Various

The plants have gone here.

Maybe the beer will go nowhere, for now. It's not like I try that many new beers on any given week.

Excitement: On incredibly short notice, my friends J and M, have come down from Boston for the weekend. J has just gotten a new government job in DC, and will be moving down here in the next few months. It will be very excting to know more people around here. They can introduce me to all the hot nerdy girls that I know are out there that I have utterly failed to meet.

Hmm.

Also, the geek squad is coming to my house on sunday to geek out to the extreme. We will play Magic, possibly some sort of role-playing game, and hopefully, a round or two of my new favoriate game, Settlers of Catan.

Okay, back to work.

Overwhelming

Wow. So many things I wanted to do with this blog that I ended up doing none of them. These things really are work, aren't they?

I've been having a lot of trouble accomplishing a lot of different things in my life lately.

I've had trouble getting work done at work, because the work hasn't been that important, hasn't been time or deadline dependend, and the work I've had to do has been something I strongly dislike: marketing and business development. Although last night I went to a professional meeting and met some people, and it really wasn't that bad, once I got some liqour in me, anyway.

I've had trouble getting anything done in my life, actually, because the world has been conspiring against me.

Okay, maybe not. But sometimes it feels like all the shit hits you at once. I am of course speaking of philosophical shit, and not any actual real-world responsibilities. But it's hard to keep your mind focused when you do all of the following in a short period of time:

-Saw Stacey, felt good, but by the next day felt like utter shit,
-Talked to her the next day about how hard it is when you're still in love, which I embarassingly had to admit to her, because I can't lie, and she was being obtuse while I talked around it.
-Got pity-sympathy for not having moved on.
-Got a chatty/i'm bored/lonely because our mutual friend has moved away email less than a week after her saying she'd leave it in my court and I should contact her when I felt ready to.
-Had a present from her mom left on my doorstep, which was thoughtful and really well-intentioned, but ended up being another painful reminder...
-Actually got flirty with an old love interest, and chatted with an internet personals person (my first time) - only to feel like I was cheating on my now non-existent gf.
-Had some "current events" bring back a lot of painful memories of a heartbreaking job experience, you know, that one I have often referred to as "killing the last of my childhood innocence". One that has disturbingly similar parallels to my love situation.
-Heard further disturbing details of an old friend's marriage cracking up due to - that' right - a shitty self-absorbed partner who cheated.
-Found myself thinking, over and over, how I could have kept her if I'd just tried a little harder.

I can't keep doing this. I don't even want to think about how many times in the last few days I have either found myself crying almost out of the blue, or had to choke the crying down because I had things that were too important that I had to deal with, and couldn't afford to be crying right now.

Thank god I'm alone in the office right now. At least when you're alone there is noone to "keep it together" for. Hell, reading about Bush's daily assaults on reason, reality and the whole world made me feel sad and impotent instead of angry.

I'm so fucking sick of being tired and sad and lonely and rudderless. Where is the bottom? Have I really hit it yet? I thought I was there a long time ago, and had moved on. Maybe there are a lot of bottoms to hit.

Why does she get to move on and be happy? Why does she get to be better off without me?

Why do I have to feel so humiliated and pathetic... to have to admit to myself not just that I still love her, but that I still love her today every bit as much as I did 10 months ago when she moved out, every bit as much as I did almost two years ago when I told her I wanted to get married, every bit as much as I did when she went off the deep end, every bit as much as I did when I first fell in love with her. Despite her flaws. Despite her insanity.

When I talked to her the last time, I told her I missed her. She told me she missed me, too. The difference is, I think, that she misses her friend. Okay, fine, she misses her best friend. I miss my best friend, lover, soulmate, and love of my life.

When is it my turn?

When?

Life Updates

I was in Charlottesville most of last week, so no updates.

I'm still a little unsure of exactly what I'm doing with this blog. I set out to do beer, or beer and plants. Maybe a touch of the political. And links. I need links. Is it really a blog if there are no links? Or is it just a live journal? And maybe some stream of conciousness writing, which is about what I'm doing right now.

But the problem is that I want people to be able to look at the beer and plants, and less so the personal stuff. But I think I would benefit from writing out a lot of the personal stuff. I suppose what I really need is three separate blogs - the beer, the plants, and the personal. The real trick is that I need to decide who may or may not be reading this stuff. Oh sure, it's all published on the web and available for anyone to read. But you know my parents are never going to find it on their own. You also know my parents would read this all the time if I told them about it. Does Glen read Moxilicous? Would she care if he did? Do her parents? Ugh.

I want the credit for writing my whatever I'm writing, but I need to seriously consider the audience. Do I want Stacey reading this blog? My parents? Relatives? Friends? If so, which ones? All I know is that at the moment, my readership probably consists of myself and Moxilicious.

More later. I did a bunch of planty and beery things last week/weekend...

Graduation Killed the Radio Star

At the moment I am listening to old cassette tapes from college. Specifically, I am listening to recordings of my own show on good ol' WMHB. They seem to span much of my dj career (of 4 years...). I'm pretty sloppy in the earlier ones, fairly polished in the newer ones, as one could expect.

At least all the music is (fairly) good.

A taste of the Peter Church Show (with your host Gimpadelic): From sometime late in the fall of 1993:

In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel
Teen Angst - Cracker
Stripped - Depeche Mode
I Dream of Jesus - Dead Milkmen
Want to Get High - Cypress Hill
Boys Don't Cry - Cure
Skankin' to the Beat - Fishbone
Within Your Reach - Replacements
Plush (acoustic) - Stone Temple Pilots
You Can't Blame the Youth - Bob Marley
Head Like a Hole - NIN

How's that for a lineup?

Anyway, it's very weird to hear one's own voice on tape. Especially on tape from ten years ago.

RIP

Ilex crenata 'Dwarf Pagoda'

I may need to go to the MD home & garden show today or tomorrow. Featuring native and exotic plant show.

My geeka-tude knows no bounds.

More Plants

By god, I'm going to make a trough this weekend. Due to the cold weather and my lack of masochism, I'm going to do the grout-over-foam style, since it can be accomplished in my laundry room. I've got to try experimenting with this sand and the grout, as well as perlite and vermiculite, to see if I can come up with a more natural, rock-like texture for the troughs. And my latest sketchings make me pretty excited for landscaping in my yard. If, of course, I ever actually own my yard.

News:

I found the coarse sand that Willy had - it is in the construction materials (cement, etc) and is labeled "medium sand".

Even more crocuses are popping out all over the place. The snowdrops are so tiny that they are lost out in the beds. I will probably try to transfer them to a trough this summer.

My smaller nepenthes is starting to grow a pitcher!

One of the pitchers (Drosera sp.) is putting out a big flower stalk. So is a venus fly trap.

I added a cobra lily to the terrarium - like a pitcher with a big curved hood on top.

Inspiration: find some kind of house plant I can use to grow "fur" through my abandoned wire frame cat shaped cd rack.

I should really be doing research on transplanting alpine seedlings, but that's a lot less fun than getting your hands dirty.

Ok. Coffee time.

More Beer

Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA

Starts with a nice hop aroma and a tangy bite on the first taste - which is the best part of this beer. Has a sweet taste with notes of citrus. Minimal mouthfeel. Continues with a nice hop finish. VERY bitter aftertaste, although it may have been something I ate... This IPA is good, quite drinkable. One of the best Flying Dog beers I've had. I wouldn't make this a "primary" beer unless the price came down, however.