Who Let the Dogs Out?

My ambition is a malnourished creature whose heart still faintly beats.

Yesterday morning I planted four seedlings: three tomato and one cucumber, plus the seeds I kept from a just eaten orange pepper as experiment. I tilled the half-patch of soil allotted me, mixed in some new dirt and some compost, pulled out old roots, wedged the marker-stained popsicle stick into the earth and beseeched the universe: Fruit! A job! Health!

Also, I thought of my dad who gardened so avidly and enthusiastically over years and years. His garden in Connecticut overflowed with chard and pole beans and cucumbers and lettuces. Squash as big as a football. Blueberries. And rhubarb! How I loved and still adore rhubarb.

A few weeks ago I made strawberry rhubarb ice cream (one part strawberry to two of the other) splashed with fresh lemon juice. I devoured that divine tang.

After getting a crown fitted today I went to the Coop where they had a seedling of a yellow cherry tomato plant and I couldn’t help myself; yellow and orange cherries are my favorite.

At home, I made pasta and tripped in the half-step to the sink from the stove with the pot of just boiled water in my hand, sloshing out of it and onto the back of my hand. My skin’s not red but it stings. Injury. Insult. My mood is foul. Panic seizing me; I apply for job after job and harness my network and you know how that sentence ends so I needn’t spell it out. No purchase, even if I was tricked out with metaphorical crampons.

I read a book!! It’s been far too long since I have, I admit, and I took on Tom Junod’s memoir about his dad, which was riveting for about two-thirds of it and then became very and surprisingly repetitive. Have you ever read Junod’s essay “The Falling Man” about 9/11 and the fellow photographed falling from the World Trade Center? What an outstanding piece of prose. And who am I to criticize his memoir? It must be tremendously difficult to write a book. It sometimes feels near impossible to write a cover letter. I haven’t done it—the book, that is—though if I could somehow turn these missives into one I’d be over the moon, at least for a day.

Other critiques of other items: Hacks is so…well…hacky this season. So boring. So predictable. There are no stakes anymore. The jokes don’t land; Kayla and the assistant are extraneous, and even Ava is uninteresting this season—little more than a dull helpmeet in a plot line that feels too played out. Where did the promise vanish to?

The Comeback’s my jam; if nothing else, watch the end of episode 7, where Valerie goes on Hot Ones. I cackled.

I sometimes worry I’ll never find gainful employment again and what will happen to us? Where will we go? What if we become unhoused? Will I ever set foot on a plane again? Yes, I know there are so very many things that have to happen before such fears even remotely approach reality. Still, what if they do? What if the good things that have to happen for our ship to be righted simply don’t because there’s too much competition and AI has come for the jobs and the world’s ending and expenses mount and so forth?

(I guess this is a good place to say: if you’re not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one for all the occasional extra goodies and to help me “cover my nut.”)

How can I stop catastrophizing? I’m usually good at compartmentalizing.

The sun’s out—that helps a little. So does writing to you.