"I kill everything," I said to the plant man on 13th Street. "You've got find me something I can't kill."

I've passed by his store, called The Flower Stall, literally hundreds of times, always wistfully peeking at his wares. On sunny days he puts the plants out on the street, these beautiful, lush, healthy creatures that make me think I, too, could have green things in my home.

Yesterday I felt a surge of domesticity. I've had a goddamn fish for almost two years, I'm not leaving New York anytime soon, and my apartment gets an amazing amount of sunlight. Plus, I have a terrace. I can handle a plant or two.

So I went to the plant man, and said, "Hook me up. But put the odds in my favor, will you?"

The plant man is in his 50s or 60s, I think. It's hard to tell. He's tall and African-American and elegant. Sometimes I think he's gay, but that's probably just me stereotyping because he works in the urban horticultural industry.

It seems like he's been on the block forever. His store is small, and the plants inhabit every corner, as if they've outgrown - or maybe overgrown? - the store. I felt as if I'd stumbled into some lost plant land, where the plants are king, and he is their ambassador to the outside world. It is dark and moist in the plant man's store.

He sells me on the cacti, the succulents, and the jade. He promises me they only need water once a month or so. That they only need a little sunlight. A little attention. A little love.

I eyed the jade. It looked like a grower, that one day it would be bigger than I could handle.

"Do I trim it? Er -- cut it?"

"I just let 'em grow," he said softly, and then laughed. "Some people like to prune, but I don't like to do anything like that."

I decided to start with three plants. One jade, two cacti. That seems reasonable to me. As the plant man wrapped them up, I started to ramble nervously, confessing my depressing plant past.

"I had plants when I was in Seattle and I had great light in my apartment. I was too irresponsible then, so I killed them. They should have been able to live there, of all places, right?"

The plant man nodded as he wrapped.

"And then here, in New York, I had this apartment with no sunlight, so even when I took good care of them, they still died."

He placed the plants in a shopping bag. His moves were delicate and deft.

"I went back to that apartment after I moved to pick up some things. It's right down the block." I pointed to the right. "And I sat in that living room, waiting for a mover for a while, and it was totally dark in there, no windows. And I got so depressed. Isn't that strange? Just sitting there even for a an hour. I mean, how did I live without sunlight for so long?"

The plant man nodded. "You have to have sunlight. Everybody needs it."

"Sorry," I laughed, suddenly. I knew the plant man didn't care about my apartment issues.

I wrote him a check for the plants. He handed me the bag and said, "I wrote what you need to do to take care of each plant on a sticker and I put it on the side of the plant. Plus I wrote it on your receipt here. Now that's two places. You got no reason to kill these plants. Good luck."

They're sitting on a small ledge on the window, the jade and the two cacti. Two stickers read, "Water once a month," and one sticker reads "Water every 3 weeks." When it gets warmer out at night I'm going to put them on the terrace. They probably don't want to be cooped up inside all day long either.

This is a big deal for me. I don't know how to be...domestic. Or maybe it's that I don't know how to care for things, or to nurture. I think maybe I once did, a long time ago, but that got in the way of caring about myself. Now I think I could probably do both. But I think it has to start with a plant.

Maybe next week I'll learn how to cook.

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