Two is a coincidence.

At 3:30 this morning I spent about 15 minutes chasing a large moth out of my room.

It was the size of a hummingbird. It could probably have taken a hummingbird in a lamp fight.

I had a stick with a hook thing on the edge, which I mostly used to make noise in the air in hopes of driving it out (useless.) I didn't want to leave my room to get a broom for fear that the thing would nest in my bed or under my desk or something while I had stepped out. Why was I so freaked out? It almost landed on me (like the mosquito eater earlier tonight) and dude, that's not supposed to happen twice in one fucking night.

I chased it into the hallway, where it took roost on the fire alarm. It's there now. I took pictures, which I will post tomorrow when there's actual daylight outside. I went downstairs to get some water (my heart was/is racing) and another mosquito eater, possibly the same one from early, started flying at me. I used an electric fly swatter we keep above the fridge to stun it and carry it outside. About ten minutes later an even bigger one started hovering around my head. About this time I'm feeling a serious need for both an exterminator and possibly religion (ew) because it's like I'm being visited by the ghosts of insects past. I capture this one in a cup, try to toss it out the back door. It refuses to go, so I capture it again and set the cup, giant insect trapped inside, upside down on the table. I write I note for my mom in the morning, should she choose to dispose of it when she wakes up. These insects have gotten progressively bigger as the night gets later.

I go back up the stairs, the moth is still roosting on the fire alarm. I come up here, I write my report that you're reading now. I don't think I'll actually be able to sleep tonight, for fear that in a few hours I'll wake up with a rat on my chest, or worse.

This is getting very Dickens and very Jumangi, and I don't like it either way. It's hot, and I'm tired, and I'm perversely disturbed that the amount of nature in my house is only going to increase the longer I stay conscious...a thought which, on its own, is almost guaranteeing that precise outcome.

I have to try for sleep. I'll post pictures tomorrow of the various amounts of wildlife that have invaded my room without any logical way of getting in the actual house.

Lights will guide you home

About 2+ years ago I wrote a season 2 Avatar fanfic called "Guide Me Home", where I played with the idea of two characters sharing each other's dreams. It wasn't detailed or developed enough, but I enjoyed giving both Katara and Zuko chances to peak into each other's headspaces.

I ended the first chapter with on character setting off to track down the other, and I always meant to write a second half to show what happened when they met. But I was never able to properly conceptualize what I wanted from my head onto words on onscreen. I was obsessed with the song "Fix You" by Coldplay, and it bled into the mood of the ficlet. I wanted, very much, to show the energy and drive Katara felt to go retrieve Zuko. It's not even expressly romantic, could be based on pure friendship. They've shared this intense spiritual experience, and when something happens in Zuko's half of events to drive him to the mental break point, Katara knows it has happened, and decides to go get him. She no longer questions that it's real or not, or even that he would want to join the gaang, she just knows that he's alone and vulnerable and that she has to bring him back with her--that their dreams have been leading up to exactly this moment. It's what Katara does: she goes after the people who need her help, and doesn't give up on them.

But when I tried to write that moment, I got intense writer's block. Almost like I was afraid to mess it up. Eventually, a year later, I wrote the few paragraphs you see below. Unfortunately it's not really enough to add to the fic on ff.net as a new chapter. That makes me sad, because all told I got 69 reviews for the first chapter, and that's a high enough number that I feel ashamed to not give them more.


( The darkness was full and heavy beneath the forest, but from the moment Appa broken the canopy Katara could see for miles. )

National Poetry Month revisited

I don't usually care for religious lit, poetry or otherwise. But I really love the imagery and intimacy of this poem.


Andrew Hudgins

Praying Drunk


Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman, whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form
keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.
Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,
I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,
Poof! You're a casserole! - and laughed so hard
she fell out of bed. Take care of her.

Next, confession - the dreary part. At night
deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.
They're like enormous rats on stilts except,
of course, they're beautiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven't shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve I'd ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It's hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won't pause.
Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I do, even if
it's just a rat. My garden's vanishing.
Perhaps I'll plant more beans, though that
might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.
Who knows?
I'm sorry for the times I've driven
home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.
Crested with mist it looked like a giant wave
about to break and sweep across the valley,
and in my loneliness and fear I've thought,
O let it come and wash the whole world clean.
Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair-
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.

Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,
that nature stuff. I'm grateful for good health,
food, air, some laughs, and all the other things I've never had to do
without. I have confused myself. I'm glad
there's not a rattrap large enough for deer.
While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept
when I saw one elephant insert his trunk
into another's ass, pull out a lump,
and whip it back and forth impatiently
to free the goodies hidden in the lump.
I could have let it mean most anything,
but I was stunned again at just how little
we ask for in our lives. Don't look! Don't look!
Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling
schoolkids away. Line up, they called, Let's go
and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.
I laughed and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,
we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,
which is -let it be so- a form of praying.

I'm usually asleep by now -the time
for supplication. Requests. As if I'd stayed
up late and called the radio and asked
they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.
I want a lot of money and a woman.
And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know-
a character like Popeye rubs it on
and disappears. Although you see right through him,
he's there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,
and smoke that's clearly visible escapes
from his invisible pipe. It make me think,
sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me
is the poor jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me.