This was originally posted in late November of last year, in the members-only section of a forum I frequent. This was about when I was at my worst physically and mentally, when I was not only ignoring my health, but outright destroying it. However, there was the occasional brief glimmer of guilt-free confidence.
“I've fairly successfully moved my sleep schedule forward by a few hours. I've had a lot of papers to write, so I've been staying up to write them. My favorite time of night is between 1:30 and 3:30 AM - looking out my window, I can convince myself that at that very moment, I am the only person alive in the whole world. With Pork Soda (especially The Pressman) emanating softly from my laptop's tiny harmon/kardon speakers, I can write brilliantly about nearly anything. My tone is cynical yet friendly. I am omnipresent yet invisible.”
It’s often at times like these, when we’re moving in the wrong direction, running headlong towards the wrong goals, when our minds are cloudiest and our vices most destructive, that we’re most sure of ourselves. Still, I wouldn’t mind having some of that guiltless self-assurance again. In the meantime, I'm going to sleep. I've been fighting this headache all day, and it feels like it's winning.
I’ve always had a deep and abiding respect for you guys, and that’s why it pains me so much to say this. I’ve always been fascinated by your kind; not in the sort of way a second-grader like snakes and scorpions and dinosaurs and stuff like that, but a real admiration and respect for your innate beauty and grace (For the record, I never really liked any of that other stuff). I’ve always made an effort to leave you be and avoid disturbing you when I stumble across your intricate and beautiful webs, and I have inspired others close to me to do the same. I even let one of you live for an entire summer in the oleander bush outside of my garage. I would check up on you every morning just to make sure you were still guarding your post. We were buds.
But lately, it seems like you’ve been taking advantage of me. It really stopped being funny by the fourth time you weaved one of your arachnid apartments right in the middle of the walkway up to my house. You’ve also been terrifying my poor girlfriend by taking up residence in the bush by my front door. It’s nice to think that you wanted to be close to me, but I’ve walked by dozens of times and you’ve NEVER ONCE said “Hi.” You could at least pretend to care about my well being. And I also shouldn’t have to pick webs out of my hair when all I’m trying to do is get the tractor out of the shed and mow my lawn, and it’s especially impolite to live under the door handle to said shed. You’re just making more work for both of us. I feel really bad when I’ve had to kill my third spider in a week. Really, really bad. I mean that. Look, I know that it’s not as scenic as where you are now, but why not start living in my Mustang again? God knows I haven’t touched it in years, save for a reassuring “some day” pat on the fender. Seriously, when I brought her home there were like two hundred of you guys living in the headliner, what happened?
on Attention Spiders