experiment: botany, or Why I Can't Have Nice Things

plants are fascinating, aren't they? little green disturbances that annoy as often as astonish. annoy because you spent 3/4 of your life picking weeds, and the other 1/4 mowing what seemed like acres of parched kansas lawn. using a hatch-job lawnmower. and with a discman duct taped to your sweaty teenage torso.

don't get me wrong, i like plants as much as the next person who doesn't like plants. that is, to say, i enjoy the scenery. i've even recently voyaged to the bowels of brooklyn to enjoy the botanical gardens in all their rose colored glory. and i'm partial to showers of romanticism and dream about a future in the oregonian rain forest, establishing homestead in the magical blueberry fields that surround my estate. but TEND to plants? to quote a london prof, "not i, said the duck."

so to acquaint myself with the wonders of creation, i bring you a preparatory step toward fauna fantasia--my little eggling!



finally! something for the homeowner who loves eggs and strawberry plants and novelty trinkets! don't you just adore the Japanese!

actually the first thing that crossed my mind when I opened the gift bag was a flash of a certain jr high home ec teacher's face. she had assigned "egg babies" to "couples" to "rear." or at least keep from cracking. to see how responsible these 13 year olds could be and to teach them, just how darn HARD it is to take care of an egg. this was perhaps her misguided attempt to a) teach adolescents responsibility and regard for anything other than self, and b) to keep them FAR FAR away from each other's genitals. yay for conservative midwestern sex ed, in which we have to use symbolic eggs in place of real ones.

this is your brain on _______.

i was excited at my new undertaking. if friends of mine could care for babies, i shouldn't balk at tending to an egg plant. egg plant. and strawberries! that's an exciting combination. it's got murakami written all over it, right? kaikai! kiki! riding a giant strawberry egg through the sky!

here is my eggling in its early infancy. i name it Dottie, an homage to the new york wit, ms. parker.


for 4 days i love dottie like the satirist daughter i never had. and then, tragically, in a freak watering accident


cracked!
scrambled!
fried!
poached!
sunny side dooowwwwn!

oh the cruelty of hardwood floors! poor little dot, taken at the tender age of 96 hours.

the proof is in the photos, people. i am not fit to be a plant caretaker.
i am ashamed.
i have hazardous hands, consistent poor luck, and my possessions take the heat for it.

don't believe me?


(it's is a more a maniacal weeping than it is a gentle. 1997-2008 RIP.)


what i have learned:

you probably shouldn't let me babysit, or watch your yacht in the off season.