The Outsiders.

2010 is not going well. I mean, it is going well from a fun standpoint: I've had a really good time since the ball dropped. But it is not going well from the "fix everything wrong in your life overnight because a new year means a new you" standpoint.

I have already broken the sort of half-assed resolutions I set for myself. I said I would eat healthier, but for breakfast I had M&Ms. I said I was not going to start watching college sports in 2010, but yesterday I watched the Rose Bowl. I said I would try a yoga class, and even though I'm only two days into the new year, I can already feel myself trying to squirm out of that one.

When you wake up on January 2, already feeling let down about how the first day of 2010 sets the standard for all of 2010--which now looks like it will be a year of failure--it's time to get real. And the truth about my life today is: my plant, my poor plant, the Bromeliad, is not well.

Here is what a bromeliad ought to look like.

Here is what my bromeliad looks like.

My bromeliad looks...scrappy. Like if it was a person, he would be a character from The Outsiders. Maybe Pony Boy, because that is the only name I can remember off-hand. (It's in the sink because I just watered it and it was a little leaky.) And, so what if it doesn't have any flowers? Not all plants are meant to have flowers.

I've been in denial, thinking that since Pony Boy was still green, he was healthy. He was, after all, alive. Plus, I thought his stripey leaves gave him personality. But then, this morning, feeling the January 2 impulse to stop denying and start actualizing, I brought him out to my mom. Her face, when she saw the plant, was not optimistic.

"I'd be surprised if it's still alive," she said.
"WHAT?" I said. "It's alive. It's still green."
"Maybe," she said. "But it could be ever so much happier."

(Then, I did a lame little dance where I stomped my feet and wrung my hands to try and shake off the guilt I had for failing my plant. It made me feel a little better.)

"What do I need to do?" I asked my mom. Then, she did something brilliant. She pulled out the little plastic tag in the pot that gives instructions about how to care for a bromeliad. She read.

"It says to fertilize it twice a month. Do you do that?"
Uh-uh.

"Have you ever fertilized it?"
uh-uh.

"It says to keep it away from drafts."
Have you been to my apartment? It's all drafts.

"Have you even read these instructions?" she asked.
I hadn't read the instructions. Or I did, once, but they seemed a little high-maintenance for a plant, so I conveniently forgot them. I watered the plant when I remembered, talked to it every once in awhile, and considered it: good.

Wrong. Turns out, you are also supposed to feed plants. There is such a thing as plant food. They need some fertilizer. And when they get all dried up and their little ball of roots just sits on top of all the dirt in the pot, you aren't supposed to keep standing the plant back up when it falls over, you're supposed to re-pot it. So, on the second day of 2010, I went to the garden center of Fred Meyer's, and bought some fertilizer. I got some new potting soil. I made a sincere apology to Pony Boy, and said I was going to start loving him better.

Now, this is not a blog about plants or about gardening. But it is a blog--if you read the "About Me" gadget to the left of this post--about "learning how to live right." And it seems to me, on this momentous day 2 of 2010, that living right is mostly about loving people (pets and plants included) well. Taking better care of who is around me. That, more than yoga or no-more-candy-for-breakfast, is my resolution for 2010. Starting with Pony Boy.