TBT #78: Plant Diaries

I have a plant now. It lives in a can. I am not sure I know what I am doing.

Should I feel some sort of connection to this plant? Because I am not sure I do. I put it on the window sill above the sink in the kitchen, so that it would get more sunlight than it would in my dark and dreary room. My room is dark and dreary for two reasons, and only one of them is my fault. Sure, sleeping all day means I miss out on a lot of sunlight, but even if I did get up at a reasonable hour I would still have to contend with the fact that the view from my window is of a wall. And walls, as we all learned in third grade science class, between drawing a ridiculous number of title pages for everything and constantly learning about acids and bases, are not a good source of sunlight. Particularly green walls, as this one is. It offers no sun. It is useless to my plant.

So I put the plant in the kitchen, where it will get sun. And because the kitchen is often the site of great happiness, as people dance and sing and cook old-fashioned Eastern-European-type meals with great gusto and aplomb. Plants appreciate great gusto and aplomb. Further, the kitchen offers a greater possibility that my roommates might take care of it if I forget. Which is good because I am very busy. Too busy for plants. I try to remember to water it but I already have so many things in my head. In the last week alone I have thought constantly about the following:

• How it’s funny that we sit down to drive in our cars. It seems overly luxurious. Not only are we getting places far faster than we would under our own natural devices, we are also extremely comfortable when doing so. Perhaps I would feel better about myself if I stood up while driving like a garbage man. Something to consider.
• How it would have been pretty funny if, when Stephanie Tanner was all messed up on meth, she had accidentally driven her car through the wall of her house and into her kitchen. The whole time she’d be having this really weird deja vu feeling, I bet.
• Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and the harsh realities of the jungle.
• My Top 10 films of the year. And then how it is February and, shit, who remembers 2005 anymore? 2005 was so last year. I better post that list soon.

I realize this list is not very impressive but remember that, above this, I used the word constantly. I have been thinking about these things constantly. I could write literal tomes on all of them, as I have so many thoughts. So many feelings and thoughts. And yet no room in all of that for any consideration for my poor plant that lives in a can.

I worry that it might die. Or, worse, never grow.

This is what the plant looks like. There are numerous problems with the plant evident in this picture. The major one is, of course, that there is no plant. There are drawings of plants, which gives me hope but then I must remember the difference between fictional drawings and real-life. In fictional drawings, Lucas Bishop is a member of X’se, the mutant police force of the future, who has been sent back in time to warn the X-Men of a traitor in their ranks. In real-life, I am a giant nerd. Other problems you should note include: the sun having eyes and a mouth (not realistic), that purple Mega Man X action figure looking pretty sinister and not at all trustworthy, the thermometer seeming inaccurate and, perhaps most disturbingly of all, a complete lack of visual continuity between the pictures. Where the hell does that hill come from?

Things do not look good for my plant’s future. I worry about this because Pearle gave me this plant, and she might be sad if I kill it. I’m still not entirely sure why she gave it to me in the first place, and I am actually a little concerned that it was to test my abilities as a caregiver, perhaps to see if I am ready to be a father. This is more than a little disconcerting, as I am not even dating Pearle, much less at a point in a relationship where I would consider fathering a child for her. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think there are steps one should take with a girl before you go and impregnate her. I realize that in today’s busy world there is little time for the old courtship rituals, but certain steps are indispensable in my book. If you’re going to impregnate a girl you should probably do the following beforehand:

• Date for a while.
• Live in an apartment or a house or a trailer if you are poor.
• Have a good career where you wear a suit and shake people’s hands a lot and sit around a table and look at Powerpoint presentations and nod agreeably.
• Test yourself thoroughly. Go places where babies are. Do so casually. Do not be creepy about this. If you, say, get the urge to kick a baby like you would a soccer ball, do not have a baby. This also goes if you get really indignant around babies and think they are smug-looking and want to swear at them and mock them for not knowing any math.
• Watch that video where the women gives birth in graphic detail and be like “that’s gross.”
• Wash your hands thoroughly.
• Get a book about having a baby and then read it if you want to. After you have a baby this will be an ideal book to cut the middle out of and hide your valuables in. Like if you have a really important keycard or maybe a floppy disk some schematics on it, keep it inside this book as a secret.
• Go to the hospital.

I mean, I know I am not a relationship expert or anything but all of this seems pretty self-evident to me. I want each and every one of you to be careful and not have a baby before you are ready to have a baby.

We have gotten off-topic. I associate this plant — the one above — with being a father. If I do a really good job at raising this plant, if this plant were to become a Supreme Court Justice or a multi-platinum recording artist or even just one of those plants that ‘dances’ when you play music, women everywhere (not just Pearle!) will realize that I am capable of being a very good father and will try to have babies with me. I realize this might sound egotistical but it is not about ego. It is about caution.

The plant is symbolic of safe sex.

I am still going to try and make the plant grow. I realize that I am overanalyzing it a little bit, as it is just a plant in a can. And, more importantly, it purports to be magic (”Magic!” reads the can’s label) and I cannot resist things that are magical. I have tried. I resisted that Magic Eye phenomenon for like eight months until one day I just couldn’t do it anymore. I walked past one of those displays at a toy store and I was like “Oh my god. It’s a train. Astounding.”

The lesson I learned that day was that you never know what you will get with magic. Though I am pretty sure a plant will grow out of this can, it could be anything. It could be a dinosaur or an ocean liner or even a plant. In the end, despite all my misgivings about my fast-paced busy life and my fear of fatherhood, I will try and foster this plant’s growth for the very simple reason that I want to see what will happen next.

If anyone has any gardening tips and tricks, please post them here. I will keep you posted on the status of the plant in the coming weeks and also, apparently, my feelings on fatherhood. I swear to god I did not intend to write any of that.

Photosynthetically,
Matt