NoSeeUms.
A.k.a. Biting Midges.
I had never heard of them, much less run into any until I moved to the subtropics. They, however, apparently know me well enough to recognize my inherent value as a meaty, freckly, nonstop, Vegas-style, gorge-'til-you-explode, insect buffet. I am covered with the results of their gnawing on my flesh. I look like I got in a fight with an icepick-wielding madman, like my body is the arena for the Insectival Olympics. This is ridiculous. Everyone who's seen my legs recoils, to one degree or another, in some shock, some disgust. The NoSeeUms win the gold for Prolificity; Mosquitoes take the silver in Amount of Damage Inflicted with a Single Bite.
The concensus is that I am allergic to whatever filthy, disgusting, virulent plague these barely-visible parasites carry within their miniscule bodies. Most people, when bitten, host small bumps that annoy for a few hours, maybe an entire day; I break out in winding hillocks of tumid pestilence, little lumps of un-ignorable itching that, within minutes, start wending and swelling their way toward my heart...my heart. No joke. It's fucking freaky.
Of course, most of the places I really, really, really want to travel are rife with hundreds of thousands of bazillions of these rotten beasties, as well as umpty-dozen other worms and insects and arachnids that wouldn't think twice (assuming they think at all) about burrowing beneath my skin, into my veins, and swimming upstream to where the blood is really fresh and delicious. I mean, I'm flattered that my flesh is considered to be so goddamned succulent to such a wide variety of creatures, but seriously...get your filthy fucking proboscis away from me!
...Gross!
Monday, April 30, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
I'll Take A Lifetime in Four Months, Please...
...Yes, yes, of course I'll pay in sweat and blood; I'll take the ulcer and the Hard-Way lessons. I'll take the whole sleep-negating lot, only 'cause I'm impatient and goatheaded and saddled with unbridled curiosity like that. Just, y'know, couldja bitch-slap the living hell outta me until I can stand in front of my own ego and look it in the eye? That'd be great. I've spent months working on my Ten-Mile Stare.
Jesus tits, it feels like I've learned a lot recently. Or maybe I haven't; maybe I'm just now noticing what 7 years in Seattle has taught me, how those years molded and affected me. Either way, I am still having a difficult time not loathing most people, but I am suddenly more comfortable with shoving them around and taking their money.
...No, wait...
I guess that's kinda true, but its opposite is also true. I still can't stand the willfully ignorant (which is, what, 97% of the human population?), but I am at least not so interested in trying to save them from their own fear. I've become a lot more comfortable with saving myself, and...it's nowhere near as cold and savage as I thought it'd be. In fact, sometimes it's just fuckin great. Sometimes it feels like I fit into my own skin like no one else could, and sometimes I even remember who I was when my mama found me under that giant mushroom: a ceruleal star with a great, wide hunger and a moon-chewing grin.
Tonight, I am blowing off my culinary obligations for a couple hours just so I can write. I haven't made that choice in weeks. Hell, looking back at these posts, I suddenly remembered that, Hey, wait a minute...I can write! Oh yeah! I, like, totally forgot and stuff! If I hate working the professional kitchen so much, what the hell am I still doing there? I mean, the dining car on this particular Opportunity Train is providing more hard and fast lessons than any I've been on in quite some time, and that is precisely what I want (always, always, always), but, y'know...I already know how much people bore and annoy and disappoint me. I already know that the -Ridiculously Long Weeks Stressing the Fuck Out Over Something That Should Be Joyful and Creative and Communal and Is Instead Competitive and Heartless- thing is not for me. Y'know? I figured that one out pretty early. But I love the food...the goddamned fooood! And so I keep coming back 'cause they keep asking me back, and I keep killing my writing opportunities with sleeplessness and stress and, currently, a return to unabashed alcoholism. Though I am aware how appalled I will be, next time I see this post, at how scattered and inelegantly worded and ranty and simpering this little tirade is, I am high as hell, riding on great blue Joy in my veins...not "joy" like heroin or something, but Joy like the kind that bumps my skin when I sit down to write. It feels so goddamned good to selfishly spend a few hours doing what I'd really love to do for a living instead of bowing before the Gods of Sustenance I choose to worship. Feels like playing hooky from church and feeling finally free to live Life instead of acting it out, a minor character in someone else's seen-it-before play.
I have other ideas for interacting with food, ideas about which I am terribly excited and may actually pursue. But the writing has to be there. And the reading. And the not giving a fuck about whether or not anyone else agrees, or cares, or whatever. I just write 'cause it gives me joy. And if I'm happy, so is absolutely everything else I come into contact with. Who could help it?
Jesus tits, it feels like I've learned a lot recently. Or maybe I haven't; maybe I'm just now noticing what 7 years in Seattle has taught me, how those years molded and affected me. Either way, I am still having a difficult time not loathing most people, but I am suddenly more comfortable with shoving them around and taking their money.
...No, wait...
I guess that's kinda true, but its opposite is also true. I still can't stand the willfully ignorant (which is, what, 97% of the human population?), but I am at least not so interested in trying to save them from their own fear. I've become a lot more comfortable with saving myself, and...it's nowhere near as cold and savage as I thought it'd be. In fact, sometimes it's just fuckin great. Sometimes it feels like I fit into my own skin like no one else could, and sometimes I even remember who I was when my mama found me under that giant mushroom: a ceruleal star with a great, wide hunger and a moon-chewing grin.
Tonight, I am blowing off my culinary obligations for a couple hours just so I can write. I haven't made that choice in weeks. Hell, looking back at these posts, I suddenly remembered that, Hey, wait a minute...I can write! Oh yeah! I, like, totally forgot and stuff! If I hate working the professional kitchen so much, what the hell am I still doing there? I mean, the dining car on this particular Opportunity Train is providing more hard and fast lessons than any I've been on in quite some time, and that is precisely what I want (always, always, always), but, y'know...I already know how much people bore and annoy and disappoint me. I already know that the -Ridiculously Long Weeks Stressing the Fuck Out Over Something That Should Be Joyful and Creative and Communal and Is Instead Competitive and Heartless- thing is not for me. Y'know? I figured that one out pretty early. But I love the food...the goddamned fooood! And so I keep coming back 'cause they keep asking me back, and I keep killing my writing opportunities with sleeplessness and stress and, currently, a return to unabashed alcoholism. Though I am aware how appalled I will be, next time I see this post, at how scattered and inelegantly worded and ranty and simpering this little tirade is, I am high as hell, riding on great blue Joy in my veins...not "joy" like heroin or something, but Joy like the kind that bumps my skin when I sit down to write. It feels so goddamned good to selfishly spend a few hours doing what I'd really love to do for a living instead of bowing before the Gods of Sustenance I choose to worship. Feels like playing hooky from church and feeling finally free to live Life instead of acting it out, a minor character in someone else's seen-it-before play.
I have other ideas for interacting with food, ideas about which I am terribly excited and may actually pursue. But the writing has to be there. And the reading. And the not giving a fuck about whether or not anyone else agrees, or cares, or whatever. I just write 'cause it gives me joy. And if I'm happy, so is absolutely everything else I come into contact with. Who could help it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
