I'm A Bloodthirsty Monster

That's me. I'm a murdering murderer, a bloodthirsty monster, a killer by design. And the sick thing is that I know I'll do it again. I can't help myself. My victims carry such an allure for me that I can't step back and let them go free without loving them to death.

My name is Heather Brewer...and I'm a plant killer.

I love plants. During warmer temperatures, my little patio area is filled with dozens of beautiful, lush plants and flowers. Inside the house, I have a philodendron and a large palm. And inside my head, I'm already writing a eulogy for them.

See, I try to take care of them...I water them, talk to them (sometimes they talk back...those ferns are such gossipy things), give them little plant food pellets...and they die. Much like Charlie Brown in his Christmas special, "I killed it."

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Perhaps I'm a version of Lenny from Of Mice and Men, and the plants are my puppy. But unlike Lenny, I willfully move on to puppy after puppy, stroking their little fuzzy heads until...well, you get the point.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, I was just admiring my little patio (what I call "the garden") and daydreaming about how nice it will be to get my plants in and then sit at my little cafe table to do some editing. But my daydream was shadowed by the brown, ugly, dead clumps that were once plants (and trust me...they were brown clumps long before winter). My dad once joked that I have a brown thumb. I'm beginning to think he's right.

It bothers me. But not enough to put much effort into correcting it. So, I'll keep planting and loving my victims to death...and pushing the images of dead, lifeless clumps out of my head. Good puppy. Nice puppy.

My puppy.