Garden Of Disappointments

~ It was a tough year for a garden. I'm not the only one saying that. I've heard it from several people. The cold hung on way into spring. You couldn't put any cucurbits in the ground, no cucumbers or melons or squash or pumpkins, or corn and you couldn't put tomato plants or pepper plants out, until very late. Then it turned scorching and scorched all summer, a vicious, unrelenting baking heat. Of course, I made my own share of mistakes which didn't help, either. I tried polyculture this year. It sounded perfect, to shove everything all in together and let it sort itself out, herbs and flowers and vegetables. The problems include inadequate sunlight, competition for nutrients and PESTS. It was a golden year for grasshoppers and bindweed, as well. The most successful crops I had were all grown in containers and beds. The garden yielded so much last year that I figure one, or two, of two things happened: I either destroyed the soil by tilling it this spring, or I underwatered. I only watered in the morning this year to avoid powdery leaf mold, but my corn is so tiny and already dried out, that it probably wasn't enough. So, I have some spaghetti squash, some tomatoes and peppers, some herbs and some amaranth. I will have more carrots and beets. I want to plant cole crops, too, and lots of greens. I've got tons of pink kale and arugula and radicchio and spinach. LOTS of chard. I expect to grow right through the winter inside, and to a good amount outside too with double-covered containers and frames and beds. If I do get a mild fall and winter I want to grow food. It's nice to be at the end of a disappointing season with 2 jobs, not dangling at the end of unemployment in despair. The garden gave me despair, too. There's little harvest. I expect I'll make Cowboy Jam out of all the tomatoes and give it for Solstice. Sweet and spicy with homegrown tomatoes. It's good to be leaving this sad growing season behind and embarking upon the fall. There'll be lots of intense work for Denver Green Streets, lots of appearances and events to attend. And fun with a new show at Dial Global. It's a relief to be working again. I love fall. It's a great season for a fresh start.

Sometimes It Takes Big Guns

After two weeks of using every combination of holistic remedies and an extremely restricted diet, I give. Uncle. This sinus infection and the resulting migraines, toothache pain in every facial bone, vertigo and nausea, pounding earaches and general demoralization are no longer worth the fight.

As my acupuncturist and friend said, "Sometimes you got to go in there and kill Hussein before the UN can even start the negotiation process,"

I have thee best friends.

Money is scary right now, and I've been caught in the cycle of lay-low-until-you-HAVE-to-have-it-and-then-hope-things-will-improve strategy. I'm changing that to the: Make Room For Success and Health and Prosperity that is mine by Divine Right strategy. It engenders optimism, proactiveness and better health because it's less stressful.

Hey, nobody finds God on prom night. You lean on what you gotta lean on. Plus, that stuff actually tends to WORK.

So, off to the doctor for antibiotics.

While In Rome

~

We ARE living in it.

The official glory of the "Republic" is constantly being trumpeted from the steps of the temples on Wall St and Pennsylvania Ave, but behind the walls powerful people are in continual struggle for even MORE power, and on back streets the slaves (i.e. "workers") are living in quiet despair and just trying to make the best of it.

This is the atmosphere that fed the growth of Christianity. In a way, Christianity was CREATED by Rome. Otherwise the Jews wouldn't have needed it. Jesus was a true man of the people, if I read right. I don't hear most bible-thumpers making noise about helping the poor, though. They mostly just want to tell non-believers how to live their private lives.

I just read a review of a book called, "The Power Years", about the second half of your life really being the time to create a world that you believe in (DUH). There's a book out, too, about how women will change the landscape of the world more than ever because they have more INFLUENCE than ever. Which we already know has been happening for a while now. But there is HOPE, is all I'm saying. We are living in Rome. With worse clothes and better meds. But it's ROME. And Rome fucking FELL. And a lot of people living in Rome who paid attention to current events did just fine. Rome did get sacked many times, attacked many times, and crumbled from the inside by corrupt tyrants who chomped away at it like giant termites. And still, we know that many people still kept going, living, doing. It's what humans do.

I keep a watch out for tyrants at every level. You do meet them everywhere. Most people I've worked with will quickly and effortlessly go from friendly and cordial to teeth-baring, backstabbing desperation in half a breath. The first instinct most people have to being tyrannized is to turn on each other rather than turning on the tyrant. It's sickening but that's what people do. I guess the real question is why it sickens me.

I'll tell you this, it's a lonely feeling.

It Gets Funnier

~
Getting older is more than an exercise in philosophical thinking. I think it's good comedic training.

For example, one day you find you've fallen into the "old" category. It doesn't happen gradually. One day you're among the movers and shakers, wearing cool clothes, saying cool things. The next day someone asks how many grandchildren you have. It's like walking off the road runner's cartoon cliff with a blindfold on.

Then things start breaking down. Some are gradual, some hit quickly. One day you can read anything. The next day you can't see what's on the computer screen at work. It's like somebody slapped on a program in a blurry alien language. A damn good prank...that never goes away.

Teeth expire, too. The enamel starts to wear off, they crack, fillings fall out. Eating peanut brittle can be like opening an over-packed closet. And who doesn't love to watch somebody open a closet door and get buried in debris? It's funny.

Other things are more subtle, like younger women talking about "Your generation" and breezily tossing their hair back as they tell you they are "Totally way too hyper to like, KNIT,"

But the funniest is this: how transparent people become, especially those precious and irreplaceable younger people. It's as if they are wearing neon signs telling you exactly what not to say to them so as not to offend them, and the older you get, the brighter these neon signs become. Getting older gives you x-ray specs for the psyche. These come on gradually. They don't go away, but get stronger and stronger, taking on sharpness and clarity of detail and even, occasionally, startling 3-D effects. With your x-ray specs for the psyche, most people become reruns. By the way they walk and the first thing they say you know everything they think and do. This may be your own wisdom or it may be the effect of a burgeoning population who ALL watched "Friends". Doesn't matter, because even though "Friends" wasn't funny that often, your "older person" x-ray psyche specs can make you laugh every day.

Here's the mantra for aging: This is funny.

I Miss This Girl

~

I haven't posted in almost a year.

Reason 1:

The desire to do my own indy media thang with my website, Denver Green Channel. I thought i would do more with it. Funny thing about all that time you have while unemployed-it's time without the usual money. It's enough money to pay bare bills and buy practical food and discount clothing when you absolutely need it...but you still might end up "Upside down", which I am at his point. I have no regrets. We have a solid foundation for a homestead here now. That's what it took.

Reason 2:

Denver Green Streets, which is funded by my friend Kurt, CEO of Planet Media, and very generously, too. He couldn't pay me and I didn't ask him to. But I write the feature articles for that beautiful web site, round up the video guests and coach them before taping, and spend lots of time with Kurt planning events and articles.

Reason 3: Mentioned in #1. Homestead! Learning how to keep chickens healthy. Classes upon classes in permaculture and vermiculture and garden planning. Buying lots of chicken wire and bird netting and ground cover and seeds, seeds, seeds.

Reason 4: Starting a podcast with Vince. Takes time, research, more time.

Reason 5: Job hunting.

Reason 6: Time to recover from corporate Hell.

Reason 7: Exploring what FREE TIME feels like. It feels really good, but the lack of income restricts it. AND it's unbalanced. I actually like to have a foil in the plot of my life, some force to push against. It's BEEN weather, bugs, money. So I'm ready to pin my frustration on a boss again-although I will NEVER tolerate one like the last one.

I was reading entries from last year and really enjoying them. I like this format. I'll be making entries again now.

I missed this me.

Why 50 Rocks

At the Local Yarn Store the other day I mentioned to my knitting teacher that I would be turning 50. She gasped and blanched a bit.

"I'm going to be FORTY next week," she said, as though we were comparing injuries and she felt the need to one-up, "I HATE it,"

"I LOVE it!" I said.

She stared at me, gaping. "Why?" she demanded.

I stuttered in the moment, but now I've had a chance to really think about it. I have the unfair advantage of perspective. I love 50 for a few reasons:

1. I was a really, really sick little kid. Reaching 20 years old was a triumph. I still rely on meds to stay alive and I've been lucky enough to live in a time and a country where these have always been available to me.

2. I was a total loser as a kid. A failure in school, a failure socially-the classic loser dork. I had a chance to "show them" with irrefutable success. It's in the Arbitron records. Denver Colorado, market 22 nationally, air personality ratings in the rock and roll demographic, men 25-54: Number 1 ratings. I didn't just do it once. I did it many times in the 90's and 2000's. It's in the records. How many people get to have that kind of dork-vengeance? Radio now is becoming more and more obsolete, but in the 90's it still mattered. I got to make my little mark on the world.

3. I survived radio intact. Some people never get to walk away satisfied with what they accomplished. I did. And now I'm over it. I get to move on.

4. I have officially released myself from the pressure to "Be hot". This pressure is a little sneaky demon that steals a lot of pleasure and peace of mind from women at every age, and all the time in little ways. I'm off the hook. Doesn't mean I'll stop caring about appearance and propriety. It just means that I decide what I think is hot, and I don't HAVE to be. I'm 50. This is me. I've earned the right to like myself no matter what anybody else thinks-in particular, people who's ability to appreciate the inherent beauty of humans is at the mercy of the fashion mafia.

5. Life is a luxury. From the perspective of 50 this seems very clear to me. 50 is TWO lifetimes in the ancient world!

6. At 50 you see most people coming-like walking open books. You get to live shorthand. You know who and what you like and you don't waste time. Sometimes this can come off as abruptness. You stop people in mid-stream bullshit and cut to the chase. The subtext here is as follows: "Look, SONNY, I have more time behind me on this planet than I have in front of me. And you're wasting it. Please get me what I want and skip all the bullshit. No offense,"

7. Unfair perspective advantage here: I have never been more loved, and I have never loved more. This is the unfair advantage of being a second-class citizen to so many people in my previous years, and been privy to so much pain because of that. My life is different now. I'm a lucky girl. My man is amazing.

So, there's my big 7 reasons to love 50. Everybody is unique so everybody feels differently about still being alive at various life junctures. For me, still being above ground after half-a-century...that's a Good Day.

EMANCIPATION

The best news ever...

I have been released...and in the best way possible.

I know there will be some rough waters up ahead (there would have been anyway) but I'm just going to enjoy myself.