I headed down to their dock. This guy looked menacing from a distance, but up close was a sweetheart.

The garden center didn't have seed starter, so I settled for potting soil.  This old girl (named Brooklyn) guards the check-out desk; she was found in a darkened cellar, malnourished and wary, but now rules the counter confidently and even demands that people share croissants with her.

 
Liberty also no longer had their stock clustered along the pier, but their adjacent field is still brushed by salty breezes and within earshot of chiming buoys in the harbor.

There are zany mini-gardens with found artifacts; one features a boat, another a row of some sort of pumps.

The area has a cluster of odd, artsy businesses--a glassworks, a framer, and a place selling very overpriced key lime pies. It is also home to a huge satellite dish and tower.

Even on the surrounding hardscrabble streets, more gardens flourished. I've never seen such wonderful hollyhocks growing at curbside.  

It's no wonder that hipsters and preservationists fall in love with this strange neighborhood. The remnants of its dock-walloping past, mostly in ruins, make you feel wild and knowing just for walking around down there.

But ruins are tricky things to freeze in time, and they tend to be less beloved by natives than by visitors and newcomers. Speaking of which, I passed the hysteria-inducing Swedish meatball emporium on my way home; it seemed downright deserted, with many workers in reflective vests stationed around the perimeter to direct traffic that wasn't there yet.  

He wasn't always this funny or this wise. (I am thinking of his "why is having an abortion any worse than making an omelette?" argument.) But when it came to two of my obsessions, Houses and Stuff, George got it right like a Zen master. Here's a houseblogger's tribute: Carlin, free-versified. (Or catch him here.)

That’s the whole meaning of life, isn’t it:

            trying to find a place

                    for your stuff?

That’s all your house is;

your house is just a place

for your stuff.

If you didn’t have

            so much

                        goddamn

                                    stuff,

you wouldn’t need a house.

You could just walk around all the time.

That’s all your house is,

           just a pile of stuff

                        with a cover on it.

You see that when you take off in an airplane

and you look down

and you see everybody’s got

a little pile of stuff.

Everybody’s got their own pile of stuff.

And when you leave your stuff,

you’ve gotta lock it up.

Wouldn’t want somebody to come by

and take some of your stuff.

            (They always take the good stuff…)

That’s all your house is:

            a place to keep your stuff

                        while you go out and get

                                    more stuff.

—George Carlin,  1937-2008

Photo: New York Times 

No, the CrazyStable is not on the tour; the studio where I engage in desultory flings with the book arts is tucked away on our top floor, and the logistical and housekeeping hurdles were just too daunting. (The whole scruffy-but-hip thing works a lot better in a loft.) But I will be showing some stuff in the lusciously appointed home of dear friend and studio tour founder/rabble-rouser Karen Friedland, who conjured this event out of the same fertile imagination that produces her vibrant paintings.

We had an opening reception for a group show tonight spread across two  local coffee shops, Connecticut Muffin and Vox Pop (above), on Cortelyou Road (both good places to start the tour this weekend, they'll have maps). I converted an accordion book from my Transformation Psalter to a sort of vertical triptych for the show;  it was the first time I've seen my work hung in a public place since high school, and it was ridiculously gratifying.

As was the proclamation issued to our fledgling project by Borough Prez Marty Markowitz (and presented by his stand-in, a lovely and self-possessed young lady named Jamilah Joseph, on the right next to impresario Karen). Everyone acts bemused by these proclamations, but they are big and beautifully lettered and secretly, we love them when they're all about us.

 Some day, maybe the tour will include my book-art atelier right here in the Stable. Until then, hope I see you in elegant borrowed digs this weekend.

Ms. Gould and her post-adolescent agonies are of secondary interest to me; what would be a shame would be if her angst were mistaken for "typical blogging." As someone pointed out at the recent Brooklyn Blogfest, the term "blog" has expanded so wildly that it is now no more informative than the word "book." The political screed-howlers and the Who-I-Boinked gossip girls apparently pull in the big numbers (filling, therefore, some demand, even if it's only for cubicle time-sucking, I guess).  But the world of online journaling is as vast as...the world itself. Many of the Times commenters sternly advised Ms. Gould to do something worthwhile with her copious free time, to "get a life" (building latrines in Guatamala was recommended). In doing so, they betrayed an earnest innocence of the staggering amount of work, prayer, art, activism, exploration, learning, and fellowship that already takes place in the blogosphere, once one gets out of the tawdry front window of sex and politics.  One could argue that Ms. Gould could save the world more efficiently by staying in her symbolic pajamas and blogging about Guatamalan latrine-building, thus knitting together through the mystery of Google every latrine-construction wonk and Guatamalan do-gooder on the planet into a force for good.

Of course, the real question raised for those of us who blog is: Why am I doing this, and am I a solipsistic oversharing ninny, too? I've given it plenty of thought, actually. Both my blogs began as ways to write for pleasure, to get back the joy of writing about what I love instead of what I'm paid to promote. (Even if that happens to be New and Effective Pharmacological Options for a Serious Medical Condition; Ask Your Doctor for More Information!) I've set myself some basic limits on how far family and friends are involved or identified, on what kind of language I'll use, on how personal I'll get; occasionally I bend those rules. In choosing topics, I usually opt for personal delight over readership stats, although I recognized Ms. Gould's crackhead-like response to a spike in readers just as Frodo recognized a bit of himself in Gollum, slavering for the Precious.

I've come to the conclusion that "blogging" is at heart about two things: our passions, and our longing to share them (which is to say, our dire craving for human connectedness). If my governing passion is my ego, then a blog about myself will be an extension of that self: vulnerable, narcissistic, and ultimately empty and sad. But so many people are sharing so many other passions--and not just the infinite sexual permutations that define the Internet's mucky bottomlands.  It would be a shame if Ms. Gould were seen, especially by the Times' cautious old-media types, as the Ur-Blogger, wallowing in pointless self-exposure.

In the few years I've been noodling around  the blogosphere, I've been gobsmacked at how many ways passion and connectedness can combine to make a better world. There are bloggers out there (funny, wildly readable, deeply moving) who are creating virtual communities for every rare disease and devastating disability known to man. There are photographers documenting secret gardens and public places in ways no one's ever seen before. Skills that once were esoteric and daunting--from cycling to knitting, from manuscript illumination to coding HTML--are now vast open workshops filled with eager neophytes and seasoned mentors in fluid, endless communication. Weasels are being exposed, flim-flammers outed. There is also endless silliness--I lost count at 50 when I tried to enumerate the Web's pug-dog blogs--but sometimes, silliness is what's needed.

And there are house blogs, where people who struggle with creaky old homes can trade stories, find sympathy, and get tips on grouting. I understand there is even a blog where some gal in Brooklyn brings you along every day to Prospect Park and shows you something marvelous. If in the course of reading my stuff, you find me, myself, and I appalling or fascinating, my Gollum-ego will, I admit, throb with some pixellated satisfaction. At some level, we're all "attention whores." But I can't imagine a blog that was All About Me any more than I would fancy a life that was All About Me.  There are so many more intriguing things to blog about, and to live for.

I will give the last word to George Bernard Shaw, who would have made one mad mother of all bloggers, baby:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

--Preface, Man and Superman    

Illustration: Edward Gorey 

 I am glad Spouse was not taken instead by these designey lamps from Site-Specific Design. They reminded me of Bestfriend's  warning: "There's a thin line between an outfit and a get-up." This is the lamp version of that maxim. Besides, it reminds me too much of some things that have emerged in the basement during heat waves and sewer clean-outs. Curiously, these lamps are part of a collection dubbed "Childhood Memories" by designer Rui Docouto.  Good luck with the therapy, fella!

Why wouldn't we be, when we had to wait amid the Japanese peonies? This display gets more fantastical every spring; the tree peonies in a rainbow of shocking colors are starting to look more like anime flowers than real ones. 

This year, I was oddly Zen about my purchases; I just wandered around one area and picked some stuff I liked, instead of fretting over plans for "winter interest," "succession of bloom," and other garden-magazine goals that I never achieve anyway. I craved a new variety of non-invasive bamboo, but it was $57 a pot; for that price, it should invade Iraq. I got cheaper bamboo, in the hopes it would invade the "back 40," where nothing grows anyway. Got my tomato and eggplant babies, although I have nowhere to plant them (their bed was annexed by raspberry bushes). In a triumph of hope over experience, I scored two delphiniums. And after years of yearning, I fell off the sustainable-rose wagon and bought another hybrid tea: Fragrant Cloud (oh, it is).

But really, it was all about slogging through the checkout and getting to the lilacs. The Child patiently accompanied me on this religious pilgrimage; I think she may be a convert.  First, we decide which one to sniff first. Then we sniff lots more. We remark on the subtle variations in perfume. We nuzzle the clusters, remark on how edible they seem, like buttercream frosting. We take our glasses off to look at the individual flowerets. And finally, Child looks out for a guard while I lie on the grass underneath a bush and look up at the sky, completely filled with lilacs.  Reassured of the existence of God, we go home, dragging our wagon full of hope.

 But not before greedily sniffing the apple blossoms in the last rays of sun.

To recap, here is a quick history of our troubled relationship with Mr. Edison's excellent utility:

1910 or so: CrazyStable is built.  It is piped for both gas and electrical lighting, in case this whole newfangled electricity business doesn't catch on. Inside, the wiring is insulated with cloth and laid alongside the gas pipes to the lighting fixtures; between the house and the street main, it is insulated in lead ("lead sack") and buried in a pipe.

1986: Gullible and delusional young couple buy ruins of CrazyStable. Sensing danger from 70-year-old original wiring, they hire affordable "electricians" to rewire it with updated service. However, "electricians" never have job approved by Con Ed, claiming this is not necessary. 

1990s: Chronically overwhelmed homeowners learn that "electricians"  hooked up new service to original "service" from street main. Otherwise, job was not badly done ( if you don't count swags of exposed BX cable hanging in basement, above, along with butchery of plaster walls in every room). That's why they didn't need an inspection. Lights occasionally flicker, but go for years without event.

February, 2008: Explosion rocks CrazyStable; fire shoots out of manhole cover in front of house. We lose power, are given temporary "jumper service" through a scary wire swagged across the street from a lamp-post, and are told we must abate the chunks of asbestos pipe sleeve near the service box before the gentlemen of Consolidated Edison will enter our basement to "pull through" new service.

April, 2008: After interviewing several raving lunatics, we find a competent asbestos abatement contractor who removes the pipesleeves, HEPA-vac's the floor, and paints over the offending areas with white goo.  We fax air-testing reports back and forth, and Con Ed inspects the job and declares it to be good. Supervisor Guy informs us that we will get,  on Con Ed's tab, "all new service" from the street; hopefully this will not require opening street to replace damaged pipe. Manhole-sucking truck arrives to noisily suck out manholes for the second time.

Yesterday:  Crew arrives. They finish the job with surprising speed and deliver the good news that the pipe was fine, they just hooked up our inside service to the existing wire at both ends. What, I say, to the "lead sack"? Weren't we supposed to get "all new service"? The supervisor guys had implied that the ancient service between house and street was part of the problem.

ALERT: UNCHARACTERISTIC FEMINIST RANT AHEAD

Ah. Now comes the interesting part of my cordial dealings with the friendly Con Ed crew: the part where the woman uses complex sentence structure, logic, and curiosity. I explain perkily that I am not challenging their nice job, no no, but I am interested in the inconsistency between what Supervisor Guy said and what they report just having done.  The Con Ed guys' eyes glaze over and shift uneasily. Somebody makes a cell phone call, whose content is never disclosed. I ask again; I am told the lead sack "could last another hundred years."

And then I realize: The fellows are talking to someone else. 

You see, this is me, in the basement with the Con Ed guys, talking "lead sack."

And this is who the Con Ed guys think they're talking to; why is she down here, and why does she care?  

Will the ancient wires keep our lights on and our computer and fridge running for another hundred years? Stay tuned. 

Otherwise, this spring is the Year of the Guilt Garden. I have done nothing, and I mean nothing; I've been totally preoccupied with this, so there are unraked autumn leaves out there, and only one poor rosebush got pruned. To my mingled relief and outrage, everything is growing anyway, and to my absurd horror, the rosebushes have all gone and set buds without any pruning at all. Don't you see? This raises the unthinkable, transgressive possibility that pruning is almost a complete waste of time! They look a little leggy and shaggy, especially the rugosa, but the overall result ain't that bad. Needless to say, no fertilizer or Epsom salts were applied, either. How can they be doing so well without me?

Even the potted guys are thriving on neglect. These alpine strawberries, (which I grew from seed, ahem), are making flowers, raising the tantalizing possibility of a coming micro-snack of actual alpine strawberries. (Something tells me Bagel and his minions will beat me to the harvest.)

And my little rescued Maine pine tree has put out new candles. Note, rescued, not "poached" or "stolen" or any of the other cruelly inaccurate and defamatory characterizations by my family for this act of botanical mercy. This little fellow was sprouting at the very foot of his parent, a towering pine on the coastlands near Acadia National Park, and had no hope of competing as he grew. Look how grateful he is. Someday, when we demolish the useless garage, he will be the towering centerpiece of my imaginary pine grove.

Today would be a perfect day to start belatedly shoveling and pinching and transplanting in anticipation of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plant sale next week. Instead, I plan to ride my bicycle.

*Walt, the lilacs, please:

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,

And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,

I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring…

Passing, I leave thee, lilac with heart-shaped leaves;

I leave thee there in the door-yard, blooming, returning with spring,

I cease from my song for thee;

From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,

O comrade lustrous, with silver face in the night.

—Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd,  from Leaves of Grass 

The Child left for school toting her science-fair project past this array.

The scene, for an episode to be broadcast in mid-May, consisted of the two intrepid detectives entering our downstairs hallway and following Carl the Skanky Suspect upstairs to our kitchen, while grilling him on a murder case. Here are the stars in the stairwell: Jeremy Sisto and Anthony Anderson. Both are apparently new to the series (Anthony's first episode hasn't even aired yet), and new to me; Jeremy was on Six Feet Under, I'm told, and Anthony has mostly done comedy flicks. (He was immediately recognized with delight by the school guards across the street as he left the house.) If either of them wondered why our stairs and bannisters are red, they didn't say so. (Answer: The CrazyStable was a Chinese boarding house, and red is a lucky color in China.)

This gives some idea of just how crowded the landing was outside the kitchen. The living room was also piled with gear. 

The director and his assistants holed up in the cat-clutter of the Child's room to watch the monitors and chat between takes. "Jerry Orbach would've hated this scene, he hated doing stairs," one assistant recalled with obvious affection. "He used to do the 'over/under' number, betting how many takes they'd have to do. Over his number, he won, and under it, the house won." The show's crew, many back at our house for the second time, does seem like an extended family, one in which everybody drinks a lot of bottled water and coffee and knows just what to do with rolls of tape and tripods.

The smell of frying bacon filled the house; the Carl character was supposed to be cooking it while talking to the NYPD (although the sound man made them turn off the heat while shooting to reduce bacon noise). They went through numerous batches. I got hungry but couldn't get to my fridge (under a bank of lights, left); so the location guy let me pick snacks from the set catering buffet!  I ate half a Law & Order danish and a bag of authentic Law & Order Doritos. This made me insanely happy.

Everybody was gone by 1 p.m., although the set dressing guys will return tomorrow to replace the furniture and haul off their props. "We have 3 pounds of bacon still in your fridge," a crew lady said as she washed down the counter. "Would you like to keep it?"

Guess what we had for dinner? NBC BLTs!