I went for a walk today to get outside, move a little, enjoy the weather, and make some phone calls.
It was also an excuse to grab a cup of coffee and a snack at the coffee shop up the street. I’m still not dining indoors but I like the place and want it to stay in business, and it’s nice stepping in - I like the look of it, the art, the hubbub, the people who work there are nice. I wore a thicker sweater today and walked a bit briskly I think and got a little overly warm: this is me traversing the Sweater Guy learning curve. Sweater Guy isn’t just wearing a sweater, it’s learning the whole way of life - it’s not a mere lifestyle, it’s an approach to living well on the Earth, in that you, uh, wear a sweater, like, when, when the temperature is right, like the right sweater for the temperature but also the level of exertion, it’s all very complicated and takes years to master, like being a samurai or making grilled cheese sandwiches. It’s a lonely path to which only some are called, and many of those called - false sweater guys - lack the requisite patience and self-discipline.Walking back since no one was available for phone calls I dipped into the neighborhood plant store. I love that the neighborhood has a coffee shop and a plant store now. We’re at the cool hip arty tip of the spear of gentrification. I like this exact place and want it to stop exactly here both for the character of the neighborhood - I like these additions and don’t want to lose anything that will come with more such additions and things walking another ways in this same direction - and also so my mom might be able to afford to buy a house here when she retires in the hopefully not too distant future.
The plant store felt nice to be in, just being around a lot of plants. I had it in mind to get a variegated spider plant - maybe writing yesterday about Spider Plant Man had made that want louder in my subconscious, I’m not sure - but they didn’t have one at the moment. They have their plants all marked clearly with little boxes, ticked or unticked, like ‘pet friendly’ and ‘low light’ and ‘good for beginners,’ which is very handy. I have a sense of where another spider plant might go. The other plants I saw today don’t fit easily in the current arrangement of the house nor in any quick and minimally disruptive arrangements I can think of so I didn’t get another plant today. They had a few that say they’re good bathroom plants - low light, high humidity - but right now the only spot such plants could live in the bathroom are spots where the smallest most curious troublemaking cat would almost certainly knock them on the ground to see what sound they made when they fell (I assume that’s her rationale, she’s very social but could be a better communicator, to be frank; I can say that here because she doesn’t read this blog).
Like I said it felt good being in the plant store, it’s just nice to be around a lot of plants. I was awkward talking to the people working there - I asked them if they found the plants a mood lifter, and muttered something about the war in Israel/Palestine vs lack of contact with nature as two sources of feeling down - just keeping it casual while intruding into the mental health and emotional state of strangers! I’m like Mark from Peep Show except he’s English and has his own TV show, plus he doesn’t compare himself to readymade fictional characters in order to self-identify. Something something society of the spectacle.
When I got home one of my kids hadn’t finished their lunch - bagel pizza! - so I ate that, total yahtzee. Coffee’s kicking in now I think, good timing, there’s more work to do.
