In which The Gay Recluse retires to our garden in Washington Heights.

Date of photograph: April 28, 2008, around 6:30pm

It’s hardly a secret that sometimes the spring garden looks better in the rain.

Today was one of those days…

One of our favorite plants is the creeping yellow groundcover, which we bought a few years ago at the Union Square green market.

They had a green market near us in Washington Heights one summer, but not enough people went so it never came back.

It’s probably not too smart to ever get your hopes up very high here.

Things change very slowly.

Which is why we always tell people who are considering the idea to move to Washington Heights.

It can teach you a lot about life gardening.

We’re pretty sure our groundcover is a golden creeping Jenny — Lysimachia nummularia — but we’re always open to corrections!

This reminds us of our old friend and bandmate Jennifer, who used to wonder why there were so many dumb bands/movies/books that used this formula (the present participle + girl’s name). Chasing Amy — as in “let’s convert the lesbians!” — is just one obvious example.

Whenever we pulled up to a club and saw one of these bands on the bill, we always had a sinking feeling that they were going to be horrible.

We were never wrong, either!

Not that we were so great, either, of course.

At one point we almost managed to kill the creeping jenny, and literally had only two or three tiny leaves left.

Then we put it the rocks, and like us, it’s a bit more settled now.

We think about all the people we hate, and all the people who hate us, and for a moment they all seem very far away.

Is it any wonder we always leave the garden with a heavy sigh?