the course of our discussion, it was made apparent that he takes his watch duties very seriously. He and his grandmother know where I live, know that I am second in command here at the shop but he wants me to know that he's glad I live in the neighborhood (despite my not being Polish) because I am "nice." Mostly, he says, he watches around for his cousin (whom he proclaims an idiot) as this cousin can never find his way home. From time to time though he has to "watch for the bad men in the cars with the eyes."





The bad men in the cars with the eyes.









I love Orwell. I believe we are watched from time to time. But to hear a child say nonchalantly that he is on the lookout for bad men "with the eyes" and has to alert everyone of their presence so no one will "play near them" is horrifying. My efforts to get a clearer picture of who exactly these men were or what the hell might be wrong with their eyes were in vain. Again, my little warrior is only seven, so his vocabulary is limited despite his fluency in both English and Polish to a basic definition of the world - the literal child's definition.


So I am left today with the warmth of goodbyes and the icy, bone-chilling knowledge that somewhere around the neighborhood there are some very bad men. At least I have my little soldier to protect me.

fall forward

We're ten days from leaving the East Coast for the Pacific Northwest and cheesy or not, it's put a brand new sheen on all of New York. Walking around Nolita was more like living a movie than ever before - all the scents and sounds were pronounced. The crunch of leaves underfoot sang harmoniously with the whine of lost tourists and the roar of cabs on Broadway. Alright, that was cliche but that's the mood of the day.

I can't help but feel the boarded-up buildings in front of me create a little remorse. Not that it's even possible but I wish I'd done more. I wish I caught that fantastic restaurant before it went out of business, wish I had rowed boats in Central Park, wish I had the time, money and energy for every museum. Perhaps the daunting size of CMJ has me re-intimidated by all the city has to offer and how little of it we've seen. Two years may as well have been two days. I wish I had a camcorder to record the most menial of walks from home to the subway, from the bank to the park.

Fall is a season of nostalgia and my heart hurts both for the New York I am losing and the Seattle I am getting back. Gone will be the cuddling against the cold, broke-yet-inviting feeling of our apartment. Gone will be the fun of yelling at cab drivers who hate driving to Brooklyn. Gone will be the 'street meat' carts, the Greenpoint sandwiches and the delivery of every kind. But I welcome pho, friends and family. I long for the Christmas I now get to have with them and for all events, big and small.

This is all a wonderful change and in no way for the better or worse. Change just leaves one feeling simultaneously torn and tied up. We are both here and there financially and emotionally and I guess I want the dust settled.

I'll be back for you New York.

versus

In the on-going techno war between Mac and PC, I'd like to throw in my two cents.

We all want Macs.

We do.

But they're too fucking expensive. I know you're going to say, come on, you'll say, it's totally worth it. Yes, I have lost two (count 'em) PCs to Microsoft's Windows Vista now so with that money I could have bought a Mac or two. But damn if that sticker price isn't intimidating.

When standing in front of the AirBook, I balance the pros and cons (while trying to avoid eye contact with the MacGeniuses - come on, why do these quasi-trained high school kids get the ego-boosting title of genius?), but end up feeling like I'd be paying an extra "thou" for black or white shiny plastic.

I'm no techno-wizard. I like my computing simple and I know Macs are as simple if not moreso than battling Vista's "mandatory patches" as they fry my hard drive. But times are hard, as they say, so I guess I'm left being Microsoft's bitch like so much of the rest of the world.

This is also why McDonald's continues to win in perpetuity - you just can't beat a $1 price tag.