Good writers borrow, great writers steal.

I have been accused, lately, of being a blogger-slacker. But I think I might be more of a slacker-blogger. I'm a bit of a slogger. Honestly. Welcome to my slog.

And in my defense, well, I don't have a defense. Does a blogger need a defense for slacking? I hope not. My brain has just been elsewhere: TV writing, killing spiders, trying to save my suicidal plants, eating chips on the futon, cleaning up the crumbs from eating chips on the futon, watching Friday Night Lights, etc. It's a busy life. Mondays, in particular, are busy. So, I feel compelled to slack again, because I can't think of anything new to say.

That's not entirely accurate. More accurately, I don't have anything appropriate to say. I've got something kind of inappropriate I want to say. But one of the greatest challenges in my life is determining what is appropriate and what is inappropriate, and more difficult even, is deciding how inappropriate it is acceptable to be. So I think I'm just going to put a pipe in it. This time.

IN THE MEANTIME, I encourage you wholeheartedly to visit this blog to see pictures of more cute hipster puppies like Chuleta above: hipsterpuppies.tmblr.com. (I was trying to describe "hipsters" to some Idaho friends, because hipsters abound in my hometown, and I mostly just kept saying they were "ironic." Not in word, but more in deed. As in, "They drink PBR, but ironically. They wear vintage Nikes, but ironically." I think hipster puppies are so funny because dogs can be many, many wonderful things but they are entirely incapable of irony. God bless them.)

Yucca Brevifolia. Yeah, I said it.

(Well, hello, Joshua tree)

I admit it. I am not one for the out-of-doors. I want to be--it sounds so good on paper to be outdoorsy--but at twenty-seven it is time to give up the ghost. I prefer bathrooms, and constant access to snacks, and television. Still, when I found myself deep in the desert (Joshua Tree National Park), I was able to briefly embrace my inner-outdoorsiness for long enough to pat the trunks of some joshua trees and to scramble up some boulders.

It looked like this:



Jubilant, right? At the Visitor's Center, they said that we were free to "scramble up some boulders," so we made sure to take full advantage. As it turns out, usually you do most of your scrambling on the way down. Like this:

And, as is usually the case with nature, I learned some important things about myself while out in it.

1. Eat before hiking! It is hard to hike hungry. Three of us had only eaten a cookie for breakfast, and that did not sustain. Nor did the Luna bar that Katie generously split four ways. While walking, we encountered a spiky bush called, poetically, "Cheese Bush," and my first thought was, "Can we eat it?" But the bush only smelled like cheese.

2. Leggings are a) extremely comfortable for a hike and b) a little bit dangerous, as there is a lot of climbing, lunging, and occasional hoisting, and ones friends may be unable to resist some pinching or swatting.

3. Even though I don't get vertigo at the top of tall buildings, or while flying, or when climbing a flight of stairs, I definitely do get vertigo when balancing atop rocks and looking down at other, sharp-like rocks upon which I do not wish to dash myself. I learned that here, at the dam:

Vertigo, it turns out, feels like the ground is rushing up to meet you, and nothing is solid beneath your feet, and you can't stay balanced, and you're maybe--just maybe--about to throw up.

4. While we were out walking, boulder-scrambling, and posing for photos to prove that we'd done something so earthy while on vacation, I made a few jokes about getting all "spiritual" because we were out in nature. The truth is, I can see why people do go hyper-spiritual in places like Joshua Tree. For the two hours that we were walking around, I was constantly stunted by the size and scope of all we saw in a landscape that looked nothing like the Pacific Northwest. It is hard not to be reminded of your own stature (tiny, tiny) and permanence (non) in a world that keeps showing you things you've never seen before.

Vertiginously yours,

Kendall

Alien Face.

Ehhhhhhh. Tonight, I'm feeling just a little bit like life is fragile. So, I posted this up-close, out-of-focus (because I can't figure out how to focus my camera when the flash is off, but the flash has to be off for the colors to be normal, etc.) picture of an orchid. Or, an orchid flower. Is the whole plant an orchid? Or is each individual bloom an orchid? Regardless, I've got SEVEN blooms on this plant and one more on its way. Which is hopeful. Which is good. But, yikes, they seem fragile. If I sneezed, the whole damn plant might just disappear.

But also, if I could get a little ruminitive (and rheumatic--it's so rainy here!), this particular bloom is frowny, and it even looks a little bitey. It looks like I feel. And up close, the inside of the flower--which is poetically called the "the column"--has an alien face. I keep moping about my apartment, then coming up close to inspect the alien face in the orchid. Spooky. I like it.

I'm a little bit confused about how to blog about the utter minutiae of my life (I found a vending machine at LCSC that distributes Diet Coke, in a can!), when the earthquake in Haiti sucks so, so bad. Plus, some other stuff is happening to very important people around me, and that makes my heart hurt, "which I hate." (yes! I do have to be this cryptic. Sorry if it's annoying. This is a BLOG.) And I know no one needs another reason to feel down, but I try to blog honestly, and I'm honestly down. So...

I'm going to go stare into the orchid's alien face. Hang on a sec--

(It totally helps!) So, I'm a bit mopey, and needing to find some more snacks. Luckily, I've got these new glasses, that make glowering even easier. (Also, very sorry for the proverbial "blog self-portrait" (read: photo of myself I took in the mirror). It made the glasses look the best. Vanity persists, even through bad moods).

Gloweringly,
KS

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.

What Other Blogs Do

Step One of Being a Good Blogger, according to Natalie who is an absolute expert and brilliant blogger, is reading other blogs. So, today I visited several bloggers of note. Here is what I found:

1. A woman who really, really loves her rabbits and painstakingly documents their complex social interactions. Admittedly, the rabbits are cute.
2. Another woman who is getting her nails painted every day for the entire year. (I think. It was hard to understand if she was getting all of her nails done every day, or just a single nail done each day. Maybe she is doing her own nails every day?? Regardless, it's ambitious.)
3. A blog about owl tattoos, and the people who have them--obviously, a clear winner in my book.

What this "research" made clear to me is that I don't have any owl tattoos (Yet. But those pictures got me thinking). Nor do I have the financial freedom or patience to be getting my nails done everyday. And I certainly don't have wack-a-doo rabbits, or any other pet, about whom I can take cute photos and tell amusing stories.

But I do have these:

They're a bromeliad and a philodendron (so says my mother). I call them...the bromeliad and the philodendron. And they're hilarious! The bromeliad is totally a classic cactus--you know, kind of stand-offish and independent, while the philodendron is high-maintenance, needy, but pretty endearing for the way it's always reaching out to you with its floppy stems. Adorable. And totally worth blogging about.

Or not. I'm still figuring this whole thing out.

In other news, of professional note, my first story was published in the Hayden's Ferry Review! It came out last week, and even though I haven't had the stomach yet to actually open it up and look, I am pleased as punch about this. Additionally, I spent two hours today working on a different story, and wrote a new line (that's right, one single line) that I really like. It all makes me feel that although the game is far from over, I'm scoring a couple points. Or goals. Touchdowns. I'm on the board. Whatever. Sports metaphors aren't really my bag.

Blog over.