[insert garden pun here]

working really hard

I was at my breaking point, it had been cold and wet and rainy long enough.  Last Saturday was beautiful but I was sick and lost the entire day on the couch.  By Sunday the rain had returned.  For the first time in my adult life I had a back yard of my own and the only one who was able to enjoy it was my dog.

Well, the weather gods blessed us with another beautiful weekend (a chilly weekend for Los Angeles) Sunday I took the full advantage of the day.

i even taught jaime to garden

The morning began with a trip to Garden Sphere in Tacoma, thanks to Groupon who ran a deal: $20 for a $40 gift card.  This was exactly the opportunity I’d been waiting for, to finally stock up on everything in needed for the garden; seeds, starters, and supplies.

chocolate tomato plant with hidden marigold seeds

I’m not well experienced in what gardening stores look like or should look like, but in my opinion Garden Sphere is a great place.  Knowledgable staff, nice selection, perhaps a little pricy but all in all it was a fun experience.  Also they had chickens and baby chicks in the back.

Most of my planters and pots were ready, I needed only to get the starters planted and seeds in the ground.  So here is a list of what I planted.

-cilantro (starter)

-moroccan spearmint (starter)

-sage (starter)

-walla walla onions (starters)

-broccoli (seeds)

-carrots (seeds)

-cucumber (seeds)

-pole beans (seeds)

artichoke and two chinese cabbages

I combined these with what my Guru had given me the previous evening.

-artichoke (starter)

-chinese cabbage (starter)

-chocolate tomato plant (starter)

-more lettuce (starter)

I also bought a few flowers at Garden Sphere, I didn’t choose them for any reason other than I just liked how they looked in the pictures.  I also bought some Marigolds which were to be planted along with the Chocolate tomatoes.  My Guru informed me that planting marigolds will help keep bugs off the tomatoes as they do not have an appealing smell to them.

olive, not working hard at all

The beautiful turned into a fantastic evening. I invited my parents over for dinner, and it stayed warm long enough to sit on the patio and enjoy a barbecued dinner (flank steak, bok choy, and asparagus).  The lights I hung earlier in the afternoon shown like stars as the sun began to set.  I could not have asked for a better day to lift me from my depression and fill me with excitement for what I hope are many more similar days this summer.

posted by: brian snider

i know we haven't always seen eye to eye

not the actual card, but same idea.

April has drawn to a close and what I call “Card buying season” has begun.  This is the three month period  from May to July.  During this time there is: Mothers Day, Father’s Day, eight birthdays, and Jaime and I’s anniversary.  I need to buy cards for each of these occasions.

I’m not the first to point out that buying greeting cards is an odd experience.  They contain pictures, messages, and meanings that we should be conveying ourselves but instead we leave this up to some underpaid copywriter at Hallmark.

It occurred to me at some point that the Greeting Card industry has become so homogenized that every birthday, holiday, or one of a hundred other special occasions have the same twenty four cards.  With so few in circulation the ability to be original has diminished, and the chances that you might get some the same card as someone else is not unlikely.

To combat this I would go in search of cards inappropriate for the occasion.  Daughter to mother for Mother’s Day, Grandson to Grand father for my dad on Father’s Day.  My personal favorite was to buy birthday cards for the wrong age.  Nothing could please me more than to watch an adult open a Spongebob or Dora the Explorer card.  Likewise I would giggle incessantly as little kids opened tasteful cards with big loopy cursive letters celebrating Grandma’s 93rd Birthday.

I did this for years thinking that I was being terribly original.  At least up until about five years ago when I witnessed an exchange take place in a store.

In college Jaime worked two stints at Papyrus stationary store.  While waiting for her to get off work one day I watched two frat boys walk in.  I’m a judgmental person and immediately began to mentally ridicule their backwards hats, novelty t-shirts, and those True Religion jeans that they might was well just call Dousche.

I was trying to keep my distance when I overheard one of them say, “Hey, you know what I like to do?”  He laughed like a hyena, “I like to buy cards for people for the wrong age.  It’s hilarious.”  He said this like his idea was genius, forget the Marx Brothers, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, or Richard Pryor, this guy was breaking new comedy ground with his card idea.

I silently mocked him before I realized that I was guilty of the exact same thing.  Shame overtook me and if I and that guy found the same stupid jokes funny, then I couldn’t do them anymore.  I quit cold turkey.

Later that same year however, I found myself driving down to my Dad’s house realizing I forgot to get him a Father’s day card.  I pulled into Safeway and walked up and down the card aisle.

They had been picked clean.  This was not a matter of finding the right card, but of finding any card at all.  There were two left, one generic that said simply, “Dad, you’re the greatest!  Happy Father’s Day.”  This is fine if you have nothing else to give, but there was one other card on the shelf, one that caught my eye.

On the front of the card was a picture of a father and son fishing at the edge of a serene lake.  It read, “Dad, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye.... But I love you.  Happy Father’s Day.”  I immediately knew which card to buy.  This was genius, I cracked a huge smile in the aisle just picturing the type of person who seriously buys this card.

A man in his 30’s or 40’s with a wife and kids.  He and his father have had a rough relationship and now he spends his time in therapy.  He’s an emotional guy though and can’t not get his dad a card.  The “You’re the greatest,” card is out of the question.  He considers something humorous but knows that to give this would only ignore their past history.  Then he comes across this card, it conveys everything a card for a father and son in their situation should convey.  He buys it.

I waited with excited anticipation the entire night for my dad to open the card.  After he tore open the envelope and slid the card out there was a moment of confusion, then he lightly chuckled.  The enormous grin on my face melted.  I was a comedian bombing on stage at a night club, the audience was just too polite and chuckled accordingly.

I wrote the card off as a failure that just didn’t have the comic absurdity I was aiming for.  Instead it said, “Sorry Dad, I waited till the last minute and this was the only card left.”

Afterwards my dad seemed a little bothered, not depressed, but confused.  When dinner was over he and I sat by ourselves at the table.  I watched as he picked up the card again and carefully read the front then the inside.  “So I don’t understand,” he said to me.  “Is this how you feel?”

I was not a comedian bombing, I was performing an act, only the audience wasn’t sure if I meant what I was saying or not.  They tried to play along but really they didn’t get the joke at all.

The night was awkward, had I to do it all over again I would have bought the generic card and looked plain and not clever or funny.  Since that day I have not bought inappropriate cards, between the frat boy and an uncomfortable Father’s Day I decided to play it safe.  If I bought the same card as someone else, oh well, it appears that most people prefer the comedy of a Hallmark writer than mine.

posted by brian snider

don't call it a wedding

Jaime and I have been asked numerous times why we decided to get married.  At first I wasn’t sure how to answer the question, aside from the obvious: love.  It was some months later when Jaime hypothesized that perhaps the driving factor in our decision was the move to Los Angeles.

Just six months earlier we were proclaiming that we wouldn’t be marrying for years and yet here we were jumping right into the water without even checking its depth.  I tend to agree with Jaime, in Seattle life was easy, there were always friends and family nearby and though we lived together it was not uncommon for us to do things separately.  Once we got to LA all that changed.

Nearly every waking moment not spent at work was spent together.  We relied and depended on each other in ways we never had to before.  Whatever the little voice in our heads that was telling us not to get married had in six short months been silenced.

Initially we decided not to announce our engagement until May when we would be talking a trip home to Seattle.  By the next day however Jaime had told all her friends, family, and practically anyone who would listen to her.  I should have known that she couldn’t keep a secret.  This is the girl who has to do birthday shopping last minute because if she doesn’t the temptation to give the gifts early is too great.

I resisted that temptation, not only because it felt tacky to tell people over the phone. (See daily observation #002) but because I wasn’t sure how my parents would take the news.  They are practical people and with the economy teetering on the edge of implosion, our unsteady employment situation, and the financial commitment a wedding poses, I expected them to be less than thrilled.

To combat any potential negative reaction they might have, I decided to have as much of the wedding planned as possible before we told them.  This way we could go to them with an actual cost analysis and prove to them that in fact it was feasible.  I won’t lie however, at the time even I didn’t think a wedding was feasible.

The two biggest expenses were the Wedding Venue (and all the charges that accrues) and Jaime’s dress.  Almost immediately she began searching for the dress.

We weren’t having a traditional wedding, so I helped her choose the dress or at least the style online.  I did what to be surprised on the day of the wedding and not see her in it till then.  I don’t remember exactly how many weeks she searched but it didn’t seem like many before she headed out on a Saturday afternoon with Annika to do some dress shopping in person.

A few hours later I got a call saying that she’d found the dress.  She bought it and that was that, check dress off the list.  Now to find a venue for the ceremony and reception.

The wedding was to be held in Seattle, this is where our search began.  It became apparent immediately that our initial plans of holding the reception in my parents back yard would not work.  Early liberal estimates had the guest list at well over one hundred, even if we managed to cut that down as low as eighty it would still be maxing out available space.  So we began to search for other options.

The first lesson we learned (if you’re planning on holding your own wedding write this down and remember it) don’t call it a wedding.  As soon as you say that magic word the price of just about everything doubles or even triples.  Say “these flowers are for a party. We’ll be throwing a party.  This is a birthday cake.”

The next lesson we learned is that while it is entirely possible to find an affordable space for the reception, they force you to use their catering service which is severely overpriced and often, less than stellar food.

We’d called over a dozen places and didn’t even have anything on a short list.  We couldn’t afford any of them.  In a moment of desperation we called Cornish, our alma mater hoping to use Raisebeck theater, but even they turned us down.

By the way, did you know that in order to throw a party at a state park you have to pay.  $200 per hour, even if you’re only going to be there ten minutes it’s still $200.  Even what seemed like the cheapest option wasn’t even cheap.

The last place Jaime called was Ivar’s Salmon house (the nice restaurant at the north end of Lake Union not their fast food stand).  It seemed like a long shot but we loved the restaurant, it provided a wonderful view of the city right on the water, and boasted a beautifully remodeled banquet room.

As it turns out there was no deposit required for the room, the only requirement was that you spent at least $1500 on their delicious food.  For no fewer than seventy people this would not be a problem.

Here we were, a month into our engagement, we had a date, a dress, and a venue.  Though I’d still yet to present.  Jaime with her ring and ask the most important question of all. 

posted by: brian snider

splitting hairs

It feels weird to “introduce” myself when for months now some of you have already been reading about my life. When Brian asked me to start writing for his blog I jumped at the chance, if for no other reason then, now I get to talk about some of his more embarrassing moments (I kid, I kid!)

Really I’m very excited to write for B’s blog! I’m currently writing a blog for my company Fierce, Inc. and, as a young writer, I always love the chance to write more!

The men in my life have always been fascinated with my hair. Their obsession baffles me as its always been my biggest pain in the ass. It’s thick, curly or wavy and usually is copping major attitude. It can be tamed, but it involves copious amounts of liquid and heat and is a laborious process.

I often talked about cutting it really short, but Brian always through a fit. This fit usually included begging and tears, so I just left it long. Six months before we got married I decided enough was enough, and after the wedding, I was chopping it off. When I told B he laughed in my face. Brian should know better than to ever dare me, but he couldn't help himself, and he called my bluff. It was on! It was on like Donkey Kong.

Please don’t get confused, I didn't want to cut my hair just to piss him off. However, if he was going to be glib I wasn't going to endear myself to his point of view.

So two years ago, one week after our wedding, I walked to the salon across the street from my house and had them take the scissors to my long curly mane. The stylist, afraid of some impending freak out due to shock, wouldn't go pixie short and instead left me with a Kate Plus 8 type haircut. It was horrible. I hated it instantly, but he talked me into going home for the night, and if I still didn't like it the next day to come back and he would ‘go all the way.’

To my surprise B liked it. This was further proof to me that I hated it. After an embarrassing trip to Target, that included me pulling my hood over my head the whole time and Brian getting very pissed off at me, I knew that I would be making a trip back to the salon the next day.

I didn't tell B about my decision, and so when he came home to find his wife with shorter hair than his, his reaction was to be a total asshole.

He continued to be an asshole for weeks after, until a combination of my tears and stern looks from his parents forced him to apologize. His point was clear though; he hated my hair and so I began to hate my hair. I immediately began to grow it back out.This process totally blows (btw), but after two years I finally grew it down to my shoulders. B was so happy, the liquid and heat had returned and hours of my time was now being consumed by my hair.

A very complex part of a relationship is the area concerning looks. I’m at the point in my life where I’m trying to determine; just how much what I look like has to do with my identity. Add in the extra layer that I want another person to want to have sex with me on a regular basis, and I do feel an obligation to stay attractive for my spouse. This thought process is how you end up with the cluster-fuck that is happening inside my head.

Brian likes long, curly, beautiful Cosmopolitan magazine type hair, I don’t want that to be my identity. It recently became clear to me that I needed to give the pixie hair cut another chance.This was news I wasn't looking forward to breaking to Brian again.

Nobody can fully prepare you for the crazy shit that happens in a relationship. If someone had told me that being married would involve deep conversations about hair, I would have thought marriage was bullshit, because you can’t just do something without taking the other persons feelings into account. Brian did not disappoint me though, he totally manned up and came through. Maybe it is bullshit that Brian cares so much about my hair or that I care so much about what he thinks, but nonetheless he put his feelings aside and took one for the team. He even went so far as to help me pick a style of pixie cut he thought was somewhat sexy.

I’m excited for the new me, which feels a lot like the old me--just with less liquid, heat and more time on my hands!

posted by: jaime navarro

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

"ch-ch-ch-ch-changes" david bowie

dear readers

I want to begin by thanking you.  At the end of each day I check the stats of the blog just to see how we’re doing and every day we meet or exceed my expectations.  I can’t believe that after five months I’ve managed to amass over forty posts and as many fans as we have.

Changes are abound for the blog.  First of all you are going to be seeing new contributors.  I began the blog as a way to document my time in Los Angeles and report on the observations, conundrums, frustrations, joys, and liberations of my daily life in both the real world and the digital realm.  It occurred to me some time ago however that being only one man with only my opinions the blog may not be offering up the highest quality experience.  If I was able to have multiple contributors collaborating with me, they would add new experiences and points of view.

The first new contributor will be Jaime Navarro, my wife.  I asked her to write for the blog not because she is my wife but because she is a great writer.  You can currently see her write one to two blogs a week for Fierce Inc. where she tackles topics on business leadership, communication and some other topics I don’t quite understand.

The other big change coming to the blog is going to be a slight name change.  I love secretly, i’m an important man, however that name was fit for just myself and as I add contributors to the blog especially those who are not men it begins to make less sense.  We will now be going by secretly important, which is a little catchier and encompasses anyone who might write for the blog.  The url for the blog has always been www.secretlyimportant.blogspot.com so really the name change is mostly vanity.

Lastly, you may or may not be aware that we also have a facebook fan page which you can find here http://www.facebook.com/pages/Secretly-important/176164499098145.  Or if you are so inclined just click on the little picture of the internaut on the right side of the blog tool bar.  If you have not already done so please like us on facebook.  Why should you do this?  Well, I prefer not to write little newsletters like this directly on the blog and prefer it to be devoted to new content and would like all news or possible events concerning the blog to be displayed on the facebook page.

Thank you all again for your continued support as this blog grows.  I always appreciate your questions, comments, or concerns and if you enjoy a post please don’t be afraid to share and repost it.

Thank you,

brian 
posted by: brian snider

just kids

can't recommend this book enough

I don’t need to write a review of this book.  It has already gained high praise from many critics including winning the national book award for nonfiction.  That said, I was surprised by just how incredible the book was, and so I wanted to share it with you in hopes that you’ll come to enjoy its magnificence too.

I know that a book is truly exceptional when I read the end and ignoring all my instincts as a writer, I wish that there were another three hundred pages.  I just was not ready to leave the world of this book.

Just Kids is musician/poet/artist Patti Smith’s tale of her life with controversial artist/photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, from the late 1960’s through the 70’s and into the 80’s ending with Roberts death from AIDS in 1989.

Smith begins the book with a brief account of her early life and then like a spider begins to spin an incredible web as she recounts meeting, becoming lovers and best friends with Mapplethorpe.  Her web extends from Brooklyn to the Village and includes the Chelsea Hotel, Max’s: Kansas City, and CBGB’s.  She ensnares and extracts stories of her various encounters; her relationship with Sam Shepard, Allan Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Robert Mappelthorpe’s eventual partner Sam Waggstaff.

Her experience as a poet allows her to manipulate language and summon up horrifying, beautiful, and romantic images.  She has an innate ability to let her voice in the book grow from that of a naive twenty year old struggling to find work and places to spend the night in New York.  Then into an experienced mother of two lovingly describing the final time a very ill Mapelthorpe photographed her as she held her newly born daughter Jesse.

The book is uniquely her voice, I could easily hear her speaking it as I read.  While you should despise her as a name dropping pretentious artist, but instead you fall in love with her as she very honestly tells the story.

I usually expect the authors of these books to paint a more flattering picture of themselves, however Smith seemed not to censor herself exposing honest feelings that surprised me. I expected Smith to be an unabashed supporter of Mappelthorpe’s more controversial pictures, instead she freely admits that much of his work challenged her and sometimes found them difficult to understand.

Occasionally in telling the story she would arrive at a period where events were fuzzy and incomplete, she would piece them together brilliantly using small nostalgic vignettes.

The book ends with a mystic meditation on life and death as it becomes a love letter for her and Robert Mapplethorpe, New York city, and an incredible time in America full of good, bad, evil and almost indescribable beauty.

This book was recommended to me by Jaime who read and fell in love with it first.  One selfish evening in LA last year I denied her the opportunity to see Patti Smith at Skylight books and tried to make up for that with a signed first edition copy for Christmas.  I now recommend this book to you, I guaranty you won’t be disappointed. 
posted by: brian snider

bad omen

this bunny is very cute and alive

As I mentioned in on dedication I write all my posts out longhand on yellow junior legal note paper before I type them up in the evening.  Well, on Friday in the midst of a cold induced haze I left my irreplaceable note pad in my cubicle, thus my scheduled post will have to wait until Tuesday.  I did however have an odd experience that I felt I should share with you and perhaps someone can tell me if this is a bad omen.

Saturday afternoon while lounging around on the couch catching up on some Netflix documentaries (this included Exit through the gift shop, Black White and Gray, and Art and Copy) I noticed two cats stalking around my back yard.  A large white fluffy cat who tortures my own cats by simply being outside and infuriates Olive by being in her back yard.

I also noticed a new all black cat, it was slightly larger than the white cat and not fluffy, but muscular.  I watched them as they hung around the yard like a couple of bored gang members looking for some hapless individual to jump and steal their wallet.

They played around the creek for a while then basked in the sunlight on top of a brush pile.  I was surprised that to see that by 6:00 that evening they were still hanging around, as usually they wouldn’t hang out for more than an hour or two.

It was then that Jaime informed me of a hapless victim, a small baby bunny laying on it’s side in the grass.  I went outside to inspect and there it was, small helpless and definitely dead, though its exposed eye was closed and except for the frozen position of mid stride it could have been sleeping.

The two cats hovered about twenty feet away, casually watching as I inspected what I was beginning to assume was their kill.

Not having a shovel, and not wanting to dump the body in the creek, I decided to throw it in the garbage.  I went into the house and found a thick plastic bag and then marched back out into the yard.  I took a closer look at the corpse and noticed that its belly had been gashed and I could see gray colored intestines spilling out.

 The cats continued watched, their vicious little faces full of false innocence as I turned the bag inside out in my hand and slowly pulled the bunny into the bag.

The body was tiny but much heavier then I had anticipated.  Once it was all the way in I dashed out front to the trash can as fast as I could.  There was an irrational fear in my mind that at any moment the bunny would jump back to live and thrash about in the bag.

I dropped the bag in the trash, eulogized the bunny then walked away hoping that no one would need to fish anything out of the garbage and find the dead body.  On my way back in the house I wondered if it was a bad omen to find a dead bunny the day before Easter.

It can’t be a good omen and certainly for me there is a small amount of death surrounding Easter.  Dada died the day after Easter and ever since Jaime has worried that something bad will happen on or around that day.  Last year Olive took a spill off a park bench and landed on her head.  Even after the vet confirmed that she was fine Jaime continued to worry fueled by the fear that Easter was just two days away.

Personally I don’t believe in bad omens, and as someone who really doesn’t celebrate Easter beyond indulging in Peeps, jelly beans, and Cadbury Cream eggs, any meaning of the holiday is lost on me.  Certainly however finding a slain bunny in your back yard the day before Easter is not a sign of good luck.
posted by: brian snider