Insanity, defined.

Or: Why do I continue to hold onto any shred of optimism?

Put my profile back online a couple of weeks ago. I have not had good luck with Internet dating in the past, so why do this to myself? Again?

I first tried the online thing a few months after I got back from NH. Right off the bat I met this Buddhist computer geek from Omaha. We dated for a couple months, until I realized I really didn't like him; he just wasn't a nice person. Angriest Buddhist I've ever met.

Then I went on a long series of first dates; in no instance was a second date warranted.

This time around, I've had a couple of dates with the only guy so far who seems even remotely interesting. In writing, he's a real catch -- a constant reader, into hip local music and art, extremely well-written but obviously not a nerd. He seems like a great guy in person, too, so it's disappointing to meet and realize just ain't no spark gonna fly. Sometimes I wish I'd never felt such sparks, as now I maybe wouldn't be so insistent on finding them again; but then, I'd still feel trapped in a life I didn't really want to be living.

Related quote of the day:
"She's an optimist with no reason for optimism." -- Ladette Randolph, "This is Not the Tropics"

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Somewhere this week I stumbled upon the concept that gardening with native plants is antihumanist. A perfunctory Google search turned up this piece by Michael Pollan, a writer I adore, rather pettily responding to a rather petty notion that by planting in straight rows rather than curving arcs, the local gardener is behaving "irresponsibly."

By that argument, wouldn't anything we plant, in any pattern, be dishonest? Even to tilling up the soil in the first place? To say nothing of the past 200 years of organized agriculture.

Yet Pollan is shallow in waving off any idea of "natural" gardening as hysteria (and basically calling the results ugly, to boot).

The reasons for using native plants are obvious: Those best-suited to the habitat will require the least care. Especially here on the hot, humid Plains, anything that grows with little water is a far more responsible choice than a bed of impatiens. And the local ecosystem depends on particular species of plants.

Then there's the desire to preserve, however impossible in practice, some semblance of the past. Save for one preserved expanse somewhere in Kansas, and supposedly Nine-Mile Prairie north of town here, there's no original tallgrass prairie left on the Plains. Why not try to coax those hardiest and most amenable prairie plants back into our daily visionscape?

I've planted have a selection of native grasses into the nonlinear but certainly not "natural" bed in my backyard. On other hand, I'm certainly not above tossing a few exotic-looking cannas into the mix, nor a few water-hogging hanging baskets for the front porch.

The article's some 13 years old now, so perhaps the original argument and Pollan's kneejerk response to it have both been tempered somewhat.

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Stopped by the brother's house this afternoon. I commented on the Band-Aid that 5-year-old Chip was sporting on his forearm. "Yeah," he sighed, pointing out various other points of previous exit, "I'm losing all my blood." So matter-of-fact about it. Hemorrhage, shmemorrhage. Reminds me of the time his father threw a temper tantrum in the doctor's office, getting shots for kindergarten, wailing, "They're taking all my Indian blood!" This just after our grandpa had told us we have Cherokee ancestry. Supposedly.

And Ryan's finally toddling about, and thus begins the hair-raising, air-sucking period of watching him negotiate sharp corners and stairs. He's also kissing -- wet, open-lipped bestowments, and he won't settle for it if you offer his cheek, no; he's a full-on-mouth-kiss kinda guy.

Rest of the weekend's been good. Impromptu dinner party last night; a hard 25 miles with William this morning (most of it into the wind); a couple hours' worth of weeding (but Miz K insists it's her turn to mow, and who am I to disappoint her?), a couple of new books to read ("Myself With Others," essays by Carlos Fuentes; "Speak, Memory," memoir by Nabokov, both via Bluestem.). Learning to relax into my weekends instead of turning them into a 48-hour task checklist; the floors may be crunchy underfoot, but I'm a lot calmer and happier.