palace of winds

I cut all my hair off.

Well. Not all.

I’d wanted, once I caught my breath a little, to write about the long-weekend-long cooking adventure (complete with cheese-making) and Capote and Transamerica and the pleasures of real Oreo ice cream, but just at 8 this morning I got a call at work from my mom. I could tell instantly that something was wrong, that she was waffling and working up to telling me something, and for a moment I was convinced that my cat was sick — that perhaps he had died, even, and I was just on the outside edge of devastation, fending it off.

Instead she told me that my dad’s truck has been stolen. Someone came into his networking meeting and took his coat (one he loved that he got from my grandma last Christmas) and then took his truck, which he loved and which was full of his cds and all his best tools and all the special extras he’d bought for it. He’s devastated, of course, and I’m sure he blames himself for leaving his keys in his coat pocket.

And I’m just shocked and sad and angry and I hurt for him. I want to cry. Go home and cry and then find who did this and slap them, and tell them that they should have picked someone else. My dad is the best man I know. He is good and kind and patient and giving. He never demands anything, never keeps anything for himself, never thinks of himself before others and is happiest that way. He takes joy in joy. He is tireless, never-complaining. And I know it’s just some senseless crime, probably just some fuckup drug addict I should feel sorry for, should pity, but I can’t. I’m furious, hateful. I hate myself a little for it but I think of this person beneath the bootheel of society and right now I just want to see them ground well and truly into the dirt.

Thought process, upon seeing the second box elder bug in two days
(box elder bugs being equivalently scary to spiders,
generally moving less slow but being the stuff of recurring nightmares):

Ohmigod it’s another one.

This won’t do.

This won’t do at all. I need to find out where they’re getting in.

I wish I knew someone who could tell. I wish I knew a guy. An exterminator-guy, who would come in and check my whole place over. Make sure the windows are closed right. I would make him dinner. He’d be hot. And he’d fix this.

Okay. Okay. It’s on the blinds, can’t squash it. The vacuum.

Still packed. Is the suction strong enough? What if the vacuum doesn’t work and it attacks? Do I have time to find it and unpack it? There is a hose on it, right?

Okay. I’ll get the vacuum.

I wish I had Raid. I wonder if there’s a more environmentally-friendly way to kill them. Quicker. Painless. There must be a natural bug-killer of some kind. I need to look into that.

I’m such a pansy. It’s just a little bug. It’s more scared of me blah blah. I’ll get a paper towel. Enough of this vacuum nonsense. I’ll just squish it. It won’t be the end of the world if it touches me. Nothing will happen. Okay, paper towel. Squishing now.

. . .

Maybe it’ll climb onto the paper towel. I can take it out to the hall. Except then it might come back in. I’ll take it far out in the hall.

The paper towel’s pretty floppy. It’ll be really near my hand, if it decides to attack. Maybe some cardboard. Like this box! It can crawl on this box.

Okay, it’s going on the box. On — the box, right. Slowly now, over to the door. Open the door, don’t lock myself out, take it in the hall.

This isn’t so bad. This isn’t bad at all. I’ll release it outside. It’s just a poor confused little bug. Who cares if I’m in my pajamas, I’ll just open the door a second and it’ll go off into the nice outside world.

It’s not going off. It’s clinging to the box. OMG where is it?! Still on the box. Get it off, quick quick — fuck.

* * *

So, after the whole ordeal of getting the thing outside, I accidentally squish it on the sidewalk.

So much for being a humanitarian. (Bugitarian? I’m sure there’s a scientific word for bug, I just can’t recall it right now.) At home I’d use my dad’s shop-vac. That thing could suck up bats, y’all. (And oh god wasn’t that quite the evening.)

Another side-effect of living on my own, I suppose. I’ll be forced to get over this bug thing even more. Though there’s a time element to bug capture that’s forced me to deal with them plenty in the past.

Ugh, now I’m feeling all kinds of creepy-crawly all over my skin. I should clear off part of the couch and curl up with a book. Or a movie. And a nice concealing blanket.

I’m frustrated today. Just in general. My perception is heavily skewed. Everything that isn’t perfect is the end of the world. Thank god it’s not the crying week.

And mercifully it’s Friday. I don’t think I could take another day right now. Well — no. I know I could. I just really, really, really don’t want to.

I have a new oven. It’s very brightly and shinily white, and produces all sorts of strange new-appliance sounds and smells. I sort of miss my old burners, though. The flame on this one is crisp and bright and precise (and easier to control, which I like very much), but the old one had this wild thing going on, all soft unpredictable edges. It was taller too — it liked to lick kettles and pots and things. The new flame seems very well-behaved, from what I can tell after a few uses. Not nearly so forward.

No, I have not taken pictures. Have you?

And that is all from me for now. Though I had planned to start the evening off well by sanding and polyurethane-ing the shelving one last time, I am instead going to clear just enough things from the love seat that I can sit on it, and I am going to get out my book, and I am going to read it until I’m finished.

And aww, Jo just called. I begged off doing anything tonight as I’m exhausted, but I’m half sorry because seeing her always does wonders for my mood. The idea of having anyone over while the apartment looks like this, however, is terrifying. So I’m too grumpy to knuckle down and really tackle it, and can’t have anyone over or feel good about going out because it hasn’t been done. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I’ve moved.

Oh lordy.

No time to write, except to say that I’m still alive, and still won’t be saying much for the next week or two. Steph’s coming on Wednesday. :D

I don’t yet have internet, and I’m not getting a phone. So my home phone is now my cell phone. So if you text me in the middle of the night, it is like calling someone’s house and you will be waking me up. And I will not be happy.

If you need my cell number, let me know! But only if you’re not planning to use it in the middle of the night. Unless it’s an emergency.