Noise in the Shape of Writing

When I first got this here house, I didn't like the lawn. I feared it. It would grow and grow and taunt me to cut it.

I resisted.

But it was stonger than I. So I submitted to it's power and bought a lawnmower. Then the weeds grew at the edges, so I bought an edger. Then the trees began to drop leaves so soon I had a blower.

I now own all 237 yard implements known to man. Even then aerator (which is NOT nearly as fun as it may sound).

And yet until recently I still feared my lawn. It's unsightly in many places and try as I might, it always looked like a dump. It made me buy new sprinkler heads for it. It ate the wires that ran underneath it to power the back yard sprinkler timer. It grew up and over the rocks that my wife tastefully strew along the edge. It died in many places.

And every time I went out with my weedwhacker and bush trimmer in tow, I just knew the neighbors were judging me. "Look a him kill that lawn!" "Ha! He can't even keep the roses alive." "He holds that edger like a sissy!"

I was pretty sure they were all watching from their windows and laughing. Of course I am pretty much the only one left who does his own yard work. There are wiry hispanic men who seem to be everywhere at once... skittish clones of each other who somehow appear to be servicing every house in the tract at the same time. They glower at me with Stepford eyes that seem to say "Why don't you give us money to do that for you. Everyone else is. You suck!"

But here I am, beer in hand, shaping bushes into geometric topiary (I learned that word from Zork 2!!). It's been almost 8 years, but I think by now if I haven't turned the whole thing into a desert wasteland then I guess I can hold my own.

I still think they're watching me, but it's probably out of amazement that I can hold a Guiness and push a lawnmower.