The only reason I've been neglecting my yard this week is that the yard waste container has been full almost to the very top since Sunday. Well okay, that's not the "only" only reason, but it's the main reason. "Didn't feel like it" was the auxiliary correlative reason, but even if I'd felt like, I couldn't because of the main reason. Full can.

The can goes out to the curb tonight, so instead of the macro-gardening that filled it up in two days, I did some micro-gardening this afternoon. That's not as much fun as yanking up weeds willy-nilly with both hands, and I'm not as good at it, but it was pretty much all I could do. I worked in the actual garden itself, which is a tiny portion of the whole yard.

What I decided was: too much grass waving in the wind. The decorative wild grasses that grow in the garden had gone crazy this spring. Last year I was very careful not to pull them up, but as time went on it became obvious that the more I left them alone, the more they were going to take over. Someone actually told me not to take them out because they're native to the region and highly prized.

Yeah, but wait a minute. They're everywhere! Little clumps of them pop up in places where you'd least expect them. Between the paving stones! Out from under the shrubbery! Everywhere!

So today I made the calculated decision that they were just getting to be too much, blocking my view of the birdbath and dominating the landscape. I didn't pull up all of them. I wouldn't have had room in the container even if I'd wanted to do that. I just trimmed back and tapered down and tried to make the clumps of grass look more in proportion with the other plants.

I kept going until I could barely close the container's lid, then wheeled the thing out to the street and took the rest of the day off. The high weeds are still growing out in the rest of the yard, and getting to them is tons more important than tailoring the garden. But sometimes I'm forced to choose something lower on the priority list. I'm getting good at convincing myself that it's worth it.

Let me see if I have this right. The pre-September 11 warnings floating around the various U.S. intelligence agencies and investigative bureaus were "too vague" to be acted upon. In the last nine months, though, vagueness is no longer a drawback, based on the quality of the warnings coming out of Ashcroft Ridge.

And now the new "retooled" FBI is being asked to go to our churches and shopping malls and eavesdrop on our conversations so that they can decide if we're contemplating — what, exactly? What's the basis for determining that detaining someone for what they say in St. Mary's or Sears is necessary to prevent terrorism?

All this in a society that looks with horror on anything that interferes with the free ownership of any weapon by any citizen. Those Americans who believe that registration and licensing of firearms is somehow contrary to the Second Amendment are apparently the same ones who hold that the First Amendment goes too far. Somehow I don't feel any safer than I did on September12, and a lot less free than I did on September 10.