I’m in a terribly awful mood, I’m moody.  I could break down for you, how I got here, but you don’t have time for that, you’re working.  You should make time, though.  You should make much more time for me, I don’t know how you live with yourself, in fact, considering the appalling lack of time that you make for me.  But we’ll get to that later.

Instead I’ll tell you what capped my terribly awful mood, what sent all of the little things that chafed against each other to create my mood, over (as they say) the edge.  The edge.  Over the edge of all moods, here it is. 

Can you see it?  It’s not a good picture.  First of all, it was 12 times bigger than that.  And 52 times as creepy.  So instead of the picture, just think of your own version of terror.  It might be scorpions, birds, date nights with your wife, whatever thing makes your heart stop and skin go clammy and internal organs leap out of your mouth.  Think of something that scares you enough to do that. 

So.  “Hi my name’s Teresa and I’m scared of bugs,” I have entomophobia.  It’s a condition.  I’m not just ‘shoo bug’ scared, but frightened, terrified.  More even than the first time I watched Jaws, I feel more fear in the presence of a bug than when Jaws bit off that guy’s leg.

This particular bug, the one pictured, appears for an entire chapter of The Good Wife.  A short chapter, but still.  So perhaps the appearance of it in my kitchen was a sign.  I thought that the chapter was done, but perhaps Ernest Hemingway’s doting soul sent me a scary bug to tell me it needs work.

Regardless.  I have managed, despite my condition, to lead a fairly normal and productive life, with the help of medication (vodka) and therapy (complaining to A.)

But this mosquito, the big one … the Elephant mosquito, let’s call it.  The one everyone says, “oh, those are the harmless kind, those ones won’t hurt you,” this particular bug I haven’t made peace with.  I still have visible terror.  And he came today, to my kitchen, and I threw magazines at the wall until I maimed him enough so that it was safe to get close up and kill him.  And squash his guts. 

Right before I did, I swear I saw something in his teeth.  He was that big.

At times like this I read cookbooks, they comfort me.  So I’m right now reading Alice Waters’ “Chez Panisse: Vegetables.”  There is a lovely paragraph on page 16 about grilling asparagus and it makes me want to tell A. to come home and “prepare a wood fire in the grill” right now, then grill asparagus. 

If you want to come home A., and grill asparagus with me, that would be nice.  I’ve disposed of the scary dead bug. 

I promise today not to write about machines or ants, or even spiders.  Though it’s not easy with the machines roaring a football field away and things crawling up my arm.  Still, I promise.

Instead I’ll write about strawberries – I think they’re ripe here, or almost, and we should all pick them and make this pie.  Hmm.  That’s all I have on strawberries.  Here’s something to read about music.  

Jeez.  Take away machines and bugs and I’m afraid I’ve got nothing.  Read about summer, then (see link below).  And call me in the morning.    

[Back Fence PDX]

M-squared (who wants to be called M-III but won’t get to be because I don’t change a name once I’ve set it.  Unless it’s Herb.  Unless you’d rather be called Herb, M-squared, I like Herb) referred to a post yesterday about A. cooking, or someone cooking, or me cooking A. I can’t remember for sure.  The point is I can’t find it.  I thought he said it was here but it’s not.  In looking, though, I’ve discovered something you’ve probably known for years:  I can’t stop talking about ants!  It’s a disease.  It really is!  YOU try to balance entomophobia with your writing material and see how you do.  See if you keep the ants out.

By the way, I want you to donate a dollar toward my disease next time you’re at Safeway.  They’ll try to steer you toward lupus or cancer, but please tell them you want your money in Entomophobia.  Insist on it.  Threaten to shop at Albertson’s.  Tell them you are tired of reading about ants. 

This has nothing at all to do with ants but I think you’ll like it.  Particularly you, M., though I’m sure you’ve already seen it.  Where is this, where’s Garrison?  The place itself, Guinans, sounds like a place Andy and I stopped at on the way to a client, some weird client we had upstate.  It was an hour train and we got off at one point and bought tall cans of beer like high school kids.  It wasn’t the usual train, like to Connecticut or wherever else all the trains go — there were leafy trees along the way and little else.  And I think, for the record, we bought the beers on the way back, after we had finished acting professional. 

It reminds me of summer, which at 48 degrees here in Mac looks like we won’t get, but still I reached back 24 years and wrote this. 

Ta-ta.

Scruffy and I are unsettled by the machines.  They make Scruffy bark, they make me mad, they can see over the fence.  My fence!  They can watch me back and forth, between big house and small, they can see what I’m snacking on, that my hair is uncombed, that I’m not wearing shirts.  It’s discomfiting!  I don’t like it one bit. 

There’s that and still the ants.  You’re bored with the ants, I know, have I mentioned the ants?  Ellen, it’s true, has issues with ants, but have I told you about any of mine?  The ants have invaded the second floor, they’ve taken it over, I had to retreat.  I don’t know how long I can hold them off, I fear for the house.  I bet the machines in back can see the ants, why aren’t they helping me, why aren’t they calling for backup?  There are a lot of freaking ants!

After Field Day (it starts in 30 minutes) I’ll deal with the ants, I’ll call a guy. 

Saturday there was a party, I have pictures.  I probably won’t show them to you because they are all good Catholic parents, I’m too busy for scandal.  It’s rumored that one punched someone else in the jaw, another stripped off his clothes, three more lost at Blackjack and can’t make their vig. 

Ha ha.  Scruffy was the monster.  He chewed up food and peed on rugs and there was garbage, because of him, strewn all about. 

People left several things.  Some left coats, some left furniture, there was also car keys a car and a purse.  They can all be reclaimed in the lobby for a small-to-medium fee.

I have work to do now.  Send me peaches. 

… and his comment.  Before I go one way or another I’ll, of course, want to see the present. 

Unrelated, the landscapers are here and I think they saw me naked.  I’m accustomed to watching animal porn and undressing all day without bother.  Don’t knock my routine, I’m on a streak.  (Pun intended.)

Oh, yeah, and the ants are back upstairs.  They’ve multiplied and seem mad.  Some of us will need to sleep elsewhere this eve.

I’m having problems, they’re technical.  And so I had things to say and I’ve forgotten them because I first tried to muscle through another download by myself, without buttons, and when that didn’t work tried to muscle through the Automatic Updater plugin and that was no treat.  All because of strange goings-on in the application — this one here, right here, that I use to post my lovely words. 

Then crashing and freezing followed elsewhere, of course; these problems all come in threes.  This all on the heels of having to relocate my “office” this morning, from the back house to the front, because of a spider.  Not just any spider, but the weird thick black-and-white striped one that was sitting right square on the middle of the bed last week before A. smashed it.  Now its wife or mother or brother or best friend is back and sitting striped and meaty in the center of the table, where my coffee goes.  It’s got big muscly thighs and it crouches all eight of them down like it’s going to jump and I swear if that thing jumps it can go for a city mile.  (Country mile, city block, I know but I’ll say what I want.) 

So you understand, now, that I can’t even be in the same house as it, nor can I kill it because I’m too scared.  It has practically, almost entirely, ruined my day.

This, on the morning following the evening that I was knocked out of the Mac 3rd Street Books Spelling Bee on – I’m ashamed to tell you this, but it’s bound to get out — “scuttlebutt.”  Yes, “scuttlebutt” and I’ve no intention of telling you how I spelled it. 

It’s 10:13.  I must go while there’s something to salvage.