Happy birthday to me (and my type-ity type type) on #july6

Lately, certain things in my life have been left to their own devices or forgotten outright. Such things include regular household cleaning, renewing the license tags on my car, and tending to my garden. My teenager also complains of being left alone too much, forgotten. While he's been touting his alleged neglect for years now like a badge of honor, he enjoys near-constant computing and delicious, homemade I-feel-guilty meals. However, he's probably right on some level. (Just to be clear: not anywhere near the "legal definition of neglect" level.)

All this letting things go by the wayside is because of the type-ity type type.

You may have noticed I tweet a lot about getting ready to, being in the midst of, or just finishing up some type-ity type type. I've been working a lot, for months and months, on something very special. It is hugely ambitious, deeply personal, and requires much balls out soul searching. And a lot of type-ity type type. This leads to laxity in keeping attention on anything else.

For instance, my poor garden. Those tiny spaces in my yard that yield fragrant flowers, alien veggies and mindful clarity has not been touched in months. After planting some onions, peas, and two kinds of lettuce I kind of just...stopped spending time there. And I've missed it. I truly heart my garden and its permission to experiment with nature. Sinking my hands into the soil has always brought my brain to task, triggering in me a state of deeply focused thinking. But lately I've been busy, insanely busy, with the type-ity type type.

Yesterday I finally got the chance to work in my sunny garden for a few hours. The weather was perfect for it, I had the time to get dirty, and I needed an inner dialogue with the voice of experience that comes when I physically connect to the Earth. When I was done kneeling on the ground, pulling weeds and pushing plants into dirt, I had some things figured out, a sense of calm, and 24 mature, rouge, sweet cherry tomato plants. Offspring from last year's crop.



I guess this means my garden was neither neglected nor forgotten, hm?

Today, while I re-potted those 24 tomato plants, my mind entertained the idea that if this special, deeply personal secret project of mine and its intense, intensive hours of type-ity type type didn't kill my garden or starve my teenager or get me a ticket (special thank you to the Portland cop who gave me a warning and waved me along) then maybe. Just maybe. It won't ruin me, either. Maybe it's not only a good idea to move forward with my plans, but a great one. One that could bring great things.

We'll see next Monday, the morning of #july6. That's when I'm setting my project adrift for all the world to see, to ultimately embrace or reject. I hope my hard work, this endless type-ity type type, will all make sense once the journey begins, and I hope the message of it is not lost in the translation, and that the risk and effort I'm making is at the very least respected.

And that night I'm celebrating my birthday at the Leisure Public House (in St. Johns, of course) and will be giving away these rouge sweet cherry tomato plants that grow, with or without me. I hope there's some hardy specialness in them for whomever wants them, and that you join me and in a drink or two.

Won't be the same without you there, telling me how sexy my gynormous balls are on #july6.

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Let's go steady!