hurricane diane scene 1

yas

I love my house I love my neighborhood

Okay

when you look up “brown thumb” in the dictionary there’s a big picture of my face!

okay

diane. it is diane right?

Diane

bring my fantasies to life

okay.

but basically i’m easy

great

i can be really clear and up front about what i want

great so should we head out back take a look around—

i’m not going to make you look through the whole thing.

i’m not panicked.

anyway, this is just to give you a sense of what i’m looking for.

ten quick fixes for tricky front porches.

they love a cute list

six hot mulches you NEED to spread right now

I didn’t even read that article.

which magazine did you say this was from again?

hgtv?

i was under the impression that that was a television channel.

you don’t read hgtv?

no i don’t

even though you’re in the business?

i’m not in this business.

and then they carry that same color down to these little flowers, I don’t know what they’re called?

Pansies.

wrought iron accent bench.

I don’t do furniture.

curb appeal.

Curb Appeal.

my neighbor pam is totally flipped out about the deer.

well sure, a hungry doe can take out a healthy shrub in five minutes.

gets practically knocked on their ass with curb appeal.

so does that sound?

let me tell you a little bit about my philosophy of landscaping carol. you mind if i call you carol?

great, let me start by telling you about a word that I hate.

a word that i hate even to pronounce with my lips and tongue, a word you’ve used a number of times already in our conversation but that i would like to eradicate from human speech, along with the object it represents.

(quiet) okay

that word carol, is curb.

what is a curb. a curb is a blade of grass that cuts [SHARP] a deep gash into the flesh of the earth and splits [SHARP] it off from the rest of the soil.

once, long ago, the earth was a single body, and threaded through it was a vast web of microfungus, delicate, glistening structures, invisible to the naked eye, that stretched for hundreds and thousands of miles across the entire north american landmass — the biggest single organism ever to exist on earth.

fast forward a couple hundred years and the north american landmass has been hacked to bits.

LAWN. CURB.

ROADWAY. CURB.

PARKING LOT. MEDIAN STRIP. PANERA. CURB.

Each little remaining parcel of land isolated. dessicated. starved.

my philosophy of landscaping, Carol, is that I will take your dead, dismembered yard and restore it to a semblance of the lush primeval forest that once stood where we stand right now.

okay can you, do you have a picture of what that would look like?

let me paint you a word picture, carol. imagine stepping out your french doors into a fragrant paradise. green carpet below, sun-dappled canopy above. blueberries, thimbleberries, huckleberries on all sides that just fall into your cupped palm at the slightest touch. imagine cherries at eye level, chestunuts swaying overhead. imagine the dewey leaves of a pawpaw tree bending down to brush your cheeks as you pass.

what is a pawpaw tree?

pawpaw is a native fruit tree. simple leaves, weeping habit, big globular, hanging fruits.

globular?

tastes kind of like a cross between a parsnip and papaya. yeah id put in a whole grove of pawpaws back there, probably up about where that blighted sapling is now.

okay

and beneath that, cascading down that slope, a lush green understory, teeming with beneficial insects, worms, beetles,

scurrying through vigorous native ground covers:

hognut and bee balm
foxglove and awl fruit

hawkweed and bladderwort and milk vetch

MILK VETCH?

that’s right, carol. i can make this fantasy a reality. i’m ready to start right now.

compete with the lawn?

there will be no lawn.

what do you mean?

i’m going to rip out your lawn.

what?

first thing

that lawn is the only good thing about my yard!

that lawn is slowly suffocating the earth. it’s coming out.

what would the girls think of me?

what girls?

the other girls

are you refering to a girl scout club or?

who live here with me on the cul de sac

you mean women.

“the girls”

just getting straight on your preferred terms, you’re women but you refer to yourselves as girls.

before i put a new concept in my yard

its not a new concept. its the oldest concept in the world.

outside the box

Carol. I think you underestimate yourself. There’s an energy coming out of this house and out of your —

I actually felt it the second I stepped out of my truck. I think you’re more open to this than you know. I can sesne in a woman’s hair and skin when she’s ready to receive this idea and your skin is so…

I don’t know carol. I sense you’re very. Very Ready.

Im just afraid

Dont be

to our curb

dont. Dont carol. I dont ever want ot hear the words curb appeal come out your pretty mouth again.

I need to think about this.

huh?

any rash decisions

okay but

after I’ve had time to run this

are you leaving? where are you going?

its 8:45.

i didnt realize you had anything else to do today.

my job

no, great. what is it you do?

in compliance

with what

ealing scheer

the pharmaceutical company.

you’re familiar

little bit. chained myself to your perimeter once or twice.

oh, okay. sure

shame about all THOSSE BABIES BORN WITHOUT HEARTSS