Life Gets Revenge

Sitting here at my computer desk, I was practicing on my guitar for the first time in months. It was... well, embarrassing, despite me being the only person (that I'm aware of) who could hear me.

I saw motion in the corner of my eye. It was a spider. A fairly large spider -- maybe nickel-sized, including the legs. Yeah, I know that's not REALLY big, but when you're slightly afraid of spiders, that's DAMN BIG.

So, I think, great, I get to kill a spider! I set my guitar down and stared at the little creature for a moment, pondering over what instrument of destruction I'd like to user to complete the task. Do I have time to get a paper towel, or should I just grab my shoe?

Now, I have to say, as much as I don't like to have spiders around me, I hate to kill them. First off, I hate cleaning up spider guts. Yuck. More than that, though, I just don't feel... RIGHT about doing it. Most people, I'm sure, think, ya know, it's just a spider.

But even spiders deserve a chance to live, don't they? I mean, as long as they don't fucking touch me.

Poor little guy. I got a little sad at the thought of squishing this arachnid invader.

Well, I don't have to kill it, I considered. He's moving awfully slowly. Catch the bugger, and set him FREE!

(Yes, the spider is a boy. I could see his little spider genitals, and it was a boy. Trust me.)

I looked around for an appropriate spider collection device, but was coming up short -- literally. I needed something long enough to make sure he couldn't crawl all the way across it before I got him outside, and it needed to be flat so I could scoop him onto it. Mr. Spider was progressing inch by inch up the door, towards what end, I did not know, but I did know that I had to be quick before the opportunity was lost.

I saw an envelope -- a short one, but... if I was swift, I thought I could pull it off. I grabbed it and ran to the door. I put the envelope directly in the spider's path, urging him out loud to get onto the damn thing.

He complied.

And to thank me for sparing his life, he crawled towards my fingers, delicately gripping the opposite edge with as little of my fingertips as possible. He just kept crawling and crawling and crawling.

"LET ME HUG YOU!" his creepy, needly little legs shouted at me.

I opened my door in a panic, and I tossed my new friend to the ground. I wished him no goodbye as I closed the door between us.

"ROUGH LANDING, BUT THANKS JUST THE SAME!"

And then, in that first second after staring into the face of fear in order to do a good and noble thing...

A fucking mosquito floated through the air right in front of me.

It had flown in during the second or two that I'd had the door open.

That mosquito, dearest reader, that FUCKING MOSQUITO, on MARCH FUCKING FIFTH, is now deceased.

WTF?

* * *

By midday yesterday, I was praying for the girl I'd messaged the night before to not reply. I got some kind of sense of dread, like I'd made a big mistake.

I was very relieved when she got online and off again without replying.

I'm not sure if it was a sudden lapse of confidence yesterday, or if it was a lapse of judgment on the night I messaged her. I really don't know.

* * *

I sent another message to another girl I've never met before in the hopes of meeting her in the future.

She also did not reply.

She was only somewhat pretty, so strangely, I wasn't very nervous when I messaged her. I just wrote what I felt, basically.

Fuck it, ya know. Let's go and see what happens.

Even more strangely, I was actually disappointed to not receive anything back from her, though she was definitely less desirable in certain ways.

I'm still not heartbroken over it, though. Discouraged, yes, but... I understand how these things work, I suppose.

* * *

I'm taking the day off work tomorrow. It's the last day of a week of a certain amount of freedom -- for a while, at least -- from taking care of my son. I figured I should take advantage of the time as much as I can.

It's been good in certain ways to have this time off from him, though I do love him. It has made me feel free; no parent reading this should be surprised that I feel bound to an extent when he's around.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I'd like to take some pictures somewhere, but I don't know where to go.

* * *

I got on Flickr today to see what kind of pictures people near me had taken and, more specifically, to see if there were any good-looking female photographers in the area.

I discovered... well, I'd be most likely to call it a "gimmick," but maybe "subset" is a little more polite... a subset of photography techniques called "lomography," which, far as I can tell, means using the shittiest functioning equipment possible to take pictures. "Lo-fi," so to speak.

More than that, it's about documenting life -- having your camera around at all times -- and using instinct more than precise thought to make photos.

The look does have a certain appeal to it, and I can definitely get behind the ideological aspects.

So, I ordered a $25 camera to try it out. Should be here tomorrow or Monday. It's of the four-lens variety.

Seems like it'll be a lot of fun.

* * *

Fuck Daylight Saving Time.