Fifteen minutes ago I woke up feeling something crawling across my left shoulder. My immediate reaction was to reach back, grab it with my right hand, squish it, and fling it across the room. Then I screamed a little bit (not too much because now I am a big girl living all by myself and grown-ups don't do that sort of thing). I'm discovering that this was the wrong action to take - the throwing across the room part in particular - because currently I am very much bothered by the now unanswerable question of 'what crawled across my shoulder?'. I fear the worst.
My downstairs neighbors must have some sort of cockroach infestation. I justify this as knowledge by two pieces of evidence: 1) When taking out the trash once, their window was open, the sun was shining in just enough for me to see a huge pile of filth, towering to about waist high, and 2) Despite a concerted effort on my part to be a model of cleanliness ( e.g. taking out the trash, washing the dishes, and disinfecting the sink and stove... all of this every night) I will still occasionally see 1-2 cockcroaches every other day or so. I rule out being, myself, the main cockroach lure in the building because 1-2 is a relatively small number to find when one is actively going on cockroach hunts in the middle of the night (also, see #1 above). If I wake when it's dark, I generally don't just take a sip of water and go back to bed, I go hunting: I slowly sneak into the kitchen; then in a whirlwind of action I turn on the lights, fling the cabinets open, move the chairs to check under the table, and get down to look under the fridge/stove. These hunts are usually unproductive. I generally have a spotting at a totally inappropriate cockroach time: In the middle of the day I will see one, ill-fated roach, crawling across my living room carpet; At 10 am I'll find two cockroaches, similarly fated, pals-ing about and heading towards the trap on my kitchen counter.
Which brings me back to this incident. I went on another hunt afterwards, find nothing. I'm sure, though, that my initial scream rendered this hunt less effective. (Not really a 'scream,' now that I think of it, more like a 'yelp.' I want to save actually screaming for very extreme situations - being murdered, etc. - so that my neighbors will take me seriously when these things occur). In any event, the idea of cockroaches crawling over me in my sleep is just too much to handle.
On a positive note: Upon investigating the spot on my back in question, I see a tiny lump there resembling a bite. Now, this might just be psychosomatic, since my desire to explain the incident sans mention of cockroaches is probably strong enough to cause a change in my physical appearance. But I'm going to ignore that possibility for now. I just recently (as in, five minutes ago) found out that cockroaches do bite; however, I think it's usually to eat rather than to defend oneself from Katherine's right hand. (For more fascinating cockroach information visit: http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/cockroach_faq.html). It's a very bizarre day when I would favor the idea of a spider crawling over me in the middle of the night to a cockroach.
Whatever the case may be, I think it best to stay up for a while. If it was a cockroach, undoubtedly there is an entire army of them hiding somewhere in my bedroom, waiting for me to fall asleep again. If it was a spider, it could very easily be poisonous. In which case I should at least stay awake for an additional hour or so, lest I fall asleep and then slip into a coma (Then no one would find me for days, I'd starve to death, and only the smell would alert the neighbors of a problem). I hope my medical insurance has kicked in by now. katherine 4:05 AM
Sunday, June 11, 2006
brief update
I moved. I now live in Mountain View, 'the heart of Silicon Valley'.
I live alone. I considered looking in the paper for a roommate. My motivation is doing this was both monetary and social: One bedrooms in this area go for $1000 per month; I also realized that I already chose to socially isolate myself by moving so far away from my family/mike and I considered perhaps excerting some energy into the fight against becoming the pariah queen. However in the end I settled on living alone in a ridiculously priced one-bedroom. Today I purchased two birds, Gottlob and Bertrand, but don't judge me on this right away, I'll write more about it tomorrow.
I think my car might be dying. Yet, I hesitate to take it to a mechanic. This is very much similar to my hesitation about going to the dentist despite my discovering, the last time I went there, that I have at least two (maybe three) cavities that still need to be worked on. That was three years ago. I know it will be dreadful when I go. I also know that my negligence is only exacerbating an already horrid teeth-state. Yet, there's something comforting in not knowing the full extent of the rot overtaking my teeth. Just as there's something comforting in not knowing the exact life-span of my quickly extinguishing car. I drive to work (at Google) an hour early, along bus routes, just in case.
I look awful. It's the stress of both the move and the possibility of very embarrassing, costly and public failure. So just at the time when I need to be looking my best in order to impress my bosses and gain friends in an area where I know noone, I can't seem to stop breaking out and I've gained back all the weight I've lost since college. Plus my hair needs a good five inches cut off, and I'm always lazy/awkward about going to a salon (esp. when I look like I do now). I seem to be horribly unprepaired wardrobe-wise for this new working environment as well.
I don't have cable. It was, I thought, a wise decision at the time. I spent far too much of the past 8 months sitting drunk in front of the television on the weekdays after work. Now I sit drunk in front of a book. This last weekend I reached a new low, sitting in the livingroom in my underwear on the floor cushions that I treat as a couch, laughing out loud listening to Prairie Home Companion on NPR. (Laughing at This American Life or Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me is excusable... but Prairie Home Companion? Come on Katherine).
And sadly, that is all that is happening in my life. katherine 7:28 PM
