Thirteen Things Thursday: The Weird Universe Edition

1.  One of the first things I do after I wake up is open my blackout curtains to check the weather.  My bedroom window overlooks my yard.  Yesterday I immediately noticed that (a) it wasn't raining, and (b) two small black boxes had appeared in my yard that weren't there the day before.  Upon investigation, I found a third one up against my house and determined that while they were not bombs, they were rodent traps.  But like ten inches across and eight inches deep so those would be some big ass rodents.  My landlord confirmed that they had put traps in my yard.  She didn't get my bomb joke.

2.  About a week ago I went to lock my front door as I was leaving for work and noticed that, in violation of all rules and regulations relating to the continued status of life of the area's spiders, an egg sac had recently hatched.  Leaving about a hundred little baby spiders hanging out on the drain pipe next to my door.  Clearly somebody missed the memo stating that no spiders may be alive within eight feet of my apartment's boundaries.  The penalty for breaking the rule:  Immediate death by ant and roach spray, which work just fine on spiders.

3.  So after the mass murder I put the spray of death back into my house, relock the front door, and go to leave.  At which time I determine that TWO somebodies did not get the memo, because there are another hundred or so little baby spiders on the drain pipe next to my neighbor's door.  Another round of spraying puts me into genocide status among the spider community.

4.  This morning I go to grab breakfast on my way out the door and spot those little black ants on my kitchen counter.  Maybe a dozen of them.  A judicious application of the thumb and paper towel of death and after washing up I'm ready to grab that breakfast.  Which is when I realize the source of the ants would be inside the clamshell with my breakfast.  I spray the ants and the food, dump both in the garbage, and leave, secure in the knowledge that soon I will be known far and wide as the Butcher of Arachnia.

5.  I do know that ants are not arachnids, but it flowed more smoothly than Insectnia.  If you want to creep yourself out, go read the Wikipedia page on arachnids.

6.  As you know, I've been out of sorts for a while.  I was exhausted nearly all of the time but couldn't sleep, couldn't focus, had a low level of anxiety all the time.  Kind of that "did I leave the iron on?" feeling, or maybe the "I forgot I did something that could cost us a half million dollars" feeling, but I couldn't figure out what was making me anxious.  Then one night I'm trying to fall asleep and I'm idly wondering about the tenseness in the left side of my jaw and whether maybe I'm having a heart attack and that's why I feel so blah all the time.  The next thought through my brain is about how at least now I don't have any pets that are dependent on me so if I am having a heart attack it's okay, and maybe that dying wouldn't be such a bad thing.  So then the next thought is, Fuck!  I'm having a major depressive episode!

7.  Because I only think of dying as a good thing when I'm massively depressed.  Not sure how it snuck past me this time and for long enough that I start having suicidal thoughts, but knowing the problem is half the battle.  The other half of the battle is, I hope, the extra dose of anti-depressants I took this morning with the idea of kickstarting my brain chemistry.  I feel so much better already, you wouldn't believe it.

8.  And no, I'm not going to kill myself, either actively or passively.  If I don't continue to feel better, I'll be going in to my doctor to see about adjusting my meds. 

9.  Earlier this week I went to meet the two cats I've been thinking about adopting.  I haven't had a cat for the past three years or so and right after I lost my cat to old age I found out I'm very allergic to them.  The last several times though that I've been around cats I haven't had much of a problem, beyond the usual "I'm already allergic to everything else, cats don't add much to it!"  Plus I didn't have a lot of problems with my own cat, so I was hopeful I'd be able to live with a kitty or two.  But my allergies kicked up big time when I was with these guys.  I think it had a lot to do with being with three cats (there was another one there for adoption in a separate cage) in a very small space who probably could've used some grooming.  I think this weekend I'm going to go down to the main shelter and look around some more. 

10.  I was flipping through a couple hundred cable channels last night looking for something to watch and almost everything was a reality show.  Some of the cable channels are starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel.  Do that many people really want to watch so many different varieties of train wrecks?  I fear for humanity.  And for my sanity.

11.  I follow comedian Jim Gaffigan (@jimgaffigan) on Twitter and for more than a year now I occasionally respond to his various tweets with a plea to come do a show in Portland.  So then he is doing a Portland show this fall and I didn't get tickets and then the show sold out.  So then he added a second Portland show.  I figured I should reward his sweetness in so doing, which bumped up my own ticket karma to where I got a seventh row seat smack dab in the middle of the stage.  How awesome is that?

12.  How to Hide Things in a Book.  See?  I rarely never make this stuff up.  I'm kinda tempted to go.

13.  Since I've started feeling better, I'm ready to pick a book or two back up again.  To read, not to hide things in.  I'm going to start on the new Laurell K. Hamilton/Anita Blake novel tonight, but I'm also looking for something romantical that takes place in a small town.  Anybody have any suggestions for me? 

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl