I’ve spent entirely too much time this week dealing with or writing about annoying things, to the point where the prospect of going to work today was not making me happy, so I decided yesterday that I’d take a vacation day and use it to get our patio more or less in order.

I picked up two giant planters and a bunch of potting mix from the store last night (and was able to haul it around back all by myself which is pretty amazing) and I’m planning on re-potting the mints that survived the winter in one of them and the other one will be for herbs that are yet to be purchased–I’ll be hitting up a local nursery for those and getting a hummingbird feeder while I’m at it. I think I’m also going to pick up some annuals to go in the pots that the mint is vacating, but I’m not sure what yet.

We also have a flower bed under our bedroom window that needs something done with it. Right now it’s full of red rock (sigh) and a few stumps. There are also weeds coming up, so I guess the first step is weeding the damn thing. I’m thinking that it may become either a small flower garden or a more extensive herb garden than what I can put in a planter. We’ll see.

At any rate, the yard is finally in good enough shape that our irritating neighbor can go jump off a bridge if she doesn’t like what we’re doing. Our style of landscaping is much less formal than hers and I’m much more inclined to let plants do what they want to do, as opposed to ruthlessly forcing them into conformity.

I may be overthinking this.

• Elsa Sjunneson-Henry on her artificial eye.
• A couple of great articles about getting stuff done when you’re not feeling your best:
  • How To Stay Amazingly Productive On Low Energy Days
  • Productivity for the Depressed
• Luke is right: The Jedi SHOULD be abolished
• It wasn’t until the artist complained about Fearless Girl that I knew that the charging bull with the gigantic testicles was supposed to represent the resilient spirit of the American people and not, you know, uncontrolled capitalism.
  • “She was paid for it, therefore it’s not art”
  • On Fearless Girl, women & public art; or, no, seriously, the guy does not have a point.
• “When it comes to harassment, there is no neutral, there is only tacit acceptance of the perpetrator.”
• Anatomy of an Outrage This is terrifying.
• From the no shit, Sherlock department: How Office Culture Can Crush Women’s Ambitions
• Lots of interesting things to chew on in this essay from Yoon Ha Lee: The problem with problematic
• Los Angeles Has America’s Most Important Orchestra. Period.
• The Heart of Whiteness: Ijeoma Oluo Interviews Rachel Dolezal, the White Woman Who Identifies as Black This is good work–Oluo makes it incredibly exactly what Dolezal is doing and how she’s basically not just appropriating a culture and history that isn’t hers, but also actively engaging in racist behaviors.
• And on a lighter note: On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint I’m not even going to lie: I am trying to think of a way to work this into a meeting at work.

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