The Garden

First, I apologize for making this blog boringly photoless. I have been slow on the game of buying batteries. Wacka wacka.

I have been working on the backyard garden a lot this weekend. I have always wanted to have a garden, and here I am, living the dream. Growing up we had our go at it, but usually in too shady and small of an area. I have a distinct memory of pulling up short and stubby carrots, and my mom saying that it was not a good crop because we planted the seeds too close and/or didn't thin them out early in their development. I was just excited to see food in my yard that I didn't have to get into my parent's car and purchase at the supermarket. We didn't do it every year, probably due to the amount of work it takes and the high expectations that perfectionism promotes, but I still wanted to continue gardening. During college I grew sprouts and kept herb plants. Now we have a garden of:
tomatoes
zucchini
beans
summer squash
yellow bell pepper
eggplant
spinach
bib lettuce
swiss chard
mint
parsley
cilantro
basil
carrots
radishes
rosemary
sage

and I believe that is it. I list them off like they are my children. Oh yeah, and arugula, how could I forget?

I read a story in Organic Gardening (my roommate sent in a bunch of organic yogurt tops in order to get a free subscription) about a woman recounting her gardener father. He said that it takes a lot of faith to plant a seed and believe something will come of it. Tremendous metaphoric value for other things in our lives aside, this is most true for gardening. Being a person that is trying to overcome impatience, I worry if any of these seeds will blossom. I doubt the conditions of the soil, the degree to which I am watering, and the more I read, the more I learn of other factors and possibilities for failure. I thought for sure that birds had eaten my beans before they had even broken through the ground, or had rotted. But no, folks, yesterday I discovered my first bean stalk. [insert picture here]

After marveling it, I saw a few more green curves emerging from the soil. They grew fast, too, I could see change within the span of a few hours. I would not jump to say that it is a miracle, because that is what plants are suppose to do. We do often hear the phrase "miracle of life" thrown around, most often in references to baby humans, or part of a montage that will include some other mammal being born, a baby bird hatching and/or being fed a worm, and perhaps a plant rising out of the earth. We expect complicated things like animals to do complicated things like reproduce or grow, but to get something edible, pretty, or at least interesting from a cheap packet containing small hard seeds you can buy at Kmart (wait, where are the Kmarts in this area?) seems worthy of some skepticism. Perhaps it is because we are so far removed from producing our own food, few of us have seen year after year our food start from seed and end on our plate. With only the little amount of reading I have done on vegetable growing, there is a wealth of knowledge, varied by region and by crop, and gained mainly from the experience of trial and error. Raising food use to be a common experience among most people, but now it is one of many hobbies people can have, or a living reserved to a small portion of the population.

As food prices go up and people start to become more conscious about their consumption habits, more people will take up gardening. Although it is time consuming, families, neighbors, and communities can all share the work and produce healthy supplements to their diets. Think how exciting that would be! Have you garden or doing so this season? Do you have pictures?

Lookit, I wrote elsewhere!

here.

Vegan chili cheese fries and the grace of thank-you notes

There are many tasty and boozey places to explore in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. As I have mentioned previously, the place is a circus on weekend nights, with the streets overrun with the college age crowd, stumbling in heels and vomiting. Those are the days to avoid 18th street, but this Sunday morning, I enjoyed delicious vegan chili cheese fries and pancakes at the Asylum's brunch. How many times do I go to a diner and eye my flesh-eating comrades with jealously as they feast on the trinity of cheese, chili, and fried tatters? Sweet salvation!

I have been riding my bike a lot lately. The only thing I wish for is that more people did the same. As I learned from Critical Mass, bikers are safer in numbers. A lot of people do not consider riding as a form of everyday transportation because they think they will get hurt. Perhaps, but if we did ride more, there would be more bike lanes, more accommodation... A girl can dream. My house mate has been hit by cars while riding at night, which is something I have been trying to avoid here, but it is too thrilling to rule out completely. Ride your bikes, friends!

I have been gone only for a few weeks, but I am slipping already in keeping in touch with the people I was so close to in Ann Arbor. We play phone tag, and when we do talk, we don't have the time to get beyond the superficial catch-up. This is to be expected when living in different places, to have a friend takes time, of course. I wrote a thank-you note to a mentor that hosted me a few afternoons ago with advice and tea. I appreciate the act of sending a thank-you letter, an act I once considered a great chore enforced by my mother in order to not lose face among family. I did however use to keep frequent and meaningful correspondence with many friends when I was younger, as well, a result of going to camp and having the activity encouraged when there was little else to do during rest hour, I am sure. I still bring the Peanuts lunchbox/stationary kit I had all throughout my camp-going years where ever I happening to be living. I always write more letters in the summer, although I know I am falling behind the older I get, the more we all depend on email, the more we have less time for everything.
There are so many correspondences that have dwindled and ceased due to avoiding what is now seen as the chore of writing one's thoughts to another on paper, folding it and stuffing it into an envelope, addressing and stamping it (finding the exact postage these days, yikes!), and mailing it off. Now we have just type and click send! But do we do that, even? Emails, like letters, get shorter and less frequent, the content never deeps further beyond the details of catch-up. It is a practice, a determined commitment, to keep in touch with friends, it takes time.

The effort it takes to write a letter may prevent me from doin it, but I still love it once I start. In fact, it is the only type of expressive writing I do now, compared to the poems and songs and stories I wrote when I was a kid. Sure, I have this blog, but really, it is just a continuous letter to everyone. I never got into writing mass emails in fear of forgetting someone on the cc line. So I blog.

But blogging is no substitute for a letter in your hand. I will start those correspondences again, and new ones, too. It will take time, sure, but as much as I love writing letters, I love the surprise of receiving them, as well. You get what you give.

The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice

I was planning on this journal entry to have pictures that would accent a recounting of my trip to Brooklyn. But as it so often happens, I bring my camera someplace and forget to document the occasion with it, since I am too wrapped up in enjoying that experience.

I would have also liked to have pictures of Wanda Jackson for you all, who I saw last week at Jammin' Java, a coffee shop/bar/showcase in a strip mall in Virginia. But instead, I will put in something I picked up from google image.

Seeing Wanda was a much needed break from the daily exercise in seeking employment, and seeing a 71 year old lady rock the fringe and sing about riots in female prisons and being Elvis's sweetheart made me wish she was my grandma.

One of the more amusing stories she told, and she told one as an intro- and outroduction to every song, was for Fujiyama Mama. Apparently, it was a huge hit in Japan, where her audiences would sing all the words and go crazy. Wanda expressed her feelings of confusion and discomfort over this fanfare, saying at the show, "I wondered if they knew what those words meant, we did win that war, you know?"

Oh, that Wanda! You are my favorite!

I first fell for Wanda while watching But I am a Cheerleader, where I heard "Funnel of Love." (Notice that in nearly every photo of current Wanda, including when I saw her last week, she is wearing that same fringe shirt. When you find it, you stick with it!) For some frankly stupid reason, the soundtrack to that movie was never formally released, and I did not know who sang that song until I heard Rosie Flores do a strikingly-similar sounding cover of it while doing late night radio at WCBN. I am not too embarrassed now to admit that I thought this was the same version in the movie. While also under the false assumption that Rosie wrote "Funnel of Love," I became engrossed in the country/folk/rockabilly collections at the station, and became a sub on the bluegrass and country specialty shows, where I frequently indulged in my love for female twangy musicians. Coming out of that experience, Wanda Jackson proves to be one of my top favorites, and eventually I put it together that she did the original "Funnel of Love."

It was one of the first songs she did at the show, and she introduced it saying that it was a B side to another song that was more popular and it never became a hit, but that newer rockabilly fans have taken to it. She actually had to go back, find the b side, and relearn the lyrics and key! Obviously, the audience went crazy only after hearing the first few notes of the tune.

Afterwards, we waited in line for autographs. A few observations:
1) Wanda has a big lesbian following. Helen and I saw at least two other couples at the show, including two in front of us in the line. One of them said to her, "your female fans love you, Wanda!" To which Wanda, a born again Christian who may or may not be aware of her sapphic fanbase, nodded and said thank you like the lady she is.

2) Wanda doesn't do personalized autographs. I asked her to make one out to my dear friend and music aficionado Tex, but she said that she couldn't hear well enough to write names. Shucks.

3) Wanda is living in the 1950s as well as the 2000s. Her autograph pictures, as well as most of her website, consists of pictures from her younger years. Right now, I am admiring two autographs, one a head shot from 1959 and another of her shimmying with fringe and a guitar from 1958. In that small window of opportunity to say something awkward to a famous person while they sign something for you, I told Wanda that she looks better now (for a 71 year old rock star, yeah she looks just fine). "You are too kind," she said. Own it, Wanda, own it!

4) Wanda has touring bands all over the world, and performs constantly. How cool is that?

5) She has a documentary coming out on May 18th, titled "The Sweet Lady with a Nasty Voice."

Oh, well, I am deep in the funnel of Wanda! Grrrr!

Springtime in DC: BA and plenty of time on my hands

Well, what is there to say, people? I am living the dream: graduated, unemployed, and living in a city that is at its best after the frost goes away and before the humidity creeps in.

I have been here for under a week, but I already have a daily rhythm. I wake up early, between 7am and 8:30, and make enough espresso to share with Helen. She has a maker just like the Swedes had when they lived down the street from me two years ago. I water the garden with an old-fashioned watering can in the screened in back yard and imagine a whole summer of having the garden that I have wanted for years. Back in Valley City, our backyard is mostly shaded and not the best for a garden, but already we can see growth among the herbs and root vegetables.

It is a bit unreal, how ideal this neighborhood is. Row after row of brownstones strung along streets equipped with bike lanes, with front yards pruned with flowers and old trees tearing up the brick sidewalks and covering everything in shade. Walking to the subway for an interview early one morning, I was happy knowing that I was enjoying this beauty, before it becomes a sauna march in just a short while.

Every night I hear the Turkey in the Straw tune (which I learned recently was popularized originally as a minstrel song) of the ice cream truck and run out hoping to catch it, starting conversations with the neighborhood kids asking if they have seen it. When I can't find it, I walk back to the apartment defeated and am tortured the rest of the night as I hear it circle in and out of ear shot. One day, I will find you, ice cream man.

Most of the day I rotate between being outside - the garden, bike rides on my newly inherited vintage French road bike (seriously, how did I end up with a Motobecane?), and playing in the park - and trying to sell myself to potential employers one well-crafted cover letter after another. Perhaps I will become more productive once the heat wave hits and I will be stranded to the air-conditioned indoors. In the meantime, I will enjoy this while it lasts.