2006-04-01 - 9:35 a.m.

I used to draw blueprints of the house I wanted to live in one day, but my interests don't really make it possible to live there anymore.

How am I supposed to keep bees and have a nice garden at the same time? When I walk to work, I think a lot about the fact that I can't have bees and flowers in the same area unless I want my family, friends, and pets to get stung every summer and fall. Not that bees are particularly aggressive, but we're talking limited space here. I try to work it out in my head by planning a tall white fence around the hives or putting the hives on the roof, but I still imagine my puppies being stung on the face when they lurk too close. And how can I live in a city when I need enough yardspace for a) bees b) garden and c) a honey extraction machine in a shed somewhere?

Considering how I will probably be too busy to garden and have bees, I should probably discard one or the other. Not the bees, though. Never the bees. Potential neighborhood outcry be damned. Are my fantasies supposed to be worrying me as much as my actual life?

This is one of the few things keeping me going as of now: Fantasies about living alone in the middle of nowhere, working at a town that really needs me around, small enough that I can have enough living space to have flowers and bees and puppies. No husband or babies in my head, because I can't really deal with imagining that right now. My imagination is already stressed out enough as it is, figuring out where to plot the apiary and the perennials. Hurry scurry worry.