Dichotomist dilemmas

I have long considered myself to be a strange dichotomy of a tomboy and a girly-girl.*

As long as I can remember, I have loved climbing trees. But at the same time, although I love my church here in NJ and the fact that casual dress on Sundays makes the average Joe feel more welcome, a part of me is frustrated at the missed opportunity to dress up.

I like construction work, but love to get my nails done.

I enjoy working hard, getting dirty, and working up a sweat - but I like to get dressed up and wear make-up and jewelry.

I think that hanging sheetrock is fun, but so is making cookies.

I have had a few jobs where the ratio of men to women was around 50:1 (mainly because of the physical labor aspect). In fact, in one such job, my friends called me "the Proverbial Man."** But in community college, I stuck out a bit because I tended to wear skirts and dress up more than the average girl.***

Thus, wouldn't it seem natural that I would enjoy gardening? It is frequently viewed as a feminine art (especially if you're talking about flower gardens), but it involves dirt and the outdoors. However, when it comes to plants, I have always admitted that I have a brown thumb. I either drown plants, or they die of thirst. I don't know what it is. When I moved out here, there was a potted plant in my room that was supposed to be very hardy and not easy to kill. It may have lasted a couple of months. And that's probably just because the woman who cleans every week watered it. I think it's funny that sometimes people say that being able to keep a plant alive is a good precursor to raising a child. A child, I can keep alive; a plant, not so much. I can probably attribute a lot of it to ignorance. How do you know how often to water a plant? How much water do you give it? I don't know the answers to these questions, and apparently, I don't do too well at guessing. A baby is easier to figure out - you just feed them until they stop crying.

At any rate, when my boss asked me a couple of months ago if I wanted to get flowers for the deck, I told her that I consider myself to have a brown thumb, but I could give it a shot. Unfortunately, she took me at my word.

So naturally, I took care of all of my other tasks first, and saved this one for last. Finally, when I didn't feel like I could wait any longer, I went to the local nursery (again with the plant-baby analogy - doesn't work for me, people).

I wandered among the plants for a good fifteen minutes before I called my mom for help.**** Half an hour later, I left with several plants, some potting soil, some peat moss (which I had always thought was green - evidence of my ignorance), a pair of gloves, and optimistic thoughts.

They look innocent, don't they?

So I gathered all of my materials and laid them out on a garbage sack on the deck.

But as I walked back out on the deck with the bag of potting soil, I noticed that the flowers were just sitting there - staring me down.

Fortunately, I knew what to do in this sort of a situation. I put on some beats. And some good beats, at that.

Then I planted the flowers. As of today, they have survived two weeks since the day I planted them. Time will tell if they can last the summer.

*For lack of a better term - does anyone know of a better term? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

**The story goes: I was fast and good at my job, so they would have called me "the Man," but clearly, I was not a man. Hence, "the Proverbial Man." Admittedly, a portion of this can be attributed to a fiercely competitive streak, which I always thought I hid well - but apparently not...

***Granted, this was in a small town where everyone dressed the same and I had just moved back from the NYC metro area where I had felt liberated to express myself.

****I have come to the conclusion that one never gives up calling one's mom and asking for help.