my garden:

i've got garlic sprouts!

and lavender blossoms!

and here's a shot of my dinky little container garden:

you're looking at: jalapeño and serrano pepper plants, spearmint, golden oregano, marigolds, basil, (dying) cilantro, rosemary, begonias, and a tomato plant. it's a modest start. easily movable.

i'm reading a book right now called "grassroots gardening: rituals for sustaining activism," and the author, donna schaper, talks about how she moves around pretty often and leaves a little garden behind everywhere she has lived. this sounds really nice, and totally practical for me, since i don't really plan on being sedentary for a while...

things:

i really like these portraits of the presidents' girlfriends. (from here.)

i wasted a lot of the day feeling gross and embarrassed about my behavior last night; but it's okay to get a little wild and crazy and obnoxiously wine-drunk sometimes, right? since i'm 23 now, i don't think i'll be able to justify that sort of recklessness for much longer...

i don't mean to brag, but:

i get to eat really, really delicious things sometimes, like this cranberry orange french toast. i'm a lucky girl.


i walked to the public library earlier and came home with an armload of books on organic gardening; now i'm reading up a little before i go to the nursery. finally. i'm feeling a little bit more confident.

so cute:

(from here, via here.)

my dream is beginning to come true:

obama seeks high-speed rail system across u.s.

i should know better than to:

take a nap at 3:30 p.m., because i'd really rather not wake up from it. my bed is dangerously comfortable in the afternoons.

leave town three weekends in a row, because i never get caught up on everything that i have to do during the week.

eat too much pizza for lunch. but it was sooo gooood.

images:

i could easily spend my entire day looking at images from the farm security administration and the hubble site, thinking about recessions and outer space and collages.

thinking about knobs:

and furniture refurbishment.
and gardening.

oulipo:

i'm (belatedly) reading part ii ("the state of constraint") of mcsweeney's quarterly concern issue 22, and i think it's fantastic. i had never heard of oulipo before (and i actually thought that it was some sort of hoax at first), but i'm definitely an admirer now.

it's a movement, led by french writers and mathematicians, that focuses on the use constrained writing techniques. each piece must abide by some sort of rule -- n + 7, anaphora, univocalism, lipogram, etc. -- so that every one is like a little literary puzzle. so interesting.

it's only 8:24 a.m.:

and i've already made smoothies (banana, raspberry, apricot, and orange) for breakfast and prepared veggie and seitan fajitas for lunch. feeling pretty productive this week.

miscellany:

feeling inspired by new green leaves and warm weather; by simple, cozy, beautiful homes; by patterns and shapes. preparing to make my first batch of seitan and sew my first skirt. ready to do some more painting and printing, to try some more recipes, to visit some more places.