Bugs

My apartment is infested with insects.

Bugs.
Critters.
Creepy Crawlers.
Varmints.
No-see-ums.

And I'm not talking about a stray ladybug here and there... I'm talking about a full-fledged, pray-for-me, sleep-with-tape-over-my-mouth Insect Invasion.

I don't know what else to do! I've pleaded with the apartment authorities, I've gone through three different flyswatters, I've worn down the soles of my shoes from repeatedly smashing the tiny devils, I've spent hundreds of dollars on potentially hazardous poisons to try to rid my life of this Exoskeleton Extravaganza.

Roaches, flies, ants, mosquitos, silverfish, spiders, praying mantises, locusts, caterpillars. If it has six or more legs, you can find it at my place. If you are religious and you want to see the tiny wonders of God's kingdom, just come on over to #152 Easton Apartments (and don't forget your Deep Woods OFF).

Speaking of God, he apparently didn't get enough of that whole "plague" thing from the Old Testament: he's now getting his kicks watching me shiver in fear every morning while wondering how many roaches will be tumbling out of the Kashi Bran Flakes box and joining me for breakfast.
I guess my firstborn son is next...

Sure, some of this may be my fault: I cook with the front and back doors open, to alleviate the smell of whatever I'm having for dinner (be it pan-seared duck breast or broiled Chilean Sea Bass or especially Zatarains red beans and rice), but it's not like I ever actually see the creatures coming in. They just get in somehow... And yes, there have been a few nights (ok, four nights a week for 5 months) when after an exhausting 40+ mile bike ride, I fall asleep with the back door open (not just unlocked, but open) and wake up on the living room floor with 100 species of Knox-Henderson fauna surrounding me, daring me to take a deep breath and possibly inhale something with antennae longer than my forearm.

And a rainstorm is now the cue for my little guests to summon every one of their cousins --the "unrefined" ones who still live outdoors-- to my Pest Party Barn to dry off and get a little R-and-R. It's like the Amazon rainforest in my house. All I need is a Yanomamo tribesman, a howler monkey, and some missionaries and pretty soon I'd be speaking Portuguese.

(that actually sounds like the first line of a potentially very funny joke: "A yanomamo tribesman, a monkey, and a missionary walk into a bar..." )

My mornings are difficult enough without me having to worry how many silverfish I'll be shoo-ing down the shower drain that day. Sometimes, after my morning coffee triggers an involuntary (but very desired) reaction in my digestive system, and I'm sitting there "concentrating," I play a guessing game that consists of... well, guessing how many spiders will crawl out of the small hole between my fancy Spanish tile and the floorboard in the 7 - 10 minutes that I'm watching.

I do not live in a run-down community. Easton is was completed in 2004. It's barely a year old. It is very, very expensive (ok, not that expensive) and billed as "luxury urban living." It should be billed as BioSphere 3. I should charge admission for schools to bring their science classes on field trips to my place. It is 700 square feet of urban oasis, alright... If I brought in some sand, an Arab, and a camel it would be the most bug-infested oasis known to man.

I've exhausted all of my chemical and poison options; after four months of inhaling all manner of pesticides I have accepted the fact that my children will probably be born with two heads.

I think my last resort is to buy a frog or a couple of lizards, to help me "the way nature intended."

Me and Mr. Wu

This is what happens to you if you buy medicine from Walgreens.

I don't use meth.
But I do have allergies.

Maybe it was an ozone day... maybe it was the inch-thick layer of dust on the 17-year-old textbooks in my classroom... or maybe I should get rid of those ducks I've been keeping in my apartment all summer... Whatever it was, I had severe allergies last week.
So I went to my neighborhood Walgreens (at the corner of Mockingbird and Matilda) and went straight to the drug section. The friendly Asian pharmacist waved and said hi. I stopped him before he gathered up my usual supply of anti-depressants, sedatives, sleep aids, and painkillers and informed him that today I was only going to buy some allergy meds.

This was when I found out that I would be unable to buy any Wal-Phed, Wal-Dryl, or (my favorite:) Wal-Itin without getting pharmacy clearance first. Apparently, people use some medicines to make methamphetamines. I was shocked! "Mr. Wu, what gives??" I asked. He just looked down at the counter and sighed.

My feelings were kinda hurt, since I considered him a mid-level friend [there are 3 primary levels of friends: first are Desert Island Friends. These are your closest friends. These are the friends who, if you worked for FedEx and were on an airplane filled with Overnight Express packages, and this airplane subsequently crashed into the ocean, and you miraculously survived, but were marooned on a desert island indefinitely with only a volleyball for companionship, these friends would be genuinely sad about your unexplained disappearance. They might not hang out in Aruba and pester the cops to search harder for you and appear on the Larry King Show every other night, but they would probably write sad songs about you and perform them acoustically at Borders on Friday nights (if they were musically inclined). The second are Mid-Level Friends. These are friends who you truly like, but are not too close to. You can have lunch with them (lunch, never dinner) but usually only when a third-party-mutual-friend comes along with you, to fill the awkward gaps in conversation that may arise. Also, you are close enough to Mid-Level Friends that it is acceptable to borrow CDs from them. Third, there are Handshake Friends. These are people who you are always nice to, and you shake hands with them at social events or at Starbucks, but you don't really know much about them, nor do you particularly care to. Also, you would feel very little guilt in dating the ex- of a Handshake Friend immediately after they break up, and would probably not receive any dirty looks from anyone at church because of this (depending on what church you attend)].

When did we as a society allow drugstores to accuse us of being hardcore drug addicts??

Mind you, this Walgreens is situated among the M-Streets, Lakewood, and Highland Park. Who in those neighborhoods is making crystal meth?!?! I'm sure some rich white kids are buying meth and using meth, but rich people don't make meth. If this Walgreens were anywhere in Arkansas or rural New Jersey or even Pleasant Grove, I would understand this policy... but Mockingbird Lane??! In all of my jogging and biking throughout this neighborhood, I have never seen any run-down-shack-meth labs or even trailer homes or white trash people (Bailey's 1st and 10 Sports Bar excluded, of course).

I'm no druggie (I'm actually a Role Model), but I think that in order to make meth you also need things like battery acid or ammonia or Drano or cream of tartar or whatever. Is Walmart going to stop selling Drano and batteries because of this new meth panic?? I bet not. What's the deal here?

It just doesn't make sense. I told Mr. Wu my feelings, and he pretty much told me to get over it; he said meth is a dangerous "epidemic," and that I should just stick with two Vicodins and a glass of wine every night.

I agreed, bought my Comtrex, and went home.

Lone Star Chapter

I was driving down Northwest Highway this morning and I saw something that boggled my mind.
This is a re-creation of what I saw:



A yellow Mazda Miata. But it was not a convertible, like the one in this picture, and it was not traveling with a silver Mazda Miata, as this photo suggests.
It was just a regular Miata (as "regular" as a neon yellow, 3-cylinder, 9-year-old, cool-for-about-two-days-in-1991, 2 seater car can be).



This car had nothing to it ---no aura of greatness [like a 2001 honda accord v6-leather, for example], no "look at me-ness", no reason to even notice it--- except for the awful yellow ("yellow" might even be too nice a word- it was more like "eggyolk", or the exact color of the guts of those hairy caterpillars that Markie and Noe Lozano used to squash when we were kids) paint job.
I doubt that anyone else on the road this morning even gave this particular car a second thought (but I'm sure everybody's first thought was: "Let me speed up and pull alongside this miata, just to see what kind of loser is driving it."). And honestly (maybe thankfully), I did not even give it any special thought.
But as I cruised along behind this Miata, I noticed the custom license plate frame that the owner had fastened to the bumper. It read [and I quote]:

"NATIONAL MIATA OWNERS CLUB" on top,

and across the bottom it had the words:
"LONE STAR CHAPTER"

So, not only is there a club of miata owners, but there is also a Texas chapter of this club.
All day I have been wondering: Does this club have regular meetings? Do its members pay monthly dues (if so, how much are these dues??)? How exclusive is this club? Is there a way to get into these meetings if I do not actually own a miata?? What do they talk about when they meet?

Chairman: "OK, I call this meeting to order. Does anybody have any important Miata information to report?"
Loser #1: "A girl looked at me at a red light last week."
Loser #2: "Damn."
Chairman: "Great. Meeting adjourned."

[For the record, owning a yellow Mazda Miata is in no way similar to riding around Knox-Henderson every day on a bright orange, flame-adorned mountain bike. So save your smart-ass comments. Thank you.]

My match.com

I officially return to work tomorrow. I have not worked in 72 days. I am not excited.
My whole way of life is about to change. For the past 10 weeks (truthfully-- since about March 30) I have settled into a nice daily routine:
Awakened every day by the automatic sprinklers (you'd think I live above a car wash!) at 4:30 am and unable to ever fall back asleep, I get up to pee, then take my medicines, then maybe read, then pray a bit ("God, if you don't start listening, I'm going to start burning sheep out there in the courtyard!"), then stagger 4 feet into the living room for some morning TV cheer.
This is my favorite part of the day. I love the local morning news shows!
You know why: MorningNewsBabes.
It's not so much that I'm physically drawn to the NewsBabes (though they are cute); I'm more drawn to the cheerful, warm, inviting feeling that NewsBabes give me. They make me feel as if there's nothing wrong with the world (when actually there's 35,000 things wrong with my world). How do they do it???
I sit hypnotized for hours, flipping channels to find the cutest smile or the flirtiest giggle.
Megan on Fox4.
Shannon on CBS 11.
Christina on UPN 21 (who is actually too skinny in real life, but who looks very decent on TV).

MEGAN

CHRISTINA SHANNON

There's too many of them! They're all too cute! Most days I catch myself holding a conversation with Shannon, Megan, or Christina. Sure, I may be really lonely right now, with absolutely no social life, and zero prospects among the opposite sex, but the NewsBabes make me feel like they actually care about how I receive my morning news (not to mention how I receive my human-interest stories).

It's like my very own, interactive Match.com!

[if by "interactive" you mean that my conversations with these girls are completely one-way; and if by "my very own" you mean that one million other people are also watching the same morning shows...]

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do now that I have to be at work every morning. This could send me into a tailspin! Maybe I'll bring a TV into the classroom; or maybe get TiVo at my house so I could watch the NewsBabes in the late afternoon.

Or--- I could start up a new relationship with a real NewsBabe... A NewsBabe so awesome that she's on the afternoon news... The one who is waiting for me every day on NBC 5 when I get home from work.... The one with the pretty blonde hair and cute smile.... The only NewsBabe that I ever really loved: