Getting dirty

One of the few questions which did get productively resolved last night was what's up with the garden plots. The other gay couple is moving out--out of the state, as it happens--and I volunteered to take over maintenance of their plot, which borders ours on east. Their only request was that we leave the rosebush and the clematis, which I had planned to do anyway pending reassignment in the spring.

This morning I moved in, ripping up several months' growth of wood sorrel and other mostly benign weeds. (We seem to have all but eradicated that nasty smartweed.) Then I went at it with the pruners. Really, the clematis should probably be trimmed down to the trunk, but I didn't want them to think I was assassinating it, so I concentrated on removing the deadwood, of which there was plenty. After that, some tilling and working in compost from the bottom of the pile.

I forget to set the parsley seeds soaking last night so I wasn't able to sow them, but I did plant the remaining mache seeds. They also have a couple of terracotta pots buried in the ground, so I topped those off and sprinkled them with catnip seeds in the hope of getting a few plants started without the nasty fungus plaguing my one boughten plant. I couldn't find the mesclun seeds so there's plenty more room to do something with.

Maybe another visit to Gethsemane is in order? For now, though, I just want to soak in the tub a bit before heading down to the Field Museum to meet monshu.

Can you tell me if you look familiar?

Tonight, after putting the GWO to bed, I borrowed his bus pass and rode down to Andie's on Clark to meet some friends. Scruffy shares my birthday and he'd thrown together a last-minute dinner with Mazeppa and two other guys. (He'd invited us, too, but birthdays for me have become an excuse to get treated to someplace relatively high-end.) They were seated under an open window, so I squatted on the sidewalk while Scruffy made introductions. One of the two guys (the one who struck me as especially cute) happened to have the same given name as me. I thought he said something about meeting me "again", but I wasn't sure.

Mazeppa and the other guy begged off from a nightcap, so it was just the three of us at Mary's Attic chatting about moray eels and carpentry and reacting to the movies on the screen and pop songs over the speakers. We bailed when the karaoke started and Scruffy offered me a ride home. Once my namesake was out of earshot, I sang his praises and asked why Scruffy hadn't brought him along to one of my cocktail nights.

"He was going to come to the last one but something came up."

I stood there appalled at myself. Last month, I met a nice guy at a barbecue and later hit him up for his nectarine crisp recipe (as much for the excuse to chat with him as for the actual recipe). Then I ran into him at Bear Night, but it was noisy and I was tired so I didn't linger. But I did send him a friendly e-mail two weeks ago suggesting that, if he was going to Bear Night anyway, he might as well stop over chez nous for a drink first.

The upshot is: I completely failed to recognise someone I've spoken with twice before. And not just anyone but someone I fancied.

I've known for decades now that, if I lived long enough, senility would be my fate. I just didn't expect the onset before my 42nd birthday.