Reading: Middlemarch and not Daughter of Fortune anymore. I left Artist of the Floating World at home by accident and bought Empire Falls to stave off the horror of booklessness.

Listening: How Green Was My Valley. When I do walk to work, which I tell myself I'm going to do next week.

Watching: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season three. My favorite "Sex and the City" episode, "Evolution."

Moving: Nada

26 July 2002: Leggy

Today I finally remembered to bring home two boxes for Haitch. Recently they've been scarce on the ground, what with packing for the Big Top. So I was proud.

Another thing from "Buffy" has crashed my disbelief: Mr. Pitt from Seinfeld playing an villainous mastermind. I can't get over what happened to Willow's flute at band camp; I can't believe in that anyone who was so desperate for the right socks is a genius. I called Haitch unable to recall his name, but lo, I remembered on my own.

Another movie scene has struck me as a favorite: Ferris Bueller lip-synching "Twist and Shout." Hey, I was in twelfth grade when that movie came out. I was powerless to resist it.

This occurs to me mostly because that's what was happening when I found it channel-hopping today and partly because today a coworker one year younger than I told me I was the poster child of Generation X, which he meant and I took as a compliment. But I had to tell him that I cannot be, because to my recollection I have never seen an episode of "Sesame Street."

What I said that inspired him to dub me thus I don't recall. "Sesame Street" or not, I do carry the markers of my generation. "Ferris Bueller" and something else. I must confess I almost quoted "Forrest Gump" today (that's not the something else). Trey and I realized we had not seen Io at all today, and this was his last day. I remembered his and my conversation yesterday and my face contorted as I fought against saying, "If I'd known this was the last time I could talk to him I'd've thought of something better to say." Or whatever. I am relieved that I am not certain of the quote; that a paraphrase came to mind is bad enough. I sank my head to Trey's shoulder and begged "Administer some 'Breakfast Club'--stat!"

That was the something else, but not what made the other person call me Gen-X though. Damn. What was it?

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This morning I left some cucumbers on Babushka's porch. I planted them specifically for her, but they were a good choice for the garden. They're thriving, possibly at the expense of the green beans (which last year were crowded out by zucchini, or maybe green beans just don't like me). I picked another for my salad tonight, and one cherry tomato (the second; in a week there'll be dozens). The raspberries produce canes enthusiastically but not berries--and I cut down last year's canes, so these are all new, yet still nonproducing. The other tomatoes are coming along, and some of the carrot seeds did germinate.

I have to call High Country Gardens to ask about what to do with leggy catmint. That's by far the most successful species I planted, to the point that some individuals are thinning in their centers. Can I take cuttings and plant them elsewhere? The north half of the front yard certainly could use something that tolerates heat. The grass sure doesn't. RDC wanted to try to keep the grass alive, an effort I left up to him because I didn't care. We have bare dirt, which doesn't bother me too much.

However, the damn sparrows are getting excessive. That they take dirt baths around the olive stump doesn't bother me: I ripped out all those weeds but can't grow morning glories in their place. So now I call the dirt deliberate, for the birds' sake. That dirt is deliberate. The sparrows are not welcome to dig into new dirt, but of course they have. They're dirt-bathing in the front yard now too, creating wallows that will grow violets (feasibly johnny-jump-ups) where one day a small child will be temporarily lost.

Whoa, that felt good. A book instead of a movie reference.

On that positive note, I am going to take Dorothea Casaubon to bed. The poor thing needs some fun in her deprived life.