I hate being afraid of bugs, I really do. I recognize it as objectively irrational, but still cannot calm the terror that wells up inside me. I've said it before, but I always feel compelled to reiterate. This is not a girly "ew, gross!" type of thing... I get very worked up when people imply I need to just "get over it". Oh trust me, I've tried. I've begun breaking down the fear a little, realizing which situations/bugs/etc cause the reaction more strongly and which I can talk myself down from. This has helped a little, but sometimes the bugs still best me.
If you want some background reading here is a link to a post from last Feb about a similar run-in.
Before I left for Chicago, I had a run-in with a Palmetto bug in my apartment. I was horrified and terrified and had no idea what to do. I was talking to myself (out loud, probably) and telling myself... "There is a thing that rational people do in this situation. Regular people don't have a panic attack right now. I am an adult. I live on my own. I have a great job. I pay my bills and keep two cats alive. There is something to do in this situation. Now... what is it??" I eventually got through it (with the aid of a couple friends on the phone and a Dyson vacuum cleaner), but it took like 2 hours of my life. Ridiculous.
Today was almost worse. There was an upside down palmetto bug on my kitchen floor that I believed to be dead. I was sort of avoiding dealing with it so walked by it several times (in large arcs) thinking "later". One trip past though caught my attention because I thought I saw it twitch. Sure enough, I looked again and it was wriggling trying to turn itself back over.
*breathe*
I got my Raid in hand, shooed the cats away and sprayed with what might have been a little too much wild abandon. Bug killed dead. As advertised. But now I have poison all over my floor and a dead, wet roach. I lock myself and my cats in my bedroom and try not to think about it.
This isn't an effective long term plan since i do eventually have to let my cats out and I have to clean up all the poison before I can do that. Anyway to make a drawn out and stupid story less drawn out (but no less stupid), I come to realize that even though the bug is drenched in poison and I KNOW it is dead, I still can't get near it.
I ended up scooting a paper bag on the floor with a swiffer stick along until it half scooped it up, and got it out of the wet-with-Raid area, then put a bucket upside down on it. Then I cleaned up the Raid and let my cats back out. I'll deal with the bucket later. Or I'll hire a maid.
Brilliant.
Anyway, here is my highly scientific list of what makes my run-ins with bugs worse.
1. Contained spaces. Being inside (even inside a large space) is always worse. Being inside my *own* space (my home or to a lesser extent, my office) is on the more extreme panic attack version of the scale.
2. Things that fly at me. Or run toward me. Especially in a spastic manner. I have yet to be afraid of a roly poly. I'm even not afraid of spiders. They're smart, they keep to themselves or run away. Thumbs up to snails and caterpillars. Biiiig thumbs down to cicadas, palmetto bugs, flying crickets, grasshoppers, june bugs and bees.
I have learned that my current nemesis, the Palmetto bug (aka fucking huge flying roaches) flies at people because they believe people to be trees (and they live in trees when not scaring me to death in my home). It is comforting to know they aren't trying to attack me, but I do doubt I will be able to remember that rational fact next time I am faced with the situation.
3. I do not think that bugs are gross. I do not wish for bugs to be dead. I just want them to be alive, away from me. Or I want to be alive, away from them. If I am able to, I will catch them and release them outside. If someone else is dealing with it for me, I strongly encourage them to do the same. Still sometimes, it is inevitable and while it does actually, um, bug me to kill them, sometimes I just have to move on with my life.
4. Body mass and exoskeletons. If they have weight when they hit me or make a crunch that can be heard and really felt when crushed, I will have nightmares. 'Nuff said.
5. Ears. Please, bugs, stay away from my ears. Even the smallest gnat can send me into a panic if I hear it buzz right next to my ear.
6. Nighttime. I can deal with everything better in the daylight. Even if it's inside, I can still deal with it better if it is daytime.
I think my point is that I need to move somewhere that doesn't have tropical insects.
Guess who I got to spend today with???
So today just before 1 pm, I was very hungry. I had forgotten to grab breakfast this morning (due to oversleeping... my life has clearly changed when 6:45 am is "oversleeping"), and had only managed a piece of gum so far in the day. So I go to the kitchen, grab my can of veggie soup and a bowl.
I open the can and start to pour it into the bowl. About half way through doing this, I realize that the soup is not going to fit in the bowl. I continue to pour anyway, and my mind wanders to something else. About three quarters of the way through, I hit the bowl's capacity, and realize with a jolt that I should stop pouring. So I do. I look at the completely full bowl. I look at my can with a fourth of the soup still in it. I wonder what I should do. I don't want to waste the extra soup. And actually I'm hungry. And I want to eat that extra soup, dammit. So I am going to put it in the bowl, be damned!
With no concern for the aftermath, I pour the rest of the soup into the bowl.
Now what did I think would happen? Did I think the bowl would grow? That it was only deceiving me by looking full and that it would actually accommodate the rest of my soup?
No, I believe that I just wanted to eat the soup and to eat it, I needed to put it into the bowl. The laws of space do not apply to my soup bowls. Except that, in a shocking turn of events, they do. And soupy carnage splashes all over the counter tops, wasting the soup I so wanted to consume.
Dammit.
In the epic battle of Mac vs. PC, it's never been left to guessing which side I'm on. I've had a Mac in my house as long as I can remember, and have always enjoyed sparring with die hard PC users (Ashish!).
However, as I am currently sitting on the Riverwalk in New Orleans (in the Plaza de Espana), I would appear to any onlooker to be a PC user. Damn. It seems that my love of all things Apple is limited. First, when I got a new phone a few weeks ago (dropped mine in the hot tub), I shunned the idea of an iPhone and instead opted for a Blackberry. THEN, I got a new Dell at work. Granted, I don't have the option to use a Mac at work, but I find that now I am more likely to tote around the new Dell than my MacBook. It's smaller, it's lighter, it has awesome battery life and (probably the most relevant point), it has a wireless broadband card.
Do you have a wireless broadband card? Because you should. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's maybe my favorite thing ever this week. How do people live without it? I just don't know. Apparently the ability to click around aimlessly (or even with aim) on the internet while sitting by the river is strong enough to pull me to the dark side. *sigh* I'm not as strong as I pretended to be.
(ps, as quick updates on my life: I have recently turned a quarter-century OLD and am living in New Orleans for the next month. There are many things I have to say about both of these things, but whether or not I will get around to writing about them remains to be seen)
If anyone needs any guidance on birthday presents for me (you have just over 2 weeks!), try this. Awesome.
KTHXBYE
Do you remember those logic puzzles from elementary school? You know, like "Edna is standing next to Brian. the person in the blue shirt is not next to the person in the green shirt. Rachel isn't wearing green. Jason is taller than Brian." etc, and you have to figure out what color shirt everyone is wearing, their relative heights, and what order they are standing in?
Well I rocked those logic puzzles. I would go through them really fast, and my answers were always right. However, the part where I got stuck was then the teacher would ask me to explain to everyone else how I arrived at my answer. I was always confused by this. Both because I didn't think I should have to explain when I was right, and also because I couldn't actually explain why I was right, I just knew I was. I seemed to naturally skip a lot of middle steps that my brain did without instruction, so if I tried to go back over it step by step, I'd get stuck.
Anyway, this project I'm working on at work reminds me of those logic puzzles, except with plane tickets, a time axis, 37 calendars, soft requirements like "Rachel would kind of prefer to stand next to Jason, if possible.", and no guarantee there even is a right answer.
It kind of makes my head spin, but I think I'm actually figuring it out. I just hope no one asks me to justify the final product.
this was fine in the morning when i was working from home, but now i have to go into the office. so i'm going.
in jeans, a wife beater and pigtails.
i'm all about looking professional.
I received an email in my personal inbox today (via my publicly accessible email address that copies to my personal inbox) from a name I didn't recognize. This isn't entirely surprising, but the content was strange. The subject was "then and now", and the content, a single line...
"hi emily: which one do you think is more 'cute'?"
There were two files attached, and I was presumably to choose between the two. I clicked around a bit to make sure they were image files and not embedded with anthrax or something, but then curiosity got the better of me.
The first image was of a child, maybe 8 years old. It was a school picture, probably from the early 80s judging by the style/clothing. The child is not particularly cute.
The second image was what I assumed is a current photo of the former child. It was a quite poorly produced photo of what appears to be quite an unattractive man. It wasn't dirty, thankfully, but I have to wonder... what response can he possibly expect from this missive?
In the event that I were to ever seek attention by randomly emailing out unsolicited photos of myself to publicly accessible email addresses, I would make an at least vague attempt to look attractive in said photos. I would... oh, never mind, I can't even say "I would" because I just... wouldn't.
It does remind me of the guy who stalked me in the cemetery in an attempt to get my attention. Similarly, I am baffled in this situation as to what the ideal outcome could possibly be.
My co-worker suggests that I respond to the email with exaggerated interest. I chose to just delete the email and block the address. Apparently I have no sense of adventure.
yep. so if any of you have an address to the aforementioned party, i would be appreciative.
