The Nightmare and Her Ninefold

Two days ago at the climbing gym, I was working my shift, doing my duty to god and country, and I decided to pass the time by reading some Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving on Project Gutenberg.

(If you do not know about Project Gutenberg — it is an amazing resource. You must know about Project Gutenberg. You can read all the classics, for free, online in your browser or via your Kindle. This is an incredible thing and I have read countless classics via Project Gutenberg, including Sherlock Holmes, Sleepy Hollow, Ben Franklin’s autobiography, many old Greek philosophical texts, Voltaire’s Candide, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.)

I was in the first few paragraphs, when I read something that was very interesting. Here is a snippet of the passage:

“The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.”

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is from the late 1810’s, and it’s interesting to read these old books and stories and see how the language has changed, and so rapidly. You see that he uses ‘oftener’, which today would be considered incorrect, and is not used. We would say, ‘more often’. But the real interesting part of this passage was for me, at the end.

“…the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.”

What do you mean her? Who is the nightmare? Irvine is clearly depicting the nightmare as some kind of female entity. What does that mean? I didn’t know anything about that. The closest image or association I have with a nightmare creature is the image of a horse from a Magic: The Gathering card, called nightmare. And a ‘mare’ is a female horse, in today’s language, so is a nightmare then some kind of wicked, female horse?

I never knew about this, and so I had to do some Googling. According to Wikipedia (I know you’re not supposed to cite this, okay):

“The word nightmare is derived from the Old English mare, a mythological demon or goblin who torments others with frightening dreams. The term has no connection with the Modern English word for a female horse.^[5]^”

A mare is a “mythological demon or goblin”! Now, who knew that? And that’s where nightmare comes from. It has nothing to do with the female horse, so says Wikipedia and whoever who the article.

More, from Wikipedia: “Originally, “mare” or “nightmare” referred more specifically to sleep paralysis, in which an experience of terror and paralysis during sleep can be associated with a sense of pressure on the chest and the dreamed presence of entities often pictured as demons, sometimes sitting on the chest. The words also referred to such a “demon,” which was also referred to as a hag and the experience as being “hag-ridden.” The meaning of “nightmare” had generalized from sleep paralysis to any bad dream by 1829.^[1]”

This painting is from 1781. This is what was in their minds, regarding nightmares, at this time. That certainly looks a goblin/demon creature to me. And interesting how there is a creepy horse-ghost in the background. Pretty freaky.

Interesting that the word originally referred to sleep paralysis, before becoming broadly applicable to bad dreams. It makes sense though, because you actually see some evil stuff when you’re having sleep paralysis. I’ve only had it once in my life, when my roommate Adam suggested that I take a melatonin to help me sleep as he did. That night, I ended up having a crazy bout of sleep paralysis, turned sideways, unable to move, and seeing a large, black demon in the corner of the room. After that night, I said Adam, I’m never taking this shit again. That was too freaky.

I think it’s weird that I actually didn’t know about a mare, and never thought about why we say ‘nightmare’ at all. When did the concept of a ‘mare’ get lost? That’s a fun thing to think about. Why haven’t I known about the ‘mare’, sitting on my chest and causing me to have bad dreams? Is that lore gone from our common modern consciousness? Do the older folks know about it?

As I was inn the midst of my ‘nightmare’ investigations, some young lads entered the gym and were checking in at the counter. On the second monitor, my screen was open to the ‘Mare’ Wikipedia page, and one of the guys notices this, seeing that I was deep-diving on Wikipedia, and said, “What are you researching over there?”

I immediately launched into this tale, as I am writing for you, about reading Sleepy Hollow and discovering the interesting line about the nightmare, reading about the origins of the word, finding out about the ‘mare’, (everything I had learned in the last five minutes) and man — these guys were a perfect audience. They were listening with total, rapt attentio, and so I gave them the full scoop. The guy who had originally asked about the Wikipedia page, he said, “So it’s like sleep paralysis.” And I hadn’t even mentioned yet about how the word ‘nightmare’ originally referred only to sleep paralysis, and I said, “Yeah, that’s exactly right!!” and then proceeded to recite more info from the Wikipedia article. It was a wonderful mini-lesson of the etymology of the word ‘nightmare’ that we had over the gym counter check-in right there, and I thought, after they had walked away, and reflecting on how much I had just been geeking out there, “Man, I really am a nerd.” But they thought it was cool.

Now, it gets even juicier than this, people. After learning about the mare, and nightmare and her gambols, I went back to Sleepy Hollow, and read that line again. And then I saw something else that needed to be investigated, which was “her whole ninefold.”

“…and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.”

Okay, so the nightmare is a female hag, demon, devil spirit. Now we know. But what is her ninefold?

We are digging up some very ancient lore here. Apparently this goes all the way back to Shakespear’s King Lear. (From the 1600’s.) A line from the character Edgar:

“This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet. He begins
at curfew and walks till the first cock. He
gives the web and the pin, squints the eye, and
makes the harelip, mildews the white wheat, and
hurts the poor creature of earth.
Swithold footed thrice the ’old,
He met the nightmare and her ninefold,
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And aroint thee, witch, aroint thee.”

(The foul fiend Flibbertigibbet? What an incredible name.)

It seems that the nightmare’s ninefold is a bunch of evil creatures, spirits and hooligans that hang out with the nightmare and do evil with her. This picture is by Arthur Rackman, and shows us exactly what the nightmare and her ninefold are all about.

*The Nightmare and Her Ninefold, Arthur Rackman, 1928 color plate*

I think horses must have something to do with a nightmare. They made a Magic card called Nightmare that is simply a demon horse, and there’s a spooky horse spirit in the above Henry Fuseli painting from 1781, and the hag is riding a horse here in this Arthur Rackman illustration. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is about a ghostly horse-rider. Surely all of this horse association is not just coincidence.

I’m glad to know about the ‘nightmare’, now. I feel like it’s something of an evil tooth fairy. I’ll be thinking about this spirit, whenever I heard about nightmares again. The nightmare, and her ninefold.

Plants of East Nashville [Photography Post, 9/20/25]

Maximillian sunflower (native!!!!)

I did a little photography tour of plants around the neighborhood. I thought I captured a lot but then, this really isn’t much. We’ve got so many different species of things here in these neighborhoods. These are some of the common sights around here, right now mid-September. A lot of flowers in bloom, a lot of pollinators out and about. We’ve got plants from all around the world, man.

*Maximillian sunflower – Helianthus maximiliani*

This is kind of a rare one here, this Maximillian sunflower. I don’t see a lot of this in the neighborhood.

*Honeyvine milkweed in my yard (the narrow, triangular leaves) (native!!!)*

*Salvia yangii? (Russian sage) (non-native)*

*Mealy Sage (Salvia farinacea) (native to Mexico and southern US)*

Sage, catmint, lamb’s ear, lavender… all part of the mint family, Lamiaceae. Catmint is common in these yards.

*Goldenrod (Solidago species) (native, good!!!!!)*

*Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica (non-native)*

Crape myrtles are everywhere. They flower for an extremely long time, like many months. I didn’t know anything could flower for as long as these trees flower for. There’s a row of them outside of the strip mall in the neighborhood that has the climbing gym and Ugly Mugs. Unfortunately the are non-native, and do a native tree would be better here. They are fast-growing and easy to grow, have a long blooming season, and they clearly do well here. I read an article that said they should be used more in gardening in the area, for these reasons, but really I think we should be using local trees. Maybe Dogwoods instead? Dogwoods are like our native Japanese cherry blossom trees. Dogwood > Crape myrtle.

I wonder what the most similar suitable native alternative tree would be, to a Crape myrtle. They are a cool tree, I like them.

Apparently endemic to southern Australia. It’s come a long way.

*Cypress vine (Ipomoea quamoclit) (non-native)*

This cypress vine is everywhere. One of the most sighted plants in the neighborhood, growing on fences and around telephone posts. It is from the tropical Americas and seems to be thriving here. Unfortunately, non-native, and so really shouldn’t be here, but at least the pollinators do love it.

The main issue with non-native species is that local animals often don’t know how to utilize them. They don’t eat the berries, they don’t lay eggs on the leaves and feed on the plants, birds don’t make nests in them, etc. And they will often replace the native plants that say, birds and insects do know how to use. In Shelby Park (and in forests in TN in general) there is a problem with the Chinese privet and Bush honeysuckle completely taking over the understory, and jamming up all the ground cover. TN forests are generally supposed to have clear understory. And this is a problem for a certain forest turtle (the Eastern Box Turtle) that has evolved to wander these clear forests.

You also have the issue of the monarchs, who are specialists and need milkweed plants to lay their eggs on and feed on. There are many insects that are looking for certain plants, and have the chemical signature of these plants dialed in, to use them for food and shelter. Those are the plants that they have evolved with, and know how to utilize.

*Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) (non-native)*

*My buckeye caterpillar chowing down on buckhorn plantain*

Cosmos Are Popping Off [Garden Post]

The cosmos are popping off now. They add an amazing pop of color to the landscape. It’s actually shocking how much pop they add. Right now things are looking generally brown and crispy, a bit dull, and/or just green. These cosmos are breaking through.

The first one was yellow, and all the rest have been a light yellow-orange. I wonder what’s going to happen to all these flowers with the first frost, which is supposed to be around Oct. 15th.

The bees seem to like them more than zinneas. Every time I’ve looked I’ve seen bees at the cosmos. The butterflies like the zinneas but they have a tough time because of the cars. Every time a car drives by the butterflies abandon the flower, and if two or three drive by they seem to give up on the patch altogether. I feel like the flowers are a bit of a trap for them in this way. But if they can get in when there aren’t any cars driving by they can have a nice feast.

I saw this butterfly on the zinnea this morning, I see this one often around here. Maybe a Pipevine swallowtail? Looking at the pictures online, looks likely.

The marigold has a bud that has grown massively in the last two days. It will bloom any day now. I’m ready. Come on!!!!

My zinneas now have powdery mildew. They must just get it no matter what, because it hasn’t been humid here at all. Hasn’t been rainy. Been dry as a bone. I don’t know how you’re supposed to keep this from happening.

This second patch isn’t having as much trouble with the alternaria though.

Apparently this is the Pipevine swallowtail caterpillar. Look at this crazy thing! And apparently their host plants are pipevines (makes sense), or the dutchman’s pipe, which are also wild-looking as heck. I ain’t never seen one’a these.

I spent more time yesterday pulling up Japanese honeysuckle. Cannot believe how entrenched it is. I start pulling, and there’s more, more coming up, more coming up. It’s hiding, it’s sneaky, in the grass, in the dirt. There’s so much Japanese honeysuckle in the yard, buried, wrapped around stuff. Feels like I’ve pulled up 50 pounds of it.

That’s what I got for ya today folks!

New Menace In The Yard (Japanese Honeysuckle)

There is nothing for the soul and spirit like manual labor. Benjamin Franklin observed that in his autobiography, when he was overseeing construction of a fort during the French and Indian War. He noted that on the rainy days when the soldiers couldn’t work, they were miserable and depressed. On the sunny days, where they could do the chopping and the building, they were joyful, singing songs and feelin’ good. And here I am, returning from my arduous labor of ripping up entrenched Japanese Honeysuckle vines out of my yard in the full sun, barehanded, until my hands are blistered and I can’t continue, and boy am I feeling great.

Nothing for the soul and spirit like some good manual labor.

I have discovered a new menace in my yard. It’s Japanese honeysuckle. This menace was on my radar, from doing the invasive species removal at Shelby Park, and now I am getting to know it intimately. Japanese honeysuckle, which is a vine, was on our top list of plants to remove at the park, along with Chinese privet and Bush/Amur honeysuckle.

There are hundreds of plants, at least a hundred plants on my (I say my, I’m renting) small property alone, and I just don’t know all of them. I’m learning about them slowly. Well, there was a sprawling vine in the yard that was flying under the radar because there’s nothing special about it. It’s just green and a vine, cool. But I finally wanted to know what it was, because it seems like it’s about to flower, one strand of it, and it’s snaking all around the frost aster. I decided that it was time to ID it, and know the truth. The frost aster is native, and precious. Time to know if this vine was also native and precious, or not.

Lo and behold, Japanese honeysuckle. A notorious and pervasive invasive, here in the good ol’ USA.

I set to work ripping up this foreign invader at once, yesterday going until I had a blister on my right hand and was forced to stop. I was shocked at how much there really was, snaking all over, along the ground, under and behind, and on top of everything. Today I’ve given it another go and I once again ripped and pulled until my hands are blistered and hurting. (I really should have a pair of gloves.)

The photo below shows you how much I’ve pulled out so far, of this damned Japanese honeysuckle. I would never have guessed that there was so much lurking in the yard like this.

It’s not just in the frost aster, it’s all over in the grass, winding up stalks of grass, and growing staight out and covering the ground.

The very first vine, I carefully untwined it from the stalk of grass it had wrapped around, and followed it to the base. I was surprised that it led all the way to a node of roots in the ground, that led to several more strands of honeysuckle. I think this is what they mean by “runners”, which is a term I’ve heard. That vines put out “runners”. This is extremely annoying, and makes tearing up this honeysuckle a pain in the ass. As you can kind of see in the above photo, these vines are often putting down roots into the ground at repeated intervals, and you have to rip it all up. Some of the roots are quite entrenched, and three times they were so entrenched that I had to go get the shovel. Some of these runners were so thick that it felt like I was pulling up eletrical cables. I would rip it up out of the ground and it would be thick, like a rope in my hand, and show me where the rest of the cable was, and I would follow it to one of the root nodes. There was one, it was the mothernode, that was deep in the center of a large bush of frost aster, I parted the frost aster and got down in there and found that mothernode, and I felt like I was discovering the source of the infection or plague in a post-acopolyptic movie. It was like when there’s a fungus or something that makes people become zombies, and I was finding the main spore producer, or the main brain. I found that huge root node with multiple thick honeysuckle cables running off of it, and I went and grabbed the shovel and obliterated it. I felt good for a moment, hands blistered and hurting, and then I saw that there is still so much more to pull.

Digging up the grass was harder work and was definitely the most annoying work. This is just more than I wanted to do to pull up these vines. It isn’t that bad, but the fact that I have to go and get the shovel is more than I bargained for.

It’s amazing how prevalent these invasive species are. Half of the things in my disturbed roadside habitat yard are infamous invasives. Tree of heaven, common mullein (apparently a truly hated invasive), Chinese privet, Japanese honeysuckle, the oleander aphids… we really are at war.

It’s a lot of work, just figuring out what the hell is what in the yard. I’m still amazed at how many things growing freely in the yard are from halfway across the world. Here is this tree, right outside of my window in the great state of Tennessee, thriving and looking healthy and wonderful, and low and behold, it’s from China. Right next to it is another tree that is doing wonderfully, that I also see all over the neighborhood, and wouldn’t you know it? It’s also from China. In my yard, smothering my frost aster and wrapping all over everything, snaking out across the ground, is a wonderful vine from Japan! And half of the sprouts in my new garden are the seedlings of yet another tree from where? Yes, China. Right over in my neighbor’s yard are two uncultivated wonderful flowers from East Asia and Peru, and in the front of my other neighbor’s yard is a lovely Japanese banana tree. On my short walk to the coffee shop through my neighborhood, I can count about fifteen Crape myrtle trees, which are from India. And the little fuzzy plants popping up? Maybe those are young Black-eyed Susan plants?

Nope. Common mullein from Eurasia (introduced in the 18th century, apparently).

“Several Years Worth of Coffee Experience…”

“I bring several years worth of coffee experience…”

This is the line that stunned me. I sat on the couch, after a long day of talking to people about jobs, applying for jobs, working on resumes and cover letters, and then printing some off at the local library, going through that whole debacle…

I had checked, I had double checked, it was all good. Everying looked fine, everything was ready. Except, IT WASN’T.

My fresh cover letter for the local cafe laid out in front of me on the table, I was feeling satisfied, a hard’s work finished, and I picked it up, to look over my fine work one more time—and then I read the start of that second paragraph, and had a crisis.

It read that I had “several years worth of coffee experience”.

Well, that was a straight up lie.

I debated on what to do about this. If the hiring manager read my resume, they would know that that was a lie—or they would think that for some reason I had coffee experience that I did not list on my resume, which would be strange. I had in truth seven months of professional coffee experience. That’s not several years, not even close. I thought about how I could reframe it, (“Well, I’ve been drinking coffee enthusiastically since I was 20, haha!”) no, that wasn’t going to work.

But I really, really did not want to go back to the library.

It was horrible, at the library. All to print out several pieces of paper. I had to log-in to Google, which required two-step verification, which require logging in to wifi, and using my old smartphone that I almost forgot to bring, but I remembered this time, having walked all the way to the library just to be stymied once before. It took about five minutes before my crappy smartphone’s processor could run fast enough to handle a notification from Google, and before even trying this, I had attempted to print remotely from my laptop, and I went through that entire process only to not have it work for some mysterious, unknowable reason in the end. You see that I did not want to go back to library and relive all of that. It took an hour of work to print a few pieces of paper. And to fix one sentence? Please, no. Not like this.

Parker’s suggestion was whiteout. Use whiteout on the letter, he had it. Just write over it. I couldn’t accept that. Handing in a cover letter with whiteout on it?

Come on. It’s just not to my standards.

So, this morning I had the great idea. A handwritten note. That’s what I would do! Cover letter was a little over-the-top anyway, although I’m sure would still be well-received and would be better to turn one in than not. But a handwritten note, with a funny picture, which I had several of—that would be perfect. And I didn’t have to go back to the library. Yes!!!! So that’s what I did.

Now, you may be wondering, why did I write “several years of coffee experience” on my cover letter in the first place?

The reason why I had written “several years of experience” on that cover letter is because I didn’t actually write that cover letter.

I had written my own cover letter, heartfelt and authentic, and then I gave it to ChatGPT, who kept most of what I had written, but made it sound professional and polished. And, truthfully, it sounded much better, even though it said basically the same things. But look—I was lazy, and I didn’t catch the mistake. That’s how this happened.

I used ChatGPT to help me write a cover letter, not write a cover letter. I think there’s a big difference. I also did not end up even using that cover letter anyway. But I thought a lot about using ChatGPT to help me get a job. Is it wrong? But, if I had a friend who suggested to me that I frame things in this way, that way, and improved it, would I accept that? I would. There is one major difference between these two scenarios, however, which is that I would probably learn more from talking it through with my friend, than by just giving it to ChatGPT to mockup. I still learn from ChatGPT though, and this is where ChatGPT can be really useful. I see what I wrote, and I think it’s not bad, but then I see how ChatGPT writes a cover letter, with the same content, and I think—now this is better. And why? It can be a great learning tool.

But in the end I was so impressed by ChatGPT’s cover letter writing prowess that I completely missed the “several years” of coffee experience line. And that killed the whole thing.

I walked in this morning, ready to hand in my resume and handwritten note, folded up in an envelope with some stickers attached, and would you believe it, but I see the manager walking over to the front of the store, passing me in line. It was my perfect chance, to make a direct connection, to hand him my letter in person, and remind him of my face. I couldn’t believe my luck, and I stopped him as he passed, and said that I was interested in working for them, he said great, do you have a resume, I handed it over, boom, shook hands, incredible. Couldn’t have been more natural, or gone more smoothly.

Now, that’s a good sign, is it not? That has to be a good sign.

I am fully immersed in the real world now, as it is required of me. I need a job, I need money. I must engage with the world to get what I need. But I have enjoyed reengaging with the world in general.

I feel like I’ve come out of a deep slumber. (Context: Have been doing a lot of fiction writing.) And waking up, I find that somehow I’m now friends with everybody at the gym, and have made a personal connection with almost all of the baristas at the coffee shop. I’m having more serendipitous interactions with the other customers and other climbers than ever before. But, nothing has really changed except me—they’ve all been here. It’s just that I’m tapped in and engaging, in the real world again. My energy is directed outwards.

My candle has not been cutting it for reading at night. It’s too much of a pain. I could do it for Harry Potter, and that’s a testament to how good the Harry Potter series is. I would say after a month has passed, that reading the Harry Potter series has expanded my literary consciousness. It was something different, something fresh more me, not as simplistic as some children’s literature, nor as whimsical, it was more advanced, something massive and epic in scope but not overly intellectual or literary, emotional and funny, but with depth and darkness as well. It could be all of those things, like The Lord of the Rings, but more accessible.

Anyway, I bring up the candle for this reason…

The last few nights, I haven’t been reading at all. For even the last week. All I do, when the sun goes down, is lay in my bed and think. That’s it.

I have lit the candle a few times to do some things, tidy up the room, attempt to read once more before giving up because it is such a struggle, and then I end up laying down in the bed again. And when I lay in that bed, for hours, in the darkness, it’s just me and my thoughts.

Last night, I was thinking about all of the people that have been in my life recently. All of these people, that are out here in the world, that are part of my world, that are here on this Earth with me. Lots of names, lots of faces. All of us here together, doing our thing, living our lives. And I ended up coming back to a core idea, which is really hippy-dippy, but I kept thinking—I should continue to expand my heart and mind. I kept landing back on that central idea.

I should keep my heart and mind open. I should keep connecting to people, reaching out to people, accepting people. Having pity for people, helping people, having mercy and empathy for them, and caring about them, and supporting them.

It’s hard to explain concisely some deep, lengthy thoughts and complex feelings, but there is a real lesson here that I am consistently reminded of, and am reflecting on once again, these days, which is this: I wish that my brain did not make so many assumptions and judgments about people. My brain, my intuitive and subconscious brain, likes to make assumptions about people. It likes to attempt to infer things based on how they look, how they sound, context, labels and titles. What they are wearing, who they are with, what their job is, X Y Z. Could be good, could be neutral, could be bad, and that doesn’t matter as much as the fact that my brain does this in the first place.

I guess it’s natural that we do it, but I wish it wasn’t so, because I have to tell you—my brain is so often wrong.

Most of these impressions, coming from stereotypes, assumptions, guesses and profiling, almost all of it goes out the window as soon as I start to talk to someone. I don’t like that I have all of this baggage before I even do start to talk to someone. I wish I could take every interaction with every person as a neutral, blank slate, and then learn about them through interacting with them. I wish I could always form my impressions and opinions of them after I start to see who they really are—because my perceptions are so often wrong.

I realized to what extent my perceptions were flawed on a flight to LA. I was on the end of the row, the aisle to my right, and a couple sat to my left. The guy was next to me, and the girl at the window. And I have to confess that I felt that we were unlikely to be friends. They didn’t strike me as such, and especially, I think the guy’s hat did it for me. It had some slogan that I thought was a dumb, and there you go. Whatever it was exactly that did it, my brain made some assumptions.

Well, you can see where this is going… We ended up talking, and then we became best friends. We talked for the rest of the flight, the girl was an actor, the guy had been studying web development, as I had been, we talked about music and coding, life in LA, TV shows, etc., many things. We had so much in common, and we had a great conversation, much bonding. And the guy’s hat?

It was the name of his brother’s band. He was wearing it in support of his brother.

I was so affected by this event, and felt so stupid for my brain having some negative assessment of these people who turned out to be so great, that I wrote something down on a piece of paper and carried it on my wallet, to remind me of this. And I actually still have it, I just checked—this is what I wrote, all those years ago now:

“I’ve noticed on these flights and conversations how judgmental I tend to be from the start, and how every person I talked to was completely different from whatever expectations I projected onto them. This is something you need to be aware of. Every stranger I’ve talked to has brought me a lot of joy, and I’m sure to them as well. So let’s keep that going.”

There you go. It’s still true, and it still happens and I have to catch myself and say, “You don’t know. Until you talk to them, until you get to know them, you have no idea what they’re really about.”

I am corrected and reminded of this lesson all the time.

For example, even at Ugly Mugs—I thought one guy might be the manager. He’s always working, he’s older, and he was on the website, modeling with the merch. Well, when I talked to another Ugly Mugs employee and asked if he was the manager, they laughed, and said no, it was another guy, that I would not have expected at all—and when the other employee came over (this is the girl I befriended who also works at the climbing gym, I should just give them code names), he was laughing and told her, “He thought Caleb was the manager,” and she cracked up.

Apparently it was funny to think about Caleb as the manager. And I thought, you know, that’s it. My brain thought I might have had it figured out, that I could somehow tell, who was doing what, and it turns out I was so wrong that Izzy is laughing about it. I didn’t have a read on anything at all. And I thought, imagine that someone asked, when I was at Starbucks, “Is Jason the manager?” (Jason being the annoying barista who is always complaining and praising Elon Musk and generally driving me insane.) Wouldn’t that be hilarious? I would say the exact same thing to my co-worker, Jessica. “Jessica, this guy thought Jason was the manager. Hahaha!!!” And we would crack up, because we would know Jason, and know how absurd it was to think that Jason could ever possibly be the manager.

A Historic Day (First Ever Cosmos Bloom)

Here it is y’all. First ever cosmos bloom by the hands of Gardener Steve.

I woke up this morning and checked the garden as usual, although lately, as there haven’t been many developments, I haven’t been as consistent about looking in the garden. Well, this morning, I was overjoyed and delighted to see a huge, bright, yellow new flower in my garden. That is this cosmos, and this is a particularly exciting bloom because it has told me, finally, what I’ve really wanted to know. What we’ve all been wanting to know. Were these generic green, springy plants common ragweed? (Undesirable, although native.) Or were they cosmos?

Google Lens had consistently ID’ed these as common ragweed. And I couldn’t remember where I had planted cosmos seeds, so I couldn’t even know if I had planted cosmos here, and if they had any hope of being cosmos. But I was holding out hope, and I almost pulled them out of the ground, in my rage, thinking they were just useless ragweeds. I held on, just in case, and look. They really were cosmos. I can’t believe it.

I started to really have hope about a week ago, when I was walking to the record store. We (Parker and I) passed a neighbor’s yard that was loaded with cosmos, and I saw the buds at the end of the stalks, the future flowers, and I thought, those look just like the buds on my potential cosmos. That’s a good sign! They look exactly the same! But I wasn’t going to get my hopes up too much. No, I’ve been burned before….

And then, yesterday, finally a bud opened up, and it looked like it was going to be a flower, but it was restrained and drooping a bit. I think because it was fresh, and the heat was intense. I thought maybe the flower wasn’t in good health, but this morning, I stepped out and saw that flash of yellow, glorious beaming flower, perfectly healthy and radiant. Not ragweed!!!! But, cosmos??

It looks so much like Coreopsis or something around that I thought I actually had something else entirely, neither cosmos or ragweed. But the internet helped me to ID the flower, and it said, cosmos. A cosmos sulphureus, looks like, as I had gotten the seeds from a free pack at the local park and so wasn’t sure what they were exactly.

In my poor clay, sandy dry soil that turns into mud the second water touches it, these cosmos have done very well. And I see on the internet, right now, (https://www.gardenia.net/plant/cosmos-sulphureus-cosmic-yellow) “Tolerates poor soil, heat, and humidity.” Yep, that’s my yard, alright.

The zinneas have done well but needed more water. Some of them are still doing well, or at least they haven’t died, as you might be able to see in the back of the photo. And actually, I just got a new zinnea bloom, and it’s a bright, light pink. A really nice color. So, it’s true that these are beginner friendly plants, because I have no idea what I’m doing, I’ve done no soil prep, I have put down no fertilizer, and no mulch, my watering methods are surely subpar—and on the whole these plants, cosmos and zinnea, they’re doing alright. They’re making it.

I want to plant the natives. The frost aster in the back is great, I feel great about having that in the yard, a real native. I see it blooming all over now, out in the wild, in some people’s yards, and at Shelby. There’s some frost aster in the wild fields at Shelby. I feel like to have such a huge patch of it here in the yard. And there are some little bits of it here and there on the sides of the streets, in the border grass and by fences. It’s an interesting flower, so incredibly small, yet the same shape and look of the larger, popular flowers. The “classic” flower look, yet so tiny and dainty. The natives are important, but because these zinneas and cosmos have been so easy to grow, and look nice, I am definitely tempted to just go all in on them and have the entire yard just be zinnea and cosmos, next year.

I planted some smooth-blue aster and a lot of coneflower, purple coneflower and black-eyed susan, and I haven’t seen any of those sprouts come up. I wonder if they will show next spring, and need to germinate over the winter. We’ll see about that. It’s either that or they haven’t taken well to the soil at all. The marigolds, I put down many marigold seeds, and only got two plants. So they haven’t done too well, and the sunflowers did okay, I had 5 plants for 20 seeds that I planted, not great, but then they were repeatedly attacked by the local squirrel mafia. They were assaulted, and it was sad, which makes me not want to try planting them again. If they’re just going to get so brutalized… but some made it through. Actually, I should just plant a ton, and expect many to not make it. But if some do, good. The sunflowers are iconic, and provide so much for the local wildlife.

I see fritillaries and skippers on the zinneas. Some bees, but not many. But the fritillaries really seem to like the zinneas.

Now, I had written about the asiatic dayflower that popped up in the neighbor’s yard, and I read that it bloomed for only a day. It looks like this bloomed for at least two days, and I need to check on it today and see if it’s gone three days. And next to it, the marvel of Peru is blooming now too.

I finally yet one of the neighbors across the street. I was lugging my haul back from Kroger yesterday, and I waved to him, as usual. However this time, he was over near the street, and I could actually talk to him, and so we finally chatted. This neighbor has been friendly and we’ve waved to each other many times, he’s often out with his dog while I’m doing my gardening work, and he recently (several months ago) got a puppy, that was extremely tiny and cute. It’s grown up, and is still extremely tiny. He told me that she’s now full sized, and guess what? Her name is Lucy. I thought that was kind of amazing, seeing as how no one is actually named Lucy except the main character in the story I wrote, Lucy and the Mingmerang, and this little dog was named Lucy, the whole time. Well, maybe the story should be about a dog instead. Dog and alien go on great adventure together. Anyway, the neighbor, Jared, he said that he liked my wildflowers. This is another person of the neighbor who has commented on my garden, and that makes you feel good. Even though it is pretty miserable for a garden, it does at least have flowers.

Jared said, “Do you have a hose, for watering?” And I knew what he was talking about. My neighbor has the hose, we live in a duplex that looks like one house, and the hose is on his side, and I never asked him if I could use it, because I’m lazy, I guess. I should have a long time ago asked him, and he would immediately reply, “Sure, go for it!” Well, I have been making due with broken watering cans and then filling up 5 gallon buckets in the tub, and Jared has seen me doing my labor-intensive watering work, and has probably been wondering for months, “Why doesn’t this guy just use a hose?” I thought that was funny.

We talked about plants, he said that he had to bring some plants in because they’re been being attacked by the squirrel mafia. He said that’s what he calls them, the squirrel vigilante group. That’s a good name for them. They have also attacked my plants, they are rogues, and they are everywhere. It seems like we have thirty squirrels living within like 100m radius of us. We have about five squirrels that live in our small backyard alone. There are a ton of great trees around, in our yards, huge trees with holes and nuts.

I should take a picture of it, but there was something popping up in my garden, that seemed to be a wild lettuce, and was possibly edibile, according to the internet. It was growing rapidly, and I’ve been watching it, and yesterday, when I was investigating the garden, I saw that it had been munched down, clean to the bases of the leaves. The whole thing had been chomped down to the base. Someone had a wonderful salad feast on that thing! Squirrel? I wonder who done it.

Those caterpillars, the common buckeye caterpillars all went away. They must have reached critical mass and have gone off to do their metamorphosing work. It’s funny that they were truly keeping the plantain weed in check, and now that my mowers are gone, the plantain weed is bursting up, out of control. They were really keeping it down. I should look around for the chrysalises, maybe I can find one around. It always made me nervous that they were hanging out in such a high traffic region, both cars and feet around. If they tried to go across the road on their quest for a suitable place to make a chrysalis, they would not have had a good time. I hope they have found good places to go.

*Common buckeye chrysalis (photo from internet)*

East Nashville Ecology: Frost Aster, Ichneumonid Cocoon, and more!

My eyes are twitching right now, as I begin to type this up, because they’re so tired.

I think they’re irritated from the chalk. Lots of chalk in the air, at a climbing gym. So much chalk, actually, that we have machines called “chalk eaters”, and their entire job is to filter chalk out of the atmosphere. One of our daily tasks being to clean the filters.

I had a short shift today, (4 hours), and the funniest thing that happened today was my coworker educating me on what a GriGri was, a word that I had been hearing often recently at the gym. I thought it sounded like the name of some kind of monkey. I commented on this—initially, no laugh, maybe a small chuckle from Ashley or the big boss—but I couldn’t let it go, because it was such a funny word, captivating me. Ashley showed me the GriGri, which is a tool used in harnessing yourself to the rope in climbing, and I just kept thinking about this amazing word, and said “It’s like LaBuBu”. That was a money line, so juicy that it brought out a loud laugh from the big boss. He said he was going to be thinking about that all night. Labubu. GriGri. I then wrote on a sticky note, “Labubu + GriGri = LaGriGri”, “collab”, and stuck it to the counter, leaving it for the later shifts to think about.

On my previous shift at the gym, my biggest hit idea was the concept of a lazer nail cutting machine. Advantages, 1. Sanitary, therefore does not need to be disinfected (useful for medical purposes and at a place such as a hotel or climbing gym), and 2. perfect precision. Well, and 3. incredibly cool. Because “lasers”. We could have machines at CVS, Walgreens, the grocery store, etc., that would trim your hands, feet too, via the power of lazers, with perfect, machine guided precision and accuracy. I imagined that they could also etch designs into people’s nails, for aesthetic purposes and swag. People could even create and upload their own designs. We could call it, “LazerNails”.

This was million dollar idea. People who wanted a personal unit could shell out some dough and have their own LazerNail machine at home. Nail salons could have them. Possibly. Except does that put the nail salon people out of business? I don’t know what happens at a nail salon, I can’t say.

I have just done some photography for you all, and for myself, to document the local wildlife and greenery. There is an awesome plant that is once again blooming in my yard, and I’ve IDed it, and it’s incredible news. A large part of the front yard is covered with a plant that is inconspicuous and green for most of the year, that bides its time, before unleashing an enormous spread of flowers come Autumn. That is, now. And it is doing this again. Last fall I was shocked to see it. I had thought the plant was a useless weed, probably invasive, sprawling and certainly undesirable by any good homeowner’s standards. Boy was I glad to see it pop off. And this year, hungry for ecological knowledge, I actually have figured out what it is, and ladies and gentlemans, it is FROST ASTER.

The best news? NATIVE.

The bees love it. It’s a late bloomer, just starting to come online here at the end of September. And the bees are loving it.

In the back right of this photo is more frost aster that just isn’t blooming yet. It’s interesting that it’s blooming like this, and I think it happens because of sunlight. The back corner of the yard gets less sun, blocked by the house. That’s one hypothesis at least.

*Some frost aster on the other side of the fence in the neighbor’s yard*

I’m now seeing this frost aster blooming around the neighborhood. It’s not the most common plant but I see it around, in yards. A couple neighbors have some beautiful purple ones. As you can see, there are thousands of flowers on the plant, and they’re very tiny and dainty. Kind of special and unique. Frost aster is a member of the Asteraceae family, which includes daisies and sunflowers.

*Purple frost aster in the neighborhood*

So there you go. New plant knowledge acquired. The internet says they bloom for around six weeks, which is amazing. That’s a long time. I hope it’s true!

Now, there was also something I spotted in the yard yesterday that I wanted to photograph for you. This is a very interesting sighting. I will show you a picture.

As you can see, this mystery cocoon is very small. Extremely tiny. This is why we need a macro lens, because it would be impossible to photograph clearly without macro capabilities. I thought it was some miniature moth caterpillar cocoon, but no—not true. It’s turns out that this tiny cocoon is the cocoon of a parasitic wasp, a member of the Ichneumonid family (which are a bunch of parasitic wasps). The species is Charops annulipes.

Ichneumonid wasps are some of the smallest bugs out there. There are some (such as this one) that are only a few millimeters long. This Charops annulipes is 4-5 millimeters in length.

*Charops annulipes, Ichneumonid wasp cocoon*

I was also greeted an extraordinary caterpillar when I opened my door yesterday. It was crawling manically up the side of the house, along the doorframe. I’ve never seen such a caterpillar before. It’s a Ruddy Dagger Moth caterpillar, which is an interesting name. How did it get such a name, you wonder? What does that even mean? A ruddy dagger? This guy was pretty huge. Probably 4 or 5 inches long. I was feeling lazy and didn’t get out the macro lens for this one, although I kind of wish I would have, now.

*Ruddy dagger moth caterpillar – Acronicta rubricoma*

*Adult Ruddy Dagger Moth (not my photo)*

I was walking back from photographing the purple frost asters down the street, and saw a few more interesting plants and flowers.

Here are some seed pods from a Magnolia tree. I had noticed these pods before because they’re so cool, and now they’re making the seeds, and they’re even cooler. They look so alien, to me.

I also saw this interesting plant, a small, non-descript green leafy plant with yellow flowers. It seems to be a Mirabillis jalapa, from Central and South America. It’s a common ornamental plant apparently, and is not considered invasive, although it is non-native to North America.

*Mirabillis jalapa – Four O’Clock / Beauty of the Night / Marvel of Peru*

This is something that I’m learning about our little East Nashville neighborhood ecology. There are plants here from every dang corner of the world. You think it would be shocking to find a random plant from Peru growing in the grass in the neighbor’s yard. Once upon a time it might be. But we have plants around here that are from every corner of the globe, and some of them are running wild and free. From what I know, we’ve got plants from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, India, South America, Central America, and Europe—western Europe and eastern Europe too. So there you go. That’s almost everywhere. Only Africa is yet to represented among plants I’ve discovered in the neighborhood.

My neighbor has a banana plant, a huge banana plant in his front yard. Another house further in the neighborhood has many of them. They probably planted them, and I bet my neighbor just let one grow in his yard.

You can actually see the banana plant in the background of this photo that I took, focusing on the frost asters. See the enormous green frond leaves sticking out from behind the trash can?

*Leaves of the Japanese banana tree, in the background*

That house that is surrounded by banana plants, it looks like it’s from Central America. It looks like the entire house was airlifted, yard and all, and dropped down in Nashville, TN. That’s what it looks like, because of those huge banana plants. Apparently that plant doesn’t even produce edible banana—it’s called a Musa basjoo. I’ll get some photos and show you guys in a future post. This plant is also called a Japanese banana plant, although it is originally from China, it has long been cultivated in Japan. And it seems to do great here in Nashville.

Right next to the “Marvel of Peru” (in the grass in my neighbor’s yard in Nashville), was the below, small, green, inconspicuous plant, with little blue and white flowers. This is apparently the Asiatic Dayflower, Commelina communis, native to East Asia. So there you go. Central America and East Asia hanging out in a patch of grass together, here in East Nashville. What an incredible thing. The internet says it blooms for only a single day. That’s pretty cool. I’ll keep an eye out for it. Perhaps just tomorrow it will be blooming? Clearly they’re ready, if these didn’t bloom already.

I also spied some goldenrod in an empty, overgrown lot. This is a good native flower right here.

That’s what I got for y’all today, folks. What an incredible treasure trove of natural wonders we have here, in little ol’ East Nashville!

The Regular // Reflection on Workplaces

I met the other Ugly Mugs veteran, #1 regular today. I had talked to him before I think, once, shared a joke about something. Today I showed up and we walked in at the same time. I held the door for him as he walked in, and we were together in line and ended up talking. I started it by asking him, “Do you think there’s anyone who’s in here more than you?” He laughed, and that’s how we got to talking. He works from home, likes to have somewhere to go, likes to have a routine. I’m the same.

I know he’s a smart guy. He has a kind-of Mad Scientist vibe, not totally crazy. Like Einstein. I’ve seen his computer screen before, and he was working with modelling software. So I asked what he’s doing, and he said he’s working in pharmacology, possibly in modeling or inventing new drugs. I couldn’t hear exactly what he said. But, intelligent stuff. He asked what I was doing, and I told him I was writing. I said I was working on a story about a guy who goes to a wedding of spirits, and that I was hoping I might finish it today.

We were really bonding over being regulars. He asked me two great questions, and I really like it when people ask great questions—he said, “What do you like about this place as opposed to the other coffee shops?” What a great question. I told him, “the seating options, the energy, the natural light, and the staff”, and he said it was the same for him, saying “I forget how much natural light gets in here”. He said it was the same for him, and he must have been coming here since the pandemic, for a long time, because he said it became his spot then. He said he likes having a routine, and a place to go, working from home. It’s become the same for me, with the writing.

We are kind of using this place like a remote workspace. It’s a psuedo work club, and we don’t have to pay for a membership. I buy a coffee every time I’m here, sometimes food (rarely), and it comes out to be about $200 a month, if I go almost every day. In the last two months I probably average coming here 5 out of 7 days of the week. It seems to be I’m on a streak and then something takes me away for a day or two.

This guy, the veteran/regular, I feel a bond with him, because he has been in here as often, even more than I have. We’re in a special club, I feel—the Ugly Mugs top regulars’ club. There is another woman I’m noticing who is here all the time, and they seem to be friends. She’s definitely in the club. I wonder who the other most frequent regulars are, if they’re flying under the radar. This guy Richard, he is pretty noticable. Tall, has an iconic look (mad scientist) and is social, has many friends.

I finally met this veteran regular this morning. Officially. Shook hands and introduced. After 3 months of being in the same space. He definitely recognized and knew me, and he had remembered that I had been writing, because he asked the second great question, because he said, “How long has it taken you to write your story?” And I said, “About ten or eleven days, first getting it all down on paper” and he said, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen you writing.” So he’s noticed that. Me at the table scribbling away.

Richard is from the UK, possibly London. I think I heard him say that to someone a long time ago. He has an accent, not incredibly strong. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to hearing him talk. It’s obvious though. I was going to ask him what his order was, if he got the same thing every time—he beat me to it. He said, “What do you usually get?” And I told him, black coffee, every time. For him, Americano. He said, “The same thing. Well, not the same thing, but basically.” Yeah, Americano and black coffee are basically the same thing. Both creatures of habit. I suggested he switch it up today, try something new, and looked at their artful chalkboard menu that has a Tiramisu Iced Latte. I said, “How about the Tiramisu Iced Latte?” and he looked up at it and read it, said, “Ooh, Mascarpone Cold Foam!” I said, “Is that calling to you?” And he replied, “Not at all.” That cracked me up.

I am now a supervisor of some climbing gyms here in Nashville. I worked my first shift without the training wheels (just me as the supervisor) yesterday. I had three staff members with me, “under” me. Weird to say that but they were “my” team. And after a day at this gym, I am optimistic about the job. I can see why it is a good fit for me. Like Starbucks, but without the bad. That’s what I’m thinking, and hopefully no bad manifests. The bad part of Starbucks was working with dingus coworkers, and working mind-numbingly boring closes. Being trapped with people who were driving me crazy, and then also being bored out of my mind and having nothing to do but a lot of mindless cleaning. It seems that at the gym, and I’ve already sussed it out before even going for the job, as I have been a member of the gyms—the staff are a different breed. They’re climbers. And climbers are generally cool and interesting people, from what I’ve seen.

It’s early, and we have to see how it goes. I have good vibes though, good intuition that this can work for me, and that’s a good thing. The difference between this job and Shred (guitar company/retail store that I worked at) that I see, is two things in particular— 1. staff and 2. autonomy. As I am a boss, albiet a small boss. And I get to run the ship. That’s very good. I don’t mind being directed, but you have to respect the leader. They have to be competent. If they aren’t, or you don’t agree with their styles, like at Shred—I couldn’t do that. Couldn’t be under that yoke. And I wasn’t quite vibing with the team, there. I was besties with the techs, the luthieres, and a couple sales guys, but otherwise my best friends were the security guards. Because they were just more… outgoing, really.

The team at Shred was in general, very introverted. I am not very introverted, although I get on with introverts and spend a lot of time alone. But I am pretty gregarious. The Shred team was really introverted, and that was hard for me. I was struggling with them, and I wonder if that was a big part of why I felt like from the get-go, it might not be a good fit for me. I bet that’s what I was picking up—that and I wasn’t hitting it off with the manager. He seemed fine, there was nothing wrong with him (I was getting to know him as he came in to Starbucks). But I didn’t really hit it off with him, whereas my manager at Starbucks, I did feel in the interview that “this is someone I’d like to work for”. She seemed real and wanted our Starbucks to be the best Starbucks in Nashville. I was on board for that.

I also had the feeling that I might have been too bored at Shred, as was happening to me at Starbucks (for the closes, and I was then on full-time closing duty), just stuck behind the counter with no action. That’s where the Assistant Manager became a problem for me at Shred, because I had started to leave the counter sometimes (as all of the other register team would do—they would constantly just leave me alone there to go to inventory tasks). But when I could get away, I would go work the floor, and talk to people, and I would act as a psuedo-sales person, which sometimes was valuable because there wouldn’t be a salesperson around for whatever reason. I was actually filling a useful role, and I started many customer interactions that resulted in sales. Well, the Assistant Manager was constantly telling me to go back behind the counter, or to go fold shirts. You can see why I didn’t last long.

Not a shirt folder. I can handle an acceptable amount of shirt-folding. I take satisfaction in neat and tidy. But I’m not going to fold shirts all day, and especially not when I could be talking to people about guitars. What a waste of my time. Perhaps that wasn’t the role I was hired for. I wasn’t a salesperson. But, I was trying to make it work for me. In their eyes, I was going outside of what my expected role was, I suppose. I don’t think any smart manager would have told me to stop having positive interactions with the customers and making sales, though.

I had been feeling that the team was very introverted, and I was having trouble breaking through with them. They were insular, especially my register team. Then, it was the third or fourth day, a new security guard showed up. This guy was jolly, big smile, funny, chillin’. And me and him, within about one minute of conversing, we were like old friends. We were talking like we had known each other our whole lives. I just knew—this is my guy. He was a breath of fresh air. And it’s amazing how quickly we connect with our people. Through him, I saw what I had been thinking. That my team was introverted, and here was a man who was not. Here was a man who was socialable and charming. A man who could shoot the breeze about anything and wasn’t taking this all too seriously. That was the man for me. Him, and another security guard named Derek, they became my lifeline. In those three weeks that I lasted at Shred, but every day was a battle. The security guards were my people, moreso than the guitar players. I thought that was very interesting, that I was bonding more with the security guards than my coworkers (except I bonded well with the luthiers too, those were my homies, and I spent much time at the tech bench.) Even though I am a guitar player and musician.

I’ll tell you a little story here actually, which I think highlights the energy and dynamic of the Shred team very well.

There was a security guard named Don, and Don was a funny guy. He told me stories about being in the army, he reminded me of my grandpa. Don liked to greet everyone who walked in the store, and chat with the older customers generally, around his age, but he would talk to anybody. And he had a line, which was, “Hi welcome to the Shred Shack. Don’t forget to look up!” He said “Don’t forget to look up” because there was a conveyor belt of guitars that circled the ceiling, that had like 300 guitars on it. (This was an amazing thing.) I loved that this was his line, and that he said that every time. I personally thought that was nice, and funny. And it seemed to me that people reacted positively to it.

However, the general manager did not like Don’s greeting habit. I heard him talking about it. And I heard that he asked Don several times, not to greet people. The security guards are just for security, they are not greeters, and not supposed to interact with the customers. That was his stance. I think that he didn’t want him to intimidate people—I think that’s what someone said. And maybe he thought that Don focused too much on greeting and wasn’t paying enough attention to security. But regardless, the GM didn’t like that Don was saying hi to everybody, and so he told Don repeatedly, stop gretting people. Well, Don was pissed off. I heard Don say, “If they want to fire me for saying hi to people, they can kiss my ass.” And the general manager finally asked that the security company didn’t send Don to our store anymore. Don showed up, and I’m pretty sure they told him to go home, and don’t come back.

I think I actually quit the next day. I thought this story highlighted the fundamental difference between me, and my energy, Don’s energy, and how it was at the store. I could give some more stories, but this one really lays it bare. And I thought, Don is so right, and good for him. They can kiss your ass, Don. They wanted to deny him his essential joy, of greeting people, the only thing keeping him from losing his mind in this store with nothing to do, and Don wasn’t going to be put down like that. They couldn’t cow him, couldn’t tame that spirit. Good. And I felt the same. Don wasn’t having it—I wasn’t either.

There was another moment that truly revealed to me the vibe of the place. After this happened, I started viewing the workplace as “repressed”.

I was bored behind the counter, nothing to do, no action. I started drawing creatures. I would ask a coworker to invent a word, and then I would draw a character/creature based on the word they gave me, and then give them their creature (on a sticky note). Fun for everybody. I drew several creatures for my team members, and they were happy, and I was happy. Using my brain and creativity, connecting. Good, right? Well, it’s not like I was spending hours doing this. It was a small thing to pass some time and bring us some entertainment. But it was my fourth doodle, and one of the guys on the register team with me, he said in a low voice, “Hey, I would be careful about doodling. If management sees you, they might say something.”

Now, I took this to mean that they would not say something like, “Wow, your doodles are awesome, can you do one for me?” No, they would say, “Hey, please don’t doodle. Go fold shirts.”

I was outraged by that, but I could tell, what I had already been feeling—this was a repressed workplace. I could feel it, by the way he told me to watch out, the fact that it hadn’t even come from a manager. That my coworker, the other register members had been cowed. That we couldn’t even draw little doodles for a few minutes to pass the time and have a laugh. And, it’s all coming back to me now. All of the little things that add up and equal the vibe and energy of the workplace. Because I remember, one morning, I was talking to Don about his time in the army, Don and Derek—it was early, the start of the day, and we were having a great conversation about his lore, and about the army’s pheonetic alphabet, Bravo, Foxtrot, etc., and how police and firefighters have a separate alphabet. This was the start of the day, probably would be the only chance for real connection in the entire dang 8 hours, and we were really bonding—we had only been talking for five minutes, and there was nothing pressing that needed to be done, nothing more pressing than tidying shirts. We were setting the tone for the day and getting settled in, in my view, which is to me, extremely important. And the assistant manager came over, saw that we were having a fun and engaging conversation, and he came over and told me, in short, to break it up, and get to work. To go fold shirts.

I didn’t like that guy.

Derek knew that I was losing my mind stuck behind the counter, and needed more. He gave me his rubber bouncy ball. When we had walked out to the cars, at the end of a grueling shift, he said, “Here.” And he gave me his rubber band bouncy ball. I said, (I was crashing out, hence the rather depressive comment), “Is this going to save me?” And he said, “Probably not.”

I felt bad about that bad, because Derek was trying to help me out. And he was right. The rubber band bouncy ball didn’t save me. I used it, and was bouncing it around for the rest of my short stay. But of course, that couldn’t be enough.

For some reason, that little story, that moment makes me want to tear up. It’s weird. I think that I did have a budding bond with these security guards, and especially Derek. And I think if I had to unpack it more—I was being crushed by a workplace, crushed by rigidity and heirarchy, and I was losing the fight. My coworkers saw this. I showed up happy and joyful, as I naturally am. Animated, excited. (Out of place.) I was a breath of fresh air, I know it. And I was slowly being ground down. Derek saw it, and he tried to help. It was the best he could do, but he tried. He gave me his rubber bouncy ball.

It’s a terrible thing, when you know you are losing, when you are being ground down, and that things are wrong, and you don’t want to show it, but you can’t help it, and then other people see it, and they ask if you’re okay, and what’s wrong. There was one girl in the workplace, she was cool, and she could see me, she was reading the signs. She saw my descent. She started asking me if I was okay, and what was wrong. It’s so difficult, because what do you say? Oh no, I’m not okay, this place is killing me. No, I feel repressed and isolated, thanks. It turns out that I hate it here. Do you say that? No. You can’t say that. I couldn’t.

Derek had come into the Starbucks sometimes, and I never got anything out of him. He was stoic. Buff, young, blonde guy. Good-looking, and stoic. He didn’t chat, didn’t give me much. I only knew that he worked at Shred, and so when I was going over there to work, I was very interested in him. I knew about a lot of the other team members, because they came in too, and I got more out of them. But Derek, I wondered about. What would he be like? He was an X factor.

What I definitely did not expect is that Derek would be one of my best friends at the store. It took some time for us to become friends, not even the first few days. It happened slowly, but after a few conversations, it started to become clear to both of us, that we had a lot in common. But more than that, we generally were of the same personality type. We just like talking. About anything. Just to kill the time.

There’s this feeling I have, with these security guys, and with a lot of guys that I feel like I can bond with immediately. It’s this feeling of, we’re just regular ol’ guys. We’re just regular dudes. You know? We work jobs, we get paid. We like sports, probably, and beer. We like shooting the breeze, joking around. That kind of thing.

We talked about a wide range of topics. Telling stories. Making jokes. Psychology, girls, weight-lifting, life, motorcycles, memes, guitars, whatever. And although we had our individual quirks and particular interests, Derek understood me. He knew what was going on with me. He knew what I was about, fundamentally. And I understood him. I knew what he was about. That is fundamentally, the most important thing. He was interesting in learning about me, in knowing me. I was interested in him. We appreciated each other’s company.

And so, this young, stoic security guard, the X factor, he ended up being one of my #1’s. You just never know with people, until you start to get to know them. I feel like I’m constantly reminded of that.

I felt bad about leaving my friends at Shred. I felt bad about leaving Derek, the luthieres, David the guitar sales pro. We had bonded, they liked me, I liked them. But I knew they would understand.

There was a lot more of that gregarious, social energy at Starbucks. And that’s why I bonded more with the Starbucks team, in general. Even the ones who drove me crazy, we had more in common, temperment-wise. The gregarious energy. You would think that the guitar store would have been a great fit, because I love guitar, guitars and music, but then, maybe it makes sense. Lots of musicians and guitar players are introverts. (Nerds.)

The climbers are interesting. They seem to be more on the introverted side. They are nerdy, many of them, but they are generally sociable and open. They want to talk and have an exchange. Nerdy, I’m learning (some pro Magic players in the group), but social and friendly.

Since I’ve been here in Nashville, all three of my jobs have been customer-service roles. Starbucks, Shred (retail), now climbing gym. All involve frequent socializing, customer interaction. That part I enjoy a lot, but depth matters. Brief, transactional interactions are not fulfilling. Shredhad fantastic customers, because they were music lovers and guitar nerds, and/or just tourists, checking out a local attraction. Wonderful customer base. Our Starbucks (downtown) mostly had a good base, some regulars, lots of tourists, but we also had people who just wanted coffee and food, and we had to deal with unhoused people, crazies. The climb gym has literally, climbers as the customer base. Or people who want to try it out. Many regulars, many friends. Lots of cool and interesting people. Lots of young people, students, lots of adventurous people, down-to-earth. That’s a great customer base.

The other thing about running a store that I like, is the general operations. Ensuring that things are running smoothly, that we are being efficient, that people are happy (staff and customers), that problems are resolved, that we have organization and cleanliness. That the store is a well-oiled machine. I enjoy that. It’s something that I didn’t know I liked until I worked at Starbucks. Prior to that, I wouldn’t have thought I would enjoy running a store as much as I do.

I wouldn’t say that I am particularly meticulous, but I like to go about things in a logical way, and I like problem solving. I like some degree of order, and like efficiency. Well, there are many opportunities to promote order and efficiency in a store. There are many opportunities for improving things, and you get a tangible, satisfying, real-world response when you do make improvements, or resolve issues. Such as a leaky pipe, an error in the software or database, a customer’s issue. Many opportunities for solving problems, each one like a little puzzle, each one satisfying in the resolution.

Finally A Library Member // Thoughts on Writing Styles and Taste

I went to the library yesterday, the East branch here in East Nashville. And I finally, finally became a member. I learned that I got $10 of free printing credit every month, which, had I become a member when I first came here, would have saved me possibly $5 or so, and I would be $5 richer in my life today. Ah! I finally got the card, because I need more books. I need books, and I need experiments. I want to read things that I wouldn’t ordinarily read, I want to take gambles, and explore, but I don’t have the money to just buy these things. I also don’t want to own them anyway. My bookshelf is already now quite full from McKay’s trips, full of used books. I’m happy to have almost every book I’ve got.

Yesterday I went to the library in search of The Firm, by John Grisham, which Stephen King talks about in his book On Writing. I was talking to my grandpa about the Hoopla app, the library apps where you can read things digitally for free, as long as you have a library membership—and it was that that really made me want to sign up. I tried online, it didn’t work for some reason, and I went to the library. Finally got my membership, took only a second, got a card, and walked out with three books. None of them were The Firm, but I could go and get it today from the other branch not much farther down the street. One was a Stephen King book called Holly.

You can see how Stephen King writes so many books, and long ones. I understand. He knows how to embellish. He knows how to paint a picture. He knows how to work in details, so many small, delicate details, how to create characters, how to bring them to life, how to describe a scene, all of these things. He has that so dialed in. You know he can just crank that out, muscle memory, that practice. And it’s good. I feel like I could read his writing about anything, whatever he decides to write about, because you just like the way he writes. And he actually does say in On Writing that for him, the plot is not important. He’s figuring it out as he goes. What that means then is that the writing is the engine, right? His writing is the engine, and he’s building it as he goes. Therefore he’s enjoying every line he writes. There’s movement in every line, he’s building it as he goes. That makes sense to me.

At the library, I went for two books just based on their look and what they seemed to be about. I took them home and was eager to crack them open, see what the pages held. This was totally exploratory reading.

The first book, I made it about five pages in. I might have made it seven. The subject matter was fine—a modern take on old Grimm fairy tales, but I didn’t like the writing. I could tell that it was good writing, high-level, intelligent. But it was clunky and jarring for me. I was trying to figure out why it was, and I read a bit of it aloud to see if that would help. It was a strange mix of short and snappy, and then with (to me) esoteric vocab interlaced. Somehow that combination was jarring and displeasing for me. That’s all I can say about it because I didn’t really try to analyze it, but that’s what happened. I didn’t want to keep going, even though I was somewhat interested in the story. Actually, I don’t think I was that interested either, because I didn’t care for a fable at that time, and it was also kind of meta, a modern commentary. It wasn’t really sucking me in.

What’s interesting is that this book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And I could tell it was definitely “a good book”. It just wasn’t for me, and especially I didn’t particularly like the writing style. At least not in that moment.

It reminded me of Dune, which Parker had wanted me to read. I tried to read Dune, I was interested in the story, but I didn’t like the way it was written. It bothered me. I thought again, it was jarring, I didn’t like the descriptions, and I didn’t like the dialouge, etc. I just didn’t find it right, to me.

I suppose that doesn’t happen to me often because I know my tastes and I know what I like, and I go for things that I generally know I’ll like. But I did get the Artemis Fowl series, the first few books from McKay’s, and felt similarly about it. The writing was not to my taste, even though I was interested in the story.

I wish someone could explain why to me. I would like to know the subtle reasons why. I could probably dial in some theories if I tried. One theory is that I don’t seem to care much for short and abrupt, and you may not be so surprised to hear based on my prolific use of commas and “ands”. The flow is important to me, the rhythm. The Artemis Fowl was quite short and abrupt, generally. Lots of periods and sentences that started with “And.” Such as, “She flew to the moon. And she didn’t have a parachute.”

You may say something Hemingway, but Hemingway has a rhythm and flow that I like. He also is very conscious of it, and he will explode out into long sentences, surprising you and varying the pacing. He knows what he’s doing. So, simply saying that I don’t like “short and abrupt” is not quite right. I think the better word is “jarring” or “stilted”. To say that the rhythm or flow is not right for me.

I am also attracted to certain words, I think. There are so many words, of course, but there are still so many that people can probably have their styles in the words they use.

JK Rowling uses “surreptitiously”. She uses “roared”, “furtive”, “nursing”, “twinkling”. Now, those are words I like.

King used this phrase, in Holly, about some middle school boys, “sprawled out” on the ground, “slurping up” their milkshakes. It was something like “the boys were sprawled out on the grass, slurping up their shakes.” I read that last night, and I remember that I did have a kind of physical reaction to those words.

I didn’t like this combination of words, in the sense that I would never write them. But I almost did, because I knew that it was good, and stylistic. It just wasn’t for me, I think the movements of the mouth that you have to make when you say “sprawl” and “slurp”. I like the word sprawl, I don’t really like the word slurp. And then together, and plus “shakes”. “Sprawling out and slurping up your shakes.” I don’t really like that. But I appreciate it. It’s strong. And you know Stephen King likes it. (I kind of do like it.)

I had read Harry Potter as an American, and with American English. But after I watched an interview with her, I started to read the books in her voice, with an English accent. And suddenly, it changed everything. I could see then why she was/is so attracted to certain words. I already thought the writing was great, fun, and flowing, but when I started to read/think of it in her voice, with her accent, suddenly it was even better. I thought of all of the characters in English voices, and they all really started to pop.

Such as the word “surreptitiously”. If you say that a Midwestern American, it sounds pretty terrible. That’s probably why we don’t use it. (At least, I don’t use it, and don’t know anyone who does.) When you say it as JK Rowling though, in British English, it sounds amazing. It flows and rolls, and is suddenly, incredibly fun to say.

Parker has been watching climbing videos, of these guys in London, and in one of the videos they said “mortifying”. It sounded great. In Midwestern American, “mortifying” does not sound that great. It sounds a little clunky. But in British English, “mortifying” sounds pretty amazing. Like “surreptitiously”.

Another word that I’ve just thought of: rancor. Say “rancor” in American English. Not sexy. Say “rancor” in British English. Sounds amazing.

The second book that I had gotten on a whim from the library, was much more engaging for me. It was funny and was flowing, and catching my interest. I liked the writing—it was the subject matter that was not for me. And that’s not surprising, because it was about a shopaholic wife who moves with her husband to LA and finds herself in famous circles, wanting to be a stylist for a famous actor. It was that kind of thing. I’m clearly not the target audience, no. It wasn’t meant for me. But I thought, why can’t I still enjoy it? Because I had thought that maybe I would, as I like antics, humor, and social commentary, etc. I think part of the deal as to why I didn’t want to keep going is that, unless there was some real great twist, and everything turns out to be an illusion or something, I knew from the beginning what the story was going to be about, and I personally didn’t care that much. It’s not a story I’m really interested in, even though I could tell it was going to be funny and entertaining.

After trying out those two books, I picked up the first Harry Potter book, just to see how it compared, and if I was just being biased or judgmental, whatever, based on my mood. But no—I was immediately sucked in. I liked the writing, I liked the flow and pacing. And already, I could see the seeds that were being planted, from those first paragraphs, the hints that were dropped, the story that was before us, about a strange world, about mysterious characters, evil… all of that. I could see how that pulled me in, me personally. Why that was something that I wanted to read.

Then, I moved on to Holly, Stephen King. And right away, I was interested. It was gruesome actually, and dark. As Stephen King often is, right? I have only actually read Misery, and that was a long time ago. But it was pulling me in. I wanted to know what was happening to this man, kind of, even though you knew it was some classic criminal-murderer-type stuff. I enjoyed his writing, his portrayal of characters, descriptions, etc. His voice. That’s what it is. His voice. And then, I was interested. What’s going on here? I want to know more. And so, this one, it pulled me in. The content is a little dark for me, not much whimsy in the tale, and crime stories are not my go-to, but I like the writing, and I want to see what happens. I want to study the master. I read about 100 pages last night.

Duewell’s Datura

Alright y’all, I got a scoop for you.

First of all, I don’t know how to spell this man’s name, and if it’s wrong, I’m sorry Duewell. I just went for a historic run, possibly my longest run, not sure. It was at least my most difficult run so far, since I’ve been running the last two-ish months, with my leg recovering and allowing me to go farther. It was at least 5.2 miles, maybe 5.5 miles of runnin’, and in the hot afternoon sun, 3 pm, blazing, over hills and along shadeless roads. I had to take some breaks and at one point laid down in the shade of a tree, when I opted to run through a golf course, taking a scenic and adventurous route, that ended up being horrible, and made me feel like I was stranded in the Sahara Desert. I actually had to bask in the single bit of shelter along that desert, and a bird chirped in the tree above me. I called out to it and said, “Help me, bird!” And then I thought, Why should that bird help me? “Help yourself!” I said, and got back up. What a beast. That’s some runner psychology right there. What do I need from that bird? (I think I wanted it to give me some water.) That bird doesn’t need to do a damn thing for me. And I kept battling.

I ended up getting kind of stuck on the golf course, because I couldn’t get to the road easily. There was a huge wooden palisade that prevented me from escaping. I either had to go all the way around it, retracing my steps by like, a mile, in the blazing sun (impossible), or I had to take a gamble and go through some woods and possibly end up in someone’s yard and/or be trapped. I opted for that, and it was a thrilling adventure, stumbling through uncharted territory, wondering if I would end up on someone’s property and get shot. I came out in an empty lot in part of a development complex, I knew exactly where I was. I felt like a deer that had been lost and had no idea where the hell it was, and I probably felt that way too because there actually were several deer in that strip of woods.

Well, the juicy bit I’ve got for you here — but wait, before that, I have to say something more, interesting, psychology here, about donuts and rewards. I had wanted donuts, and I got some, they were on sale, and I said to myself, “If I eat some donuts, I have to go for a run today.” That was my deal — I wanted to run, but not at that exact moment. Well, I had the donuts alright, they made me feel horrible, I fell asleep, and then I did the run because then I really needed it. And that was the deal I had made.

I ran, and the first 2 miles were awful. I felt horrible, and I thought, now this is your punishment, this is my punishment, for eating these shitty, garbage donuts, and I’ll never eat them again — and yet, I went on the run because of the donuts. I may have gone anyway, but I may not have. I was doing that run exactly because I had the donuts. And so, here’s the question: Donuts good? Donuts bad?

We have to say that it was good. But I look at the rest of the donuts on my counter, and I think, You are disgusting. Get away from me. I don’t want any more of you!!!

Taste so good. Make you feel so bad.

Now, on the very end of the run, I was in my neighborhood, so close to sweet relief, and I happened to see a man in snow-white hair out in his yard. (This is the main scoop.)

I’ve seen this man a handful of times, and he happens to have a stately home and garden. I would say that he has one of the most regal gardens in the neighborhood, and recently, I have been especially interested in his moonflowers. He has a large moonflower (Datura) plant in his yard, and moonflowers have been blooming recently. They’re amazing to see. I photographed this man’s just two days ago, in fact, because I wanted to a post of some of all the amazing plants in the neighborhood, so here you go.

I think you can see what I mean about him having a stately garden. Very trim and proper. Looks good, a different flavor from many of the other gardens in the neighborhood. Now, right now you don’t see any flowers — these flowers are shy. They don’t show in the heat, I think. They might only open at morning and night, or just the morning. I should know that by now, but I don’t. I just know that sometimes they’re open, but in the heat of the day, they’re closed, like morning glories. That’s why unfortunately you don’t see the flowers here, but you can still tell that they must be huge. They are enormous.

Now, I have been kind of confused about the name moonflower vs. datura, to tell you the truth, and I’m getting confused again because I’m reading a blog post about it. It seems that the definite correct name for this plant is Datura (the name for the genus), and the common name is moonflower, but that can also refer to another plant that has the common name moonflower, and is totally different. I’m going to keep calling it Datura, then, which is certifiably correct. That’s a cool word, anyway.

It seems that these are the species Datura innoxia, and are native to the Southwestern US, Central and South America. They are part of the Nightshade family (Solanaceae).

We are getting a little derailed, but this is important stuff. And I need to know it — you can know it, if you want. It’s good to know these things, right? Impress your friends with esoteric plant knowledge. (In gardening circles this is probably basic plant knowledge.)

This plant is quickly becoming my favorite plant, I see. I have never had a favorite plant, really. I have never cared that much about plants. But I thought, after coming and learning about Duewell’s Datura, that this might be now my favorite plant, because not only is the plant itself awesome. The caterpillars it attracts are just as awesome.

The SCOOP here, is that I saw this man with snow-white hair outside of his house, tending to his garden, with a watering can, and I thought, I have to talk to him. I have to tell him his Datura is awesome. I didn’t know if I should call it Datura or moonflower, at that time, and I ended up going with moonflower, because that’s what Aubrey, the garderner at Shelby Park called it. I called out to him, “Your moonflowers are awesome!”

He said thanks, and then, oh yes, he wanted to chat. Amazing.

This man gave me the TEA. He gave me the lore. I told him that I had been admiring them, and if they he had grown them from seed, or bought a plant, or if it had just popped up — he said it just showed up one day. He said he had some in the back, implying they could have come from there. That’s an amazing thing, first of all, that this amazing plant that has become a staple in his homefront garden display, simply appeared by itself. But we must remember that this man (possibly his partner as well, if they were involved) had the knowledge and intelligence to identify it as something good (well, desirable at least), and not pull it, and tend to it. I wonder if he knew beforehand what it was, or just let it go and then liked it. I would guess he knew because he had some in the back.

He said that he had to pull some this year, because it was doing so well and spreading. That’s how it goes with these plants, I read. Some of them do TOO well, and start taking over your garden. That’s not a bad problem to have though. Pulling is much easier than growing, it seems to me (I’m still a novice). Let’s look again at his marvelous Datura that has planted itself and now become an amazing feature in his landscape.

God, if only it was flowering in this photo!!!!! I can see how it could be getting a little out of hand. Well, Duewell told me that this plant that is thriving now, he said that he thought it would die last winter, it went all the way down to a single tiny nub (he showed me the size of the plant with his hand, nothing but his fist). He thought it was a goner. But no, it powered through, it’s made it. It’s been here for about three or four years, he said. And then he told me, as I said I had been gardening for just a few months, “If you want any, come back in the spring and I’ll give you some.”

When he said that, I just thought, Do all plant people just give their plants away? Do they all just hook each other up? Because basically, literally every time I have ever asked anyone about a plant that I’ve been interested in, they’ve hooked me up. They’ve literally given me the seeds, given me a chunk of the plant, or offered to give me the seeds/chunk of plant. How incredible is that? I got mountain mint from the gardener at Shelby, Patrick the neighbor offered to give me more, the gardener at Bates hooked me up with passionflower pods, and Deuwell says he would give me Datura seeds. All of this umprompted and unasked for. What an amazing culture! Gardeners are “real people.”

After discussing the Datura, our conversation turned to the neighborhood. I told him I was just down the street, he asked me about construction on a nearby house (it took me a minute to figure out which house he was talking about because there are so many houses under construction in the neighborhood, like 7 within a 100 meter radius) and then he told me about the house just next to his that had been torn down. I had mentioned that they were turning the house near mine into a duplex, “or maybe a mansion”, and he said that’s what they were doing with the house right next to his. They were building a mansion, a 2 million dollar home. Wowie. He said that the previous resident had lived there their entire life, and finally had to go to a nursing home at 92. Now, the home goes down (and it was not a mansion), and a new one is built.

We talked about the amazing growth of the neighborhood, the construction, rising home prices, people coming here from all over, he said “California”, and I asked how long he’d been in his home. He said it was a friend’s house really, and he was just staying there — his house had flooded in 2010. He told me about his experience in this historic flooding, which I had heard about from working at Gibson. (Several guests had asked me about how the flooding had affected Gibson, because apparently they had a warehouse or headquarters that were severely affected.) Duewell told me about his home in Belleview being underwater, he said the water in his house was 6 feet high. 6 FEET. Can’t even believe it.

I had heard the tales of the great Nashville flood, and I heard the tales again. You hear these tales, of great natural disasters, and talking with him about it made me think about my grandpa telling me about the Palm Sunday tornado in Indiana. Long time ago now, the youngsters don’t know about it. But he told me all about the Palm Sunday tornado. This man told me about the great Nashville flood of 2010, and many of the Kumamotoans told me about the Kumamoto earthquakes, of 2016 I think it was. And while I was there (2021 or 2022 was the year, only five or six years later, poor Kumamoto 😢), there was a great flood that destroyed a huge bridge and did heavy damage to the region. I saw that damage personally — that’s a disaster that I can actually report about.

Duewell mentioning the Nashville flood of 2010 made me think about the value of older people, their history and lore, and how they can remind us of and remember these significant events that don’t happen so often, but they do come around. They can tell you, “Hey, might want to be careful by the river, ‘cause that thang can flood. I seen it with my own eyes.” (Don’t know why I have my hypothetical older person talking like this.)

It was wonderful that my epic run (with some degree of suffering involved) ended with a lovely neighborhood chat about Datura, and beyond. I feel again that I am tapping into an entirely new world through gardening, a world that has existed and is known to many people, has been all around, and yet flown under my radar for so long.

Suddenly, I look around and I see these amazing gardens, I see Duewell’s Datura, and I think about how much knowledge, time, energy and work has been invested to make that happen. The skill, patience, ambition, vision that someone or maybe a couple, a family has invested to cultivate and arrange such a wonderful thing. It cannot happen overnight. You have to have an appreciation for that. And the fact that they desire to do it at all — it says something about the residents. You must feel that there’s a good person living in that house, a wholesome person. The chances are high.

And then… there’s my garden… yikes.