I Have an Irrational Fear

I can just about tolerate most of the people crawling all over this city; there are some who appall me (see L-train disaster below), and some who annoy the absolute fuck out of me (elitist assholes), but on the whole, I'm cool with people.

I am not now, nor will I ever be cool with a certain variety of non-people crawling all over this city: bugs. I'll take cracked out, wretchedly fat subway rats and filthy dirty pigeons any day of the week, but put a bug in front of me and I will throw up on you...and the bug.

I hate them.

They paralyze me.

..and I live in New York City...fucking Bug Capital USA.

The summer after I moved into my first apartment without roommates, I found a dead cockroach in a cabinet. I think the scream that escaped my mouth could have been heard in the Financial District. My body went into sheer panic mode where it couldn't settle on whether to faint or throw up. I pictured myself fainting, smacking my head on the corner of my kitchen table, being rendered unconscious on the floor while the cockroach's next of kin came to assault my nasal passages.

Nevermind all this news over the last couple years about bedbugs that has me absolutely petrified to sleep at night. My OCD issues with keeping my apartment clean were unquestionably multiplied ten fold when I found out that simply sitting on a bench in the subway station could lead to an infestation of bedbugs in my little cabinet-sized apartment. The thought of these minuscule demons from hell making a home out of the best mattress I've ever purchased kept me awake at night trapped in a psychosomatic real-life nightmare as I scratched various parts of my body convinced I felt little motherfuckers all over digging into my skin for a bloody snack.

I've even had real nightmares, when finally able to fall asleep, that bedbugs were burrowed in my skin, making little bedbug condos out of the layers of skin in my hands and under my nail beds. Horrifying. I woke up in a sweat.

I went to the movie theater two weeks ago with a friend...after nearly 2 years of avoiding them like they housed the Bubonic Plague itself. Why you ask? The fucking bedbugs. But after 2 years of being an absolute pansy, I finally let my guard down (after threatening to wrap myself in Saran wrap) and went to take in a movie. But I went prepared. It was probably 25 degrees out and I left my apartment in a simple t-shirt, jeans, the smallest pair of underwear I had, ankle socks, and a scarf. I nearly left the scarf at home, but thought theater might be cold so I'd want something to keep me warm. Ironic, no?

At the end of the movie, I turned down a request to go to a bar and raced back to my apartment (luckily only a block and a half away from the theater) and promptly put my clothes into a plastic bag. That's what they say to do. Either throw your clothes in the dryer or put them in a plastic bag and tie it in a knot to suffocate any potential demonic, blood hungry micro-monster. Not having washer/dryers in my apartment, I opted for the vengeful and sadistic torture of suffocating them to death in the plastic bag.


...and there they continue to lie. I took this picture this morning. I'm not yet convinced I can open the bag, though I'm sure if there were any alive, they're most certainly dead. I just hope that if there were any of those little fuckers, that they died a miserable death and descended back to the depths of hell where they belong. (Please note the little piece of paper under the wooden dresser...yeah. That would be a sticky pad bug catcher. Toldja. OCD.)

I know I'm bigger than them. I know I can squish them, and spray them with bleach or rubbing alcohol and watch them shrivel up and croak, but for whatever reason...when I see a bug I'm suddenly an 8 year old girl.

Whatever. I'm a fucking tiger in the sack, and that's all that really matters in the end, right?

Valentine's Day

Let's just forget about the fact that it's been too, too long since I've posted.

We're such good friends that it really doesn't matter, right? Like high school girlfriends from years past, we can pick up right where we left off.

Valentine's Day is next week. I have a love/hate relationship with it. When in a relationship, I'm whimsical and romantic. When I'm single, I want to sit in a dark room, drink wine, and watch slasher movies. When I'm caught between being in a relationship and single, I find myself constantly questioning just how much Valentine's Day attention is appropriate.

This is exactly where I find myself as I've been lavishing in the quiet but exciting torture of "courting" a man I would most definitely like to call mine this year. Both of us are pretty intent on not making any drastic moves too quickly, however, so there is a very quiet, delicate dance that I think we're in the midst moving through. Broken hearts force us to tread carefully, don't they?

As mentioned, I have a history of being the whimsically romantic guy. Not to mention, of course, that my love life is dictated specifically by Murphy's Law, so I know not to hold on too tight as far as planning and preparation are concerned. So as the weekend draws near - when the Valentine's activities would likely materialize - I wonder what the hell I'll end up pulling out of my hat. Most often, I'll go simple. Understated. Like a cut out picture of a heart in my hands or a single rose atop a warm casserole dish with something mind-bogglingly delicious inside. Throughout time the adage remains true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach...I ain't no fool.

So, here I remain, carrying on delicately with a guy to whom some of my friends have said I sent mixed messages. Other friends have said not much else in the way of anything helpful at all, and mostly roll their eyes as they listen to another story about yet another guy. On one hand, I'm not sure if any kind of attachment is what I should get myself into given that my career is now finally starting to take off while miraculously I'm still being grossly underpaid. But on the other hand, my heart is ablaze in a passionate fire that rages, truly wanting only to have that simple conversation about taking the next step. Not a plunge. A step. Fiery passion about a single step. May sound ridiculous, but it's true.

Like a zipper, I need to find the best way to close this gap of ambivalence, joining my conflicting sides in a harmonious line that moves forward slowly, tooth by tooth. I'm not going to disappoint Cupid this year. My pants are down, you little fatso. Fucking poke me!