the shug

i spent my last days in madison floating down the sugar river with tom and caitlin (guest appearances: catherine, angela, stumpy - the bus driver, a father and his daughter - who traded cigs with tom, a group of young college girls - who wanted to trade with tom, and two high school girls - who i tried to buy a kitten from).

our floats involved a lot of journey, the boss, and caitlins hit summer mixes; eric aquired a pretty sweet floating cooler that just happened to contain a cd player. the floating also involved a delicious mix of stoli citrus and raspberry lemonade (if i remember correctly). on one of our drives home caitlin and i rocked out to this sweet jam and declared that it was our song. forever, our song. and then we cried. i can't blame the tears entirely on the stoli/lemonade refreshments.

so, when i get lonely, i pump up leona and sing my heart out. and think about caitlin. and hope that she was able to do the fresco paperwork this week. and sincerly hope that if she didn't get around to doing paperwork, t-ray will send me a comic photo of proof.

needless to say, leona's on repeat tonight. i miss certain people quite a bit. i miss them more when i have to wake up homeless people sleeping on the couches at starbucks, when i find mini liquor bottles hidden in the toilets at starbucks, when i have to call 911 because pepper-sprayed drug-dealers stumble into zoe asking for medical attention, and when i spit wine into my eyeballs during staff meetings. i miss them not because these situations are stressful, or anxiety ridden, or scary. i miss them because i want to laugh my ass off and no one else understands (yet) why i think this shit is so funny.

i miss them because i have yet to meet anyone willing to follow me past the "free kittens. take 1. or 2. or 3" sign and kindly stop me from pursing the offer.

i smell like a hippy

As promised:

A Tale of a Girl. And Her Spider.

or,

A Tale of How I Came to Rethink Karmic Retribution

A couple days before we moved I got bit on my butt cheek. At the time I thought it was a feather (I felt it as I got out of bed one morning). Didn't think anything of it - who gets bit by a spider? what does that actually mean? how bad could it be? As time went by, it started itching a little more, the skin felt warm to touch, it kinda hurt, and if I was a little buzzed I thought it was interesting enough to show to my friends (they didn't think it was. sorry Jess).

Fast forward to Western Montana. It'd been bugging me for days and I already knew it was something more serious than a bad misquito, or misplaced hicky, or whatever. It hurt to sleep on, to sit on, to walk. Despite this, I couldn't bring myself to pay $8 for a mini tube of Triple Antibiotic Ointment. Nor could I bring myself to ask my fellow travelers to unpack the U-Haul just to find my first aid supplies. Note to cross-country movers: keep the medicine handy.

Where's Catherine?

So, we're cruising along and decide we've hit a pretty great opportunity for a photo shoot. We pull over. I get out of the car. I feel it pop. I can barely walk. I can feel "it" running down my leg. T-ray mentions he has a mini-first aid kit with him. I take a look. Nasty. I bandage up. The photo was amazing. Enough said.

I suffered through the bite, throughout the drive. The bite eventually decreased in size - but not in pain, and not in the amount of fluid it wanted to release. The moment we got into our apartment I got out my medical stuff and started treating it best I could. Then, I had an allergic reaction to the plastic on the band-aid (Susan insists they were subsequent spider bite reactions). Either way, I now had a cute little compass-shape of zit-like bumps allllllllll over my butt. And they itched. Any they hurt. And they kept popping. Whatev. I like to think I'm tough. I started every day with a cocktail of Allegra, hydrocortisone, calamine, triple-antibiotic, etc. Bring it bitch.

Until I tried to walk around and find a job. I - three times - had to abandon my application-drop-off-first-impression mission because I kept bleeding through my "outfits". People told me to go to a doctor, but I don't have insurance (failed to realize Starbucks doesn't kick in until 6 months of dedication, or something like that). I'll skip the rest of the yicky details (I think you've had enough already) and tell you that, three days ago - a month and a half AFTER I got this bite - a new spot showed up, about six inches away from the initial point of contact. This one got baaad. So bad Catherine took a picture for me. And, so bad I finally agreed to seek medical attention.

(You can kind of see the darker purple dots, where old bumps have surfaced, and gone back down.) Okay, okay, it's disgusting, I know. But, it is WAY better. As quickly as this one appeared, it dissapeared. I had a some - lovely - chats with my aunt and uncle and they said: "put some tea tree oil on it, give it five days to get better. If it doesn't, go to the doctor". And I'm thankful for that. The oil is helping and the last thing I want to do is pay cash out of pocket for someone to tell me to wait it out and take some benedryl.

I smell like a hippy. Or, as my wonderful boyfriend says: "you smell like dirty old man car". Great.

Karma, karma, karma.

Fresco, being in a GARDEN, has a lot of bug issues. I think I was the only person who didn't actively seek out ways to kill them. Yes, if they were hanging above me at the host stand, or above a table, I would try to gently put them into hiding. I understand that people are afraid of them and don't really want to see them while they're eating. I love the spiders. I understand their place on earth. I tried to save them from Bindy's swinging broom of wrath and hatred. What do I get? I dogdamn infection that has my boyfriend fearing for my life and me bleeding through $210 new jeans. So. Fuck karma. Fuck the spiders. I do not fear them. I just hate them. And they deserve it.

On another note. If you get bit by anything that you think might be a spider, please get yourself to a doctor right away. Please please please. I think my condition is exaggerated because I tend to be overly sensitive to creepy crawly bites. Nonetheless, get yourself checked out. STD's are like a DQ ice cream cake, or baronjager shot - if you will, compared to this mofo.

Now, through all the research I've done, this is the only spider I've come up with that could deal this injury. I'm not convinced, because everyone says it's specific to the SW. And, I think I would have seen something this big and ominous. But, be on the lookout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider#Venomous_bite

And, don't treat your neighbors like you want to be treated, just don't bite them with venom, and you'll be fine.

one more for today

heaven comes in a cup. with or without ice.

find it. buy it.

mix it with jager and you have a "bumblebee".

*popular name: "baronjager", for all of you who don't have magical glasses that allow you to read thru the gauze wrapping.

seattle is like the popular girl in high school

want to hear about the biggest adjustment to our life in seattle? i'm going to tell you either way, and it's not the rain.

day one seattle: dropped the boys at the golf course and, within a couple hours, they'd managed to make friends with fred. fred, who bartends at a chinese restaurant a block away from our apartment. fred, who likes to give us "big whiskeys" for really low discount prices. fred, who is an amazing golfer. off to a good start? i'd like to think so. thru fred we meet more of fred's "friends", most of whom are also seattle transplants. after a couple "big whiskeys" they really like to talk about seattle natives.

deal is: people are super nice to your face but, beyond that, want nothing to do with you. think back to freshman year, or the first day on the job. or, as i imagine it, posing nude in an art class and, despite seeing your bits and peices, no one will talk to you afterwards. it sounds extreme, but i'm feeling very bruised in my attempt to make friends. you run into your new "friends" on the street and they all of a sudden forget they ever met you and will use any excuse to not talk to you.

i thought everyone was full of shit. but then it happened to me.
and the google search "seattle freeze" turned up lots of info.
including this little piece, which sums it up pretty well.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2005/0213/cover.html

let me clarify before ya'll think i'm depressed and unhappy with our decision to move. it's quite the opposite. i love it here. i feel that this could be/is my new home. i see water everywhere i go and it expands beyond my view. i see mountains every time the clouds part. the dog i will own is allowed in nearly every non-food-establishment location. importantly, i like the solitarly lifestyle and i look forward to this life where i can spend a weekend alone with jake and not deal with an external guilt-trip for staying in by myself.

further clarification: i love my madison and non-madisonian friends. i think of you all every day. i'd like to give a shout out to those who call me, and text me, and write me, and fill me in on the details of your life and my old life. you know who you are because we've been in some form of contact within the last week. this matters more to me than having a seattle friend to go to happy hour with me. but happy hour is more happy when you're with someone.

tomorrow: i'll talk about spiders. if you're lucky, i'll drink a big whiskey and post a picture.