When your WORST NIGHTMARE comes true, THREE TIMES IN ONE WEEK.

...ok, it's not my absolute worst. BUT IT'S SO UP THERE.

I've always been afraid of spiders, you see. As I've gotten older, I've gotten less frightened of really little ones, but daddy long legs etc freak me out. You can imagine then, that something like a BROWN RECLUSE spider would easily terrify me just by existing, even though I (mistakenly) assumed they don't live here in NYC.

Nope, not here in NYC, I thought. Just thinking about being in a room with one, and seeing where it was, was a nightmare in itself for me. (In case you're unfamiliar with them, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider)  My naive, frightened little brain couldn't even fathom anything beyond that. Couldn't even imagine having one near me, on me... BITING me... Nope. Didn't think I needed to go there to construct imaginary defense scenarios. Because it would never happen to me, because we don't have THOSE things HERE.

So about a week ago, I wake up with some kind of small bug bite on my left forearm. It's itchy as shit, so I scratch the hell out of it and don't give it a second thought. Within three days, not only did it not get better, but it was about the size of a dime, was dry, crusty, and looked like ringworm but with a darker dot in the center. About this time, I noticed a second similar thing on the other side of my left forearm, a few inches away. I also had a burning feeling in my left kidney which came and went in waves. For two days I had this going on, and didn't connect the two, as I still wasn't sure the first two things were bites. I looked up skin lesions (I don't recommend doing this unless you have to. BARF.) and it seemed like I might have contact eczema, which meant I was allergic to something I had come into contact with. That was somewhat relieving, to know it wasn't anything serious.

That night I went to sleep early, and slept through a fever apparently. I woke up drenched in sweat, despite my lack of sleeves and blankets. I went back to sleep, and when I woke up I was fine, no kidney pain and no fever. La di da, I went about my business.. until yesterday. I woke up with a third bite. (I can still see the puncture marks the fangs left.) Only this was different from the first two. Located on my right upper arm near my shoulder, it's not itchy and the redness is tightly contained around the two puncture marks. Now at this point, I still don't know for sure what the first two are, or if the third is the same as the first two... I was entertaining aliens as the culprit, only half jokingly.

Fast forward to last night: Around 9 pm, I'm doing the dishes before Law & Order: SVU comes on, my boyfriend isn't home yet and I keep looking at the TV to make sure I'm not gonna miss the beginning. Suddenly I see my  two cats (now forever synonymous with guardian angels!) cornering some leggy looking thing which I assume is the millipede I saw before bed the night before (which I'm now unconvinced was a millipede and might in fact be a larger, second spider. I can't articulately convey my sheer terror over this thought). I wander over AND HOLY THOR'S THUMBS SWEET MOTHER OF GOD IT'S A GODDAMN BROWN RECLUSE AND MY FUR BABIES ARE IN DANGER. Uttering a savage war cry (ok, that may or may not be true) I ran into the bedroom, took one of my boyfriend's gigantic shoes, and SAVAGELY SMASHED IT TO DEATH.

Now, I am largely unconcerned about the physical aspects of this whole affair, as my flesh is neither necrotizing nor infected, and my organs seem to be intact, and judging by the third bite, my body has developed some kind of antibody to the venom. I am deeply concerned about the psychological effects, however. Since it happened, I've hallucinated frequently that there are dark spots scurrying around on the wooden floor, I'm HYPERSENSITIVE and every little thing that touches me is a potential spider, I'm scared as hell to put clothes on without inspecting them and then trampling them just to be sure, and I spent a large part of this afternoon WAILING and sobbing in completely uncontrollable anguish. My paranoia was quelled briefly by chugging rum straight from the bottle, but I can't keep doing that. I will have to move on or become a raging alcoholic.

The one thing I do know is that once these bites are healed, I am getting a commemorative tattoo over the site of the first bite. After all, not everyone gets to survive one of their worst nightmares three times in one week...

On Kittens and Paintings and... Stuff.

So last friday (not this past friday, the one before) I got off the train a stop early while headed back to my fella's place, because I had to get cat food. Well, wouldn't you know it, there was a little kitten, about 4 months old, a half block away from the train. She was enthusiastically pouncing around a tree, and some guy was taking a picture of her with his cell phone. My first thought was, "Why is he letting his kitten play in the dirt?" And then I thought, "Oh, maybe she's a store cat..." So I look up, and it's a money sending place. Also, hold on... she's four months old! So after watching him unsuccessfully try to pet her, I bend down and whistle and make kissy noises, and she comes right over. Soft as feathers, a little gray and black striped tabby with white front paws, a white belly, and mostly white hind legs. And the most endearing trait... a little white stripe down her nose! Well, I started getting all ragey inside. I mean, it could have been an accident (although now I'm sure it's not, I see no lost cat signs in the neighborhood or ads on CL either) but I immediately thought then, as I do now, that since it was two days after Christmas that she was someone's unwanted Christmas present. Some low life piece of shit must have dumped her on the street. People who do things like that need to be educated, and if the educating doesn't work, they need to be dumped somewhere, to see how they like it.

So I headed to the store, got some food, and came back. I panicked when I saw her practically playing in traffic- this was no feral kitten. She had no street smarts whatsoever. I dumped a can out on a napkin, and she ran over and demolished it with gusto. I finally texted my fella- "I found a kitten :-(" We decided I should take her home, and after some effort, I recaptured her, scooped her up, and held her against my chest while hauling a Target bag and another bag of cat food. No easy feat, but I did it. As you can imagine, Lulu, our 3 year old cat, was confused. We were both shook up, me and my fella. Poor Lulu, she tried to be friendly to the kitten, and the kitten hissed at her. (We eventually named the kitten Groucho.) The tables have turned though, and now Groucho is trying desperately to make friends with Lulu, and Lulu is just tolerating her. But barely... there's a lot of swiping and hissing going on. I've offered Groucho to a friend of mine, as I don't see the two cats being overly friendly any time soon, but now my fella is attached and says we should keep her. ARGH! As much as I adore the little purr monster, and I love the way she snuggles against my chest and falls asleep, I really really think it's ultimately up to Lulu. I don't want her to be uncomfortable in her own home.

I haven't painted in a long time now, although I've completed three since August. I don't think I've mentioned that here. (I really want to make an effort to write here at least once a week now, because I think it will help me articulate my thoughts better. Isn't that what it's for?) It seems that once the cold weather kicks in, I just want to knit my fingers off. All desire to paint goes out the window until it gets hot. I'm looking forward to getting them photographed though, so I can sell them as prints online. People are interested in buying the originals as well, which is totally awesome. Ideally, what I want for my future is to make a decent amount of money selling things online, including knit things, so that I can put myself through nail school. Yeah, that's right- I want to be a nail art technician :-)

Ok, I've got to go do something about my rent money, or lack thereof now. Hopefully something will turn up today. Fingers crossed!