-- Friday, February 11, 2000 --

7:42 p.m. Things are not always what they seem. As they're portrayed. Life as a photo. Sometimes it gets in the way. Take this nice, big plant in a too-small container. It's vivid and vibrant and growing every which way and its roots are being strangled as it grows increasingly in upon itself.

The photo was taken maybe two months ago. Maybe a little longer than that, but not by much. We've since repotted it, and it wasn't easy. By looking at it, you would have thought that all you had to do was to let it dry out, turn it on its side and tap tap tappy tap on the plastic pot. Right?

Well, no. We had to cut the pot away very carefully, little by little, making small grooves and then bending the plastic back and forth, trying to avoid nicking the roots with the little hacksaw. It took a long time, and it was murder trying to pull the pot away from the roots, even once it was all cut and splayed open as far as we could bend it.

But we eventually banged and yanked the plant out and put it in a bigger pot and watered it and fed it and in the very next wind storm it came crashing over, pulling itself out of the brand new pot. We tied it to the metal steps that are nearby, but not in the picture frame. And then the leaves began to drop off -- or rather the entire stem with leaves attached dropped off.

So now the plant, still tied up and hanging on, doesn't really look like this anymore. I'm too ashamed to take its picture, and I know I should in the interests of full disclosure. Which is what this entry is about, in a roundabout way. The interesting topic of full disclosure.

You see, many times this little square space of web front that I write in is not big enough to hold all the info, all the moments, any of the feelings, and precious little of the real flavor of any one day, or series of events. Yet, I want to plant a little bit of writing here, and tend it carefully and lovingly.

I am often muffled and stifled and frustrated that I can't really write about the big stuff, but the big stuff is often private and messy. You already know this about your own life -- if your mother calls, your look across the room and you close your eyes and describe a fantasy instead. If you work at home and the boss or a client calls, you straighten right up and pretend.

It's the same thing here. I've got a scrim pulled over the real life and whenever an elbow or a flying wedge of Halvarti hits the cloth from the other side, where the madness and the chaos roils, I say: "Oh yes -- this is the shape of my day today: a little bump here and another little bump ... here."

And then I go back behind the scrim and mix in with the real world. Twenty four hours pass. I step out front again. "Oh look!" I say. "Here's a raindrop on my favorite plant. Isn't this leaf a pretty green?"

And then back behind the scrim again, where I wring my hands and wonder what is going wrong with the damn thing -- I washed off the spider mites and I've watered it faithfully, but still every morning another leaf starts to turn a mottle and I know that another branch is doomed.

So, you must forgive me for my indirection and my distractions. It's the only possible way you can live a life and write about it every single day.

Consider this public journal form as the bonsai of the writing world.