Yo tengo hombre.

With luck, my year of the hermit, my 365 days of solitude, my life alone in a dark rat infested hole will come to an end very soon. I'm moving out of this roach motel and into a newly built, centrally cooled and heated complex with my former labmate Kelsey. Not only am I looking forward to leaving the unwanted many-legged and sometimes furry roommates behind, I'm looking forward to having a porch free of drunk Mexicans.

My neighbors are quite odd. Kelly is a tiny white woman in her 40's and has the voice of a squeaky dog toy. Jamie, her husband, must be at least ten years her junior and on the few occassions I've tried to have a conversation with him, I've gotten lost in a miasma of bad English and thick Hispanic accent. When he's not doing yard work, Jamie spends his time sitting on the stoop with his Hispanic friends, drinking Bud Light and singing songs in Spanish.

Upon these occassions, I feel uncomfotable. It's mostly my ignorance that brings this on. They attempt to speak with me but after three repetitions I still cannot successfully discern what is being spoken to the ignorant gringa and walk away wondering if I was being harassed or if they were just being friendly. I retreat to my cave and hope they are gone by the time I need to pull my clothes from the drier.

Today's conversation went like this:

"We okay?" one of them asks.
"What?"
"We okay?"
"Sorry?"
"We okay? Not too loud?"
"No, you're fine."
One of them sneezes several times.
"Bless you," I said.
"Que?"
"Bless you."
"Que?"
"I've gotta go."

I came back from running an errand and they were still hanging around.
"How you?"
"Pardon?"
"How you?"
"What?"
"How you?"
"No no no. Just go," another one laughs and gestures me to continue walking toward my apartment.

Yo no mas tengo paciencia por bebido hombres en mi porche. Yo tengo hambre ahora.

I ain't afraid of no ghost!

"Anaeromyxo" and I were talking about ghosts. Those whispers of people we knew once ago, typically remembered as being associated with drama of some nature. Those translucent forms who've since moved on (or have been moved away from). But the thing is, they're never really gone, now are they? Two, five, ten years down the line they apparate, materialize out of thin air before you. It may be just a glimmer - a long-forgotten photo or a seldom-heard song gives shape to an old friend or enemy. Or if you're cursed, they truly appear before you, with solid edges, riding a bike in front of your car on your way to work one day.

At the time, we were discussing ghosts who may just be better vanquished and cast out. Your regular old ghouls and demons. People who just make you want to punch, kick, and scream. But what of the harmless variety, the Caspers, the Nearly-Headless Nicks? Is it really so terrible for them to stick around?

I was doing something quite monotonous after this conversation when suddenly my own friendly ghost presented himself. I was pipetting over and over again, and my mind slipped into a train of thought that dredged up the memory of my first kiss. Oh no, this was no grand flashback. No slow-motion movie scene sort of reminiscence. This was truly the most embarrassing, mortifying, crawl-into-the-fetal-position memory from my college experience (Yes, I said college! Stop laughing, it's not funny yet!) and I about fell off my chair in a fit of hilarity.

Meet my Moaning Myrtle: Chuck Muszak.

I spent the summer after my freshman year of college back in my hometown, working my very first job. I was a cashier drone at the local Giant Eagle. "Do you have any coupons today?" Beep beep. "Cash, check, or credit, ma'am?" These questions where followed by a deep, resonant "Paper or plastic?" from the end of the counter, spoken by my very own bag boy, Chuck Muszak.

Chuck was tall, blonde, and dreamy and most importantly, he liked me. Other cashiers would have pallets of groceries to be bagged, and yet there was Chuck at the end of my conveyor, bagging up Mrs. Pansington's cat food and Depends just so he could talk to me. I was smitten and he asked me out. I thought it was fate, that we'd be together forever because his favorite color was green, he had a pet turtle and his last name was my major in college (Muszak = music). But it didn't take long to know that our undying love for each other was not written in the cards.

One especially nice summer day, Chuck took me to a swimming pond that had a rope swing you could launch yourself off of into the pond. We were having a fantastic time swimming around and after, we cleared a spot in the weeds to lay in the sun to dry. It was picture-perfect, the magical essence of teenage love. One thing led to another and Chuck asked, "Can I kiss you?" I froze. I didn't know what to do. This was new territory, I had no idea what I was doing but I didn't want to disappoint. "Yes," I said.

He rolled inward and started to kiss what I imagine felt like a limp fish. After a few moments of trying to get some sort of reciprocation from me, and failing, he pulled away abruptly and said "Holy shit! Was that the first time you've ever kissed a guy?!" I could only nod, my voice betrayed me. "Holy shit! That's like... oh my god, really?" He proclaimed his disappointment and utter disbelief at my inexperience for what felt like an eternity. I was horrified and demanded to be driven home right then and there.

I must have cried for days, so stupid and silly, naive enough to think a name and a turtle had sealed our destiny together. Little did Chuck know, he'd have me in tears again, years later as this long-submerged memory drifted by and had me in stitches, nearly contaminating my phytoplankton transfer. Chuck Muszak. Those were the days!

vacation days well spent

There is something about a porch swing that ceases any inclinations of further motion. The hypnotic lull of the back-and-forth erases ambitions of progress and makes work but a distant memory. No sound is as sweet as the gentle creaking of the springs, no cushion as comfy as that sun-faded, flowery polyester.

There's a southerly breeze blowing over your shoulder that smells faintly of childhood. Cool sweat drips down your glass as the ice cubes melt within. You take a sip of your iced tea and find yourself remembering the giant maple that stood in the backyard of your youthful summers, the one with the rope swing that kept slipping until the seat was an inch above the ground, the one with the stray plastic dinosaur lodged in its branches.

As the porch swing sings of its desire for a few drops of WD-40, you pick up your book. Eight hundred and seventy pages chock full of intrigue and adventure await you and you purposely overlook the fact that the intended audience is a gaggle of pimply, hormonal fifteen year olds. After all, this practically is your second childhood. You utter a prayer of gratitude into the breeze, thankful for an improved complexion this time around.


You've been rocking on that very spot for a week now, absorbing word and sun alike, interrupted but once by an afternoon spent laying on the banks of a Great Lake, where you continued your absorption of word and sun alike. Phrases of thoughts drift through the back of your mind like the waves of a distant storm rolling ashore. "There was this thing... back in that place where I live... something I had to do...." But the tide carries the driftwood all back to sea, and you wrap yourself up in a cocoon of carefree summer days. "Whatever the worries, they can wait. This is just too perfect to taint."

Birds flutter and tweet in rhythm with the swing and the potted plants dance about. They can sense that your leisure time is running out, that your departure is imminent. They mourn for your loss, but they keep it to themselves, happy to keep your stresses at bay until their powers become ineffective in time.

At last, the hour arrives to pack up your temporary world of magical idleness and trade it for one of predictable schedules and constant vigilance. The real world awaits, freedom abates. The porch swing haven must be vacated. You're hesitant. If only you could just remain here, rocking and dawdling. Or package it up and take it with you. What more could you possibly need than everything right here in this moment?

cockroaches

There is a roach in my apartment. I have seen some giant, juicy, scary roaches over the course of my tenure in the South, but none so massive, oozing, and alarming as this one. It is so unnerving, in fact, I am unable to fall asleep this fine evening for fear it may creep into my room and chomp me to bits with its enormous mouth parts. I tried stomping it once and retreated in horror as my shoe could not penetrate its steely defenses, my spray could not affect its self-absorbed demeanor. I fear it is making a nest in the front room, scavenging all possible happy thoughts and fluffy laughter to use as one comfortable bed of devilry and despair. And to think, somehow it can afford the rent.

Perhaps, you've realized I am not speaking of roaches at all, but rather a cruder and recent infestation. My new roommate. I was laying here, trying to put all the AHHH-WHAT-AM-I-GOING-TO-DO, verge-of-a-panic-attack thoughts aside, when I thought, how appropriate for her to be screaming throughout the apartment at 10:30pm about a roach in the house as if it were the end of the world. How very ironic and totally freaking hilarious, in a karma's-a-bitch kind of way. I thought, "my blog would be a good outlet for this petrifying anxiety." It would be time consuming for me to start at the beginning, and so I thought, "I'll start from the now."

I went, by cover of "an errand", to check out a new apartment this evening. My dealings with said roach over the course of the past few days have not only distracted me to the point that reading is not enjoyable, but have actually driven me to investigate entirely new dwellings, void of strange creatures of any kind. The apartment was a bit of a let-down - a bit more expensive and a bit less endearing than my current situation, minus the roach. As I reflected upon this, I felt maybe I was being rash. Maybe I just need a good vacation to give me new perspective.

So I came home, went out to the kitchen for dinner and decided to talk to my new roommate. We were having a perfectly innocuous conversation about growing up in a land of snow and clouds when she suddenly got it in her head that my most pleasant and non-offensive roommate, who is fortunate enough to own a car, must take her on an errand or let her borrow his car for the purposes of the errand. An errand she was irresponsible enough to forget all about, and undone could potentially put her in jail if not accomplished by 5pm tomorrow.

I sat on my kitchen counter, distressed and offended for Nice Rooommate, as the roach proceeded to cry and swear about the injustices of the world. Nicey said no, repeatedly, as he was about to go to bed and no, it was not a matter of gas but an unexpressed matter of indecency that was so obvious to anyone not so greatly self-involved. And yet, the roach continued pushing, screaming about how she cannot afford a taxi and how she's never asked him for much.

At this point, I had to leave the room. The yelling continued until Nicey gave in. And I shed a tear for the true injustice done.

I have lived with Nicey for an entire year, and I have never asked him for anything more than if I could take his clothes out of the drier. Nor have I ever felt entitled to ask. The roach has known him for three weeks and has already forced him into ferrying her about, much to Nicey's inconvenience... twice. She has a skewed sense of entitlement that baffles my brain cells.

Suddenly I was filled with fiery anger. I was, in fact, not overreacting or being too hasty in wanting to break loose of her drama. No length of vacation could give me enough new perspective on this matter. This is my home, and as much as it has been less-than-ideal over the last year, nothing is so foul as this current fuckery. I must not mourn my failed escape plan, but rally the troops and defend the castle. Fight a sneaky and terrifying battle to win back my comfort. I realized I cannot abandon my comrade, my truly ideal roommate.

There must be a way out of this that does not involve bullets and screaming. I have not discovered it yet though. The roach is so clearly on a path of self-destruction, which if the stars align, may work in my favor. Perhaps her funds will run dry and she will be evicted, arrested, or disposed of by a mightier hand than my own. But her brand of energy is dangerous and might very well take down anything in the near proximity. And so thus my dilemma. First thing's first though - explore the possibility of a United Front defense. Surely, Nicey, after tonight, you will be on board.