Because I Knew You

For Raja. April 2002 – July, 11^th 2014. We love you, always.

Because I knew you, I learned…

if it’s worth changing, complain loudly until SOMEONE FRIGGIN DOES SOMETHING

sometimes bite the hand that feeds you because they just don’t listen

walk with a little bit of swagger, sometimes a lot

think outside the litter box

if you don’t like something, pee on it

if you do like something, pee on it

help yourself to treats once in a while (perhaps someone’s unattended cereal); life is short

stay close to and/or directly on top of the ones you love; life is short

show the ones you love that you love them... actions always speak louder than words

there are few better things in the world than a cat nap, a good cuddle, or someone opening a can

play outside and play hard… because those f*cking chipmunks act like they own the place

give your absolute trust to few, but be adored by many

thunderstorms are scary, even to a badass

if you’re doing it right, it will literally be impossible for someone to sneak up on you

sometimes it’s better to react; sometimes to respond

explore, and explore without fear

body language. body language. body language.

land on your feet, and if you don’t, just walk off coolly like you totally meant to do that

be your genuine self; there’s only ever going to be one you

be larger than life

know when to make your exit.

66º North

Travel planning is a curious thing. It’s remarkable how easy an adventure can seem while one is excitedly plunking internet buttons from the safety and comfort of ones couch. It usually starts with a statement of such nature: oh, we’ll be in better shape by the time the trip comes around, or, you know what? I don’t think we need more than 3 hours of sleep, or, I’m pretty sure I did that once at summer camp, I’m sure it’ll come back to me. Iceland, in the midst of the frigid North Atlantic, with a landscape that is formed by the churning of glaciers/cataclysmic clashes between volcanoes and ice, where the lineage of just about anyone can be traced to a murderous clan of Vikings, is altogether too eager to punish you for your overly ambitious trip planning. Our first ever glacier hike, on the magnificent island of Iceland, would prove to us that we would never again feel safe planning anything from the safety of our couch.

After an appallingly short night of sleep, we were retrieved from our hotel by a silent woman who also appeared as though she may have been formed by glaciers or possibly some other kind of tectonic plate movement. Without a word, we were dropped in a parking lot with a mismatched bunch of weary-looking outdoor enthusiasts standing silently facing away from the icy, whipping wind. A bus wheeled into the parking lot, at which point I recalled that the night before, upon learning of our intended trip, the concierge at the hotel had said something in regards to “monster truck busses”. I had sleepily dismissed this as his lack of grasp on the English language and inability to differentiate between motor vehicles that crush other motor vehicles in dusty arenas and just plain old big busses. As I watched the bus pull in, I realized that Icelanders understood the nuances of the English language just fine.

The balding, cigarette smoke enriched bus driver clamored off the oversized bus and the rest of the group, as if downloading from a shared invisible source of information, began piling on. Before we launched our ascent into the main bus cabin we reasonably inquired to the tobacco encrusted driver if there were bathrooms on board. "They no work. Only 4 hour ride," he said, as he impatiently gestured us onto the bus with his smoking hand. He must have deduced from our blinking silence and lack of movement that more information would be required (holding it in for 4 hours seemed slightly unreasonable), so to finally coax us onto the bus he added with a slight air of judgment and a not so slight disdainful look: "We stop 100 km." And so, our bladders breathed a sigh of relief and off we went.

The bus waddled through the streets of Reykjavik and we enjoyed our first daylight glimpses of the city until we finally met the highway and begun the journey to the glacier. Awed, we absorbed the ever-changing and ethereal terrain as we worked farther away from civilization. The trouble though, with sightseeing, is that one, generally speaking, needs to be awake to see. It would turn out to be, after arriving late the night before, and achieving a mere 3 hours of sleep, a losing battle. Occasionally one of us would awake in a drowsy burst to look around and nudge the other who would drunkenly slur … ohmygod, itsssso priddy… and nod back off again.

We arrived eventually at a sleepy gas station/rest stop and I glanced at my watch which blinked “10 am” and relayed to my weary partner that I had a sinking feeling this is what the website had meant by “a stop for lunch”. Not wanting to interrupt the bus driver’s smoking with any more of our asinine questions, we ordered two hot dogs with everything which we feverishly devoured and realized that Icelandic gas station hot dogs were unequivocally the best hot dogs we’d ever eaten, and ordered two more. The website had also promised that at the end of the day’s activities we would be treated to a “warm waffle”. I was quite uncertain as to how a waffle would fit into the day’s events, but a waffle, I reasoned, in most circumstances would generally improve things.

After several more hours of driving, and a brief stop to transfer to a rattling yellow school bus, we jostled and bounced our way to the trailhead of the glacier. The spectacular, slow-moving ice loomed in the distance where a bunch of emboldened clouds clung to it like a gang of villainous sidekicks. The hike to the immense icy tongue was relatively brief and we when we came to the ice, our guide emerged with a litany of safety instructions and noted that it was time to put on our crampons. As if waiting for their cue, the clouds sprang into action, unleashing frigid torrential sheets of rain. So, this was Iceland. And there was no going back now.

My hands shriveled and frigid water invaded every crevice and stitch in my apparently barely even water resistant clothing. What concerned me the most was that the guide seemed completely undeterred by the weather. He pressed on, stopping to lecture us enthusiastically on Iceland’s geographical novelties despite the fact that he looked as though someone had thrown a bucket of ice water in his face. I stood there shivering and smiling and nodding politely, wanting to scream that I’d had enough of the glacier and the rain and the increasingly irritating Italian couple who insisted on snapping picture after picture of each other in ridiculous action poses that resembled nothing that we had done so far. I wanted shout for someone to take me somewhere indoors and to (for christ’s sake!) bring me my waffle. The fear of being viewed by the chiseled Icelander as another squashy American waddling and pointing around his homeland coupled with, ultimately, his handsomeness, prevented me from saying anything at all. 

I did take some solace in that there appeared to be other, more woebegone individuals among the group. There were two women who we had nicknamed Toronto, who was from Toronto, and Tippy Toes who never could quite get the hang of the crampons and tittered around on the ice like an oversized drunk ballerina. The former apparently had been either unable or unwilling to observe the fact that 99.8% of the people on the bus ride to the glacier were in fact resting or sitting quietly so others could rest and had decided that her entire life story should be relayed to her fellow passenger in voluminous detail. Now, she stood shivering and soaked, without even a proper coat, all of the gusto and gregariousness getting systematically sucked out of her through her flimsy, sopping white tennis sneakers. The latter handled the cold and wet with more resiliency, though her instability appeared to increase proportionally along with her level of saturation. I began to hope that perhaps one of the annoying Italians would fall and break something so that there would be at least the possibility of us being helicoptered to safety.

The reason the Vikings never bothered with the phrase “what happens in Iceland stays in Iceland” was because they were pretty sure that if you weren’t careful, you’d end up frozen in the depths of a glacial crevasse anyway. They knew that Iceland was neither the time nor the place for shenanigans. Fortunately, we did not end up in a crevasse. Instead, the sun came out and we were led off the glacier and were presented (in the truest instance of delayed gratification I’ve ever experienced) with our delicious waffles. We devoured every last magnificent morsel while sitting at the edge of a brilliant, glimmering glacial lagoon, where icebergs the size of a monster truck bus broke away and floated from the glacier out to the Atlantic. So this was Iceland. Travel planning might never feel safe again, but once you’ve walked with Vikings, anything is possible.

Farwell Born, Farwell Bred

For the better part of the early 90’s, eight weeks of my summer vacations were spent nestled away in the green mountains of Vermont at a quaint, charming, and unequivocally awesome place called Camp Farwell. Founded in 1906 as a horseback riding camp, Farwell’s mission was to shape girls from all over the world into confident, capable, ruddy-cheeked, horseback-riding young women. It is time I would not trade for the world and will always look back on fondly. There were more good times than I could count, there were some challenging times, and then there was my first ever camping trip. 

The trip came about as one of the counselors there, a tall, rugged Australian, was an accomplished outdoorsman and had been brought to Farwell to impart upon us his knowledge and to turn us into intrepid outdoor adventurers. Despite what I would have overall considered to be a comfortable and very well-tended to camp, as we prepared for the trip, it became evident that the camping equipment was roughly about the same age as the camp itself. The tents looked like wolverine skins lashed together with pine tree saplings; the backpacks ancient, spider-riddled canvas with rickety, rusting metal poles. If someone had told me the gear was comprised of hand-me-downs from the Donner Party, I wouldn't have been surprised.

One of the pre-requisites to attending Farwell was to ensure you had compiled and brought with you everything on the camp-issued “How to Prepare for Camp” checklist. The cabins we slept in did not have bedding, so, intuitively, one of the items we were expected to bring was a sleeping bag. My family didn’t necessarily camp, nor were they necessarily interested in purchasing state-of-the-art sleeping bags for their filthy and sometimes irresponsible young daughters to use in the filthy and sometimes irresponsible wilderness. But the checklist could not be ignored, so we were issued hand-me-down sleeping bags that were once utilized by our uncles when they were in the Navy. In the 1970s. 

Though functional and warm, my sleeping bag had taken on the musty smell of a few hundred unwashed sailors. So, as an opportunistic pre-teen, I jumped at the offer of a diminutive friend of mine who was not going on the trip and offered up her more modern, yet applicably much smaller sleeping bag. Not wanting to leave anything to chance on my first ever camping trip, I tested the sleeping bag and determined very scientifically that if I crunched myself in half and didn’t care if my shoulders, chest, or head were warm, the sleeping bag would be perfect. 

And so the preparation went. There was instruction, lectures on the local Vermont flora and fauna, and some quickly forgotten safety information: what to do if one becomes lost, what to do if one becomes stung by a bee, what to do if one encounters a wolverine, as the smell of ones tent may attract them.

On the morning of the trip, we piled into the camp van, unhampered by the vomit and chewing gum smell that always seemed to pervade it. We rumbled and bumped over back roads singing a number of uplifting Camp songs: we joyfully strutted out verses about the sinking of the Titanic, and harmoniously relived the tale of an Austrian who went yodeling, yodeled his way into the heart of a young maiden-fair, only to have his short life gruesomely come to an end at the end of her father’s shotgun barrel. Spirits were high. 

The campsite itself sat atop a mountain, and, theoretically, was meant to be quite scenic. We arrived and began our ascent, full gear in tow, without much ado. Our excited chatter began to wane as the hike became longer and subsequently more strenuous. The once glamorous concept of outdoorsmanship now, in reality, almost seemed perverse. Was all of this gear even necessary? Water, we reasoned, was a ridiculous thing to carry to the top of a mountain. As it turns out, there are a lot of things teenage girls will do for a tall, rugged Australian guy. So, whiningly, we pressed on. 

A typical Vermont thunderstorm hides among the rolling green mountains and conceals itself until the last minute, skulking closer and then pouncing on innocent bystanders with the same urgency of a starving lion. Almost immediately upon summiting the mountain, lightning and thunder came without notice, nearly knocking us off our feet and echoing violently off the surrounding hillsides. The Australian and the other unlucky adults scrambled to assemble and erect our highly-conductive, metal-poled tents, no longer concerned with their objective of teaching us to become independent outdoorswomen. Fat, saturating rain drops fell and everything became soaked and muddy as we scrambled frantically into the tents. With every clap of deafening thunder, we clung harder to each other, like a scene from the Sound of Music, but without music. 

The storm showed no signs of stopping and it became evident to the adults that at some point, food was going to eventually have to be cooked and consumed. Soaked, scared, and ravenous, we peered through the sopping tent flaps at the counselors who cooked hot dogs over a barely maintained fire. They handed them to us one at a time, the white bread buns saturated and disintegrating into our pruned fingers. I wistfully realized that my previously held notion of going to bed, satiated and sticky-fingered after singing songs around the campfire and gorging myself on s’mores was disintegrating faster than my hot dog bun. Our focus could only be on our survival. 

Night dropped in all around us like a backdrop on a stage, and the rain stubbornly persisted. There were approximately 17 of us in a 5 person tent, and I was somehow convinced to sleep on the outer edge because I was the tallest. Height, as I’d learn throughout the course of my life, means one is immediately assumed to be an excellent physical barrier from things such as wind, snakes, and really anything else that could be considered inconvenient or scary. I didn’t just sleep on the edge of our tent, but the outside edge of the tent that faced the woods, which meant that the only barrier between me and nature was a scant layer of fraying nylon that reeked of wolverine. 

I tried in vain to go to sleep, but the perfect balance of fear and hunger meant that sleep would evade me. Eventually, it came in small bursts, only to be consistently interrupted by thunder claps, and frigid rainwater seeping in through the bottom and sides of the tent. I dreamt of the Titanic. 

Somewhere in the night, the rain stopped and I awoke with a start. I stared into the black soggy darkness, trying to convince myself that the low, rumbling growl I had just heard could not have been real. Holding my breath and silently cursing my tiny sleeping bag that served as protection from neither the elements nor beast, I waited, hoping that with time I’d see that the growl was only a figment of my overactive imagination, or at the very least a hallucination induced by my progressing hypothermia. I was to be disappointed. 

The growl came again, more of a grunt I realized, but was unmistakably closer. And then closer still. Then, as if lured by the scent of my terror, the grunt/growl was right outside the tent. My side of the tent. The animal’s presence was large and palpable. All I could hear was my heartbeat. All I could see was black. All I knew was that an overcrowded tent and Lilliputian-sized sleeping bag gave me no place to run and no place to hide. One of my favorite Camp songs sprung into my head, the lyrics of which bore more poignancy than they ever had before: I’m Farwell born and Farwell bred, and when I die I’ll be Farwell dead! I knew it to be true, but it was too soon.

Stubbornly, I ignored every shrieking impulse in my body to either run or smack the animal in the face with my Teva. I didn’t move a muscle, for some reason applying the rules of Jurassic Park – if I don’t move, it can't see me. I don’t even remember blinking. In a significant plot twist, the grunting animal was apparently more of a lover than a fighter. So much so that it began rubbing itself on the outer edges of the tent, against which my spindly adolescent legs were pinned due to the tent’s overloaded capacity. 

An unrelenting eternity of minutes passed. The animal, apparently realizing that its love would be unrequited from my legs, finally rumbled off. The pale light of morning came, bathing everything around me in a soft, pastel light, the beauty of which can only be appreciated by those who have escaped certain death. Others began to stir, and I had never been so relieved in my life. I was definitely not Farwell dead. 

Naturally, no one believed a word of my story about how a dinosaur-sized grizzly bear had kept me up all night trying to extricate me from the tent and gnaw on me like a chicken wing. Adding insult to injury, after spending the night in a half-sleeping bag in a puddle of cold water, by the time we got back to Farwell, I had a sore throat and a fever. And, after a couple of days in the infirmary, I also had a promise to myself to never ever ever ever go camping again. 

Almost 15 years later, I begrudgingly accepted an invitation to attend a camping trip at Joshua Tree in the California desert. As we pulled into the campsite, rain came down in sheets and I felt with every fiber of my being that I would never again attempt to spend the night in anything more exotic than a Motel 8. Luckily, the desert rain passed, and I eventually went to my tent that night satiated and sticky-fingered after gorging myself on s’mores around the campfire. 


As I dozed off in my normally sized sleeping bag, I realized that my long night on the edge of that tent 15 years ago, like so many other experiences I'd had at Farwell, taught me that I was capable of much more than I thought I was. And I knew that being Farwell bred meant knowing that even in the coldest, darkest, most bear-infested places, there is always a light. We just have to let it shine.  

  

Into the Blue

In a fortuitous turn of events, I had won the trip in a school essay contest. My 4th grade essay on Why I Love Living by the Ocean had apparently moved the judges so profoundly that they had no choice but to award me with the sought-after week long voyage on the Erica Lee, the area’s most prestigious (read: only) educational fishing vessel.

The first day of the trip finally arrived after several weeks of preparation and painful anticipation. We all intrepidly jammed onto the boat in our neon-colored wind breakers and jean shorts and stoically nodded goodbye to our land-lovin’ counterparts. We were people of the sea now.

Wobbly-legged and wide-eyed, we watched the passing scenery as we motored slowly out the mouth of the river and onto the open sea. The bearded, salt-encrusted man who called himself the “First Mate” started to unfurl the mysteries of all things nautical to a never-before-so-attentive bunch of tweens and teens. Unfortunately, during the unfurling, I became searingly aware that the gentle rocking of the boat, which I had initially found pleasant, was now making my stomach slosh around the inside of my abdomen like it had somehow decided that it just had to try skydiving. I must have been turning colors because the First Mate asked if I was ok, to which I somehow slurred a response without letting the surging vomit in my throat escape, and flopped down on the nearest bench. I spent the remainder of the day face down, sweating profusely into the foam rubber seat, communicating in monosyllabic grunts and wishing that death would somehow find me.    

I think all of the boat crew was surprised to see me the next day. But I was drunk on Dramamine and any sense of nausea-related dread had quickly dissipated with the excitement of learning that we were going out to set lobster traps that day. Inwardly, I was glowing with the notion that this would truly be a skill I could rely on for the rest of my life.   

As it turns out, lobster traps are like casinos. The poor, scavenging lobsters get lured in with the promise of some free food and a watered down margarita and the next thing they know, they’re trapped inside without the slightest idea how to get back out the way they came. Unfortunately for the lobsters that lack extraordinary critical thinking skills, they don’t stand a chance.

What made lobster trapping so unfathomably awesome was that the bait used in the traps was fish heads. The heads were loaded into the trap by laying the fish head on its side and impaling the head through both eyes with a metal rod, thus assuring the lobsters can’t abscond with the head. One does want ones fish head as secure as possible. That being said, lobster traps, we learned, were specifically designed to allow for entrance only, and as such, the fish head impaling/securing/eye-gouging activity seemed slightly superfluous. But getting to shove a metal rod through a the rotting head of a fish was an unprecedented and wildly exhilarating experience so I wasn’t about to question the system. Especially not when it meant fresh lobster for dinner.  

One of the other kids, Scarlett, was slightly older than the most kids on the boat. She was somehow related to one of the members of the briny crew, and got to go out on the boat everyday to help out with the activities. She was rough around the edges; swore like a sailor (occupational hazard, I suppose) and far too leathery-necked for someone her age, which made me think her mother didn’t spend 15 minutes every morning slathering her with sunscreen and telling her to hold still or for Christ’s sake she wasn’t going to get to go on the boat at all. Naturally, all of the kids flocked to her like lost little ships to a lighthouse.

As she was older, wiser, and had already developed an impressive knack for lying and manipulation, in an effort to keep herself entertained she had told several of the kids that she was, in fact, a mermaid. The virulent rumor, of course, spread like wildfire. Some kids said they had seen her fins, and some had heard her mermaid song. There were the naysayers of the group, but no one could really be certain where they stood, having no real irrefutable evidence one way or the other. She had created a quagmire of half-truths and scaly, slippery secrets. It was mermaid-gate.

I was below deck one day, waiting to use the head, and Scarlett came out. She held open the door for me, looked me squarely in the eyes and said very matter-of-factly: “It’s true, you know.” I watched her walk up the stairs, her long, sun-soaked and tattered braid swinging behind her as she ascended.

The problem, I realized as I relieved myself and let this new information wash over me, was that I could not, with any real certainty, refute this claim. I was pretty sure she was lying, but I couldn’t shake the fact that she had said it so candidly and was so unaffected. It was precisely how a mermaid would act.

Nevertheless, the week continued. We saw whales, explored the Isles of Shoals, and went fishing. Never having fished before or having been an angler of any sort, perhaps the most traumatic portion of the week long edu-experience came on the day we caught bluefish. Bluefish, as it turned out, had a reputation as an unyielding and vicious predator. They were known to hunt utilizing a technique known as the “bluefish blitz” where they create a gyre around their prey, washing-machine style, disorienting the prey to the point where they can’t put up much of a fight.  Fish had been said to accidentally run themselves ashore in an effort to escape, further cementing the bluefish’s rep as one of the baddest ass fish in the Atlantic. With their razor sharp teeth and shearing jaw movement, we learned (perhaps most notably) that  bluefish would eat almost anything they could catch and swallow. In other words, mind your digits, kids.

There is something invigorating about plucking something living out of nature’s salty blue bounty. Wrangling a fish up out of the water and into the air as it squirms and thrashes in the fight of its life is a truly awing experience. I watched one of the crew members wrestle the fish off of my hook and onto the boat deck, and felt for that brief instant, that this was the life for me. I could fish! Fishing wasn’t just something that people did, it was what I did. I fished. The moment was fleeting though, as I then watched one of the deckhands drape a towel over the fish’s head and learned in dramatic fashion why it was that they kept a baseball bat handy on deck. As they bludgeoned my fish until it stopped moving, I couldn’t help but think - an unyielding and vicious predator indeed.  

My week aboard the Erica Lee was a week in which I experienced nuances of  emotions that I had not yet in my 10 years on earth been exposed to. There was a good deal of terror, punctuated with moments of utter confusion, exasperation and glee, all interspersed with a hearty dose of nausea; I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Unfortunately, we never did solve the mermaid conundrum. I assume Scarlett ended up as a fishing boat captain, a stripper, or congresswoman, any of which would have suited her quite nicely, but I suppose I’ll never know. Something tells me that’s exactly how she’d want it.

Pilgrims and Pee. A Memoir.

In the burgeoning town of Newbury, Massachusetts, somewhere around the mid-1600s, John Woodbridge VI took time away from his busy witch persecuting* schedule to act as town clerk and have a whole litter of kids, one of whom was also creatively named John Woodbridge. The latter Woodbridge was a Harvard grad, a pastor (naturally), a grammar school teacher and the fellow for whom the town's Woodbridge School was eventually named.

(*Just sayin'.)

The school was built at the end of the 19th century initially as a two room schoolhouse and was expanded a couple of decades later to accommodate the growing population. With its semi-iconic yellow clapboarded exterior, the building has remained relatively unchanged, and since being shut down in the 1990s, isn't used for much other than a landmark for giving driving directions.

After the new elementary school was built in the 1950's, the townsfolk at some point decided that the youngest, softest, supplest, most impressionable students should go to the oldest, ricketiest, most haunted school (Woodbridge) and that the older kids should go to the state-of-the-art, shining beacon of light school with smaller amounts of health risks and terror. Character building, I suppose.

I spent my first and second grade years at the Woodbridge School and became quickly aware that the idiosyncrasies of the building abounded, none more memorable than its infamous basement. Since the walls were (presumably) made of mud and hay, the basement was almost always flooded with groundwater. Anticipating the less than desirable effects of soaking wet children roaming the halls, the engineering savants at the school exhibited their dynamism by laying elevated wooden planks in place to line the floor. Adding to the ambiance, there was one flickering light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling that provided about as much light as a birthday cake candle.

Unfortunately for anyone with a bladder, the bathrooms were located smack dab in the middle of this glowing example of basement design and technology. Descending into the bathroom, as the darkness enveloped you, you became increasingly encased by the gurgling sounds of the bowels of the building: furnaces and generators and whatever other croaking, squeaking, squawking mechanisms there were in place to keep the building from dissolving back into the earth.

The almost complete lack of light in the basement, coupled with the unbridled imagination of a 7 or 8 year old, made a trip to the bathroom a true test of courage. I can still remember teetering nervously towards the bathroom stalls via the narrow planks; my surroundings completely open to interpretation. It wasn't a far stretch to assume that the stagnant water was a limitless abyss of poop-swamp, rife with treacherous creatures just waiting to violently feast on my supple flesh. It was like hell's version of the It's A Small World ride at Disneyworld.

We had bathroom breaks twice a day. We'd all march into the creaking abyss, do our business, and be generally relieved that there was some safety in our numbers. The odds were that it wouldn't be us who would be picked off by a rogue alligator or giant pterodactyl-bat, it would be one of the other kids who hadn't raised their hand before talking or chewed gum in class. Those kids had it coming.

The problem for me, though, on one particular day, was that there would be no waiting until the bathroom break. I had slurped down my entire bowl of tomato soup at lunch and chased it with a couple of cartons of 2% milk. I was a ticking time bomb of expanding liquid.

By the time we broke off into reading groups, I was squirming around in my chair trying desperately to find some position that would provide even the shortest moment of relief. My teacher eventually noticed my unusual amount of disruptive wiggling and queried, "Magen, do you need to go to the bathroom?"

I momentarily stopped wiggling, shocked that someone had burst unannounced into my private world of painful pee thoughts. 

"N-no..."

My response was barely audible. I knew if I spoke any louder, the pee would be forced out by the extra vocal exertion. It was in that quiet response that I knew I was committed. I would let my bladder burst before I made the journey to that bathroom alone. I had too much life left to live to get preyed on by an evil mega-toad lying in wait in an old bathroom. I wasn't going out like that. I had to make it to the break.

My resolve began to falter by the time we had started our math lesson. I was being asked to add some nickels, dimes and quarters together and beads of sweat were forming on my brow. I never liked math, but this was a different beast altogether. The chair squirming became increasingly futile and I eventually began to hallucinate. I was drawn off into a utopian world of glistening white tiled bathrooms,  sparkling latrines, fluffy toilet paper, and toilet brushes that came to life and sang to you while you sat on the toilet... 

Then, in a brief moment of what I mistook for lucidity, it hit me. I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me sooner. It was such a perfect, unflawed plan.

Maybe I could just let a little bit out. Just the tiniest little raindrop of pee would provide such an immense relief! I'd even be dry by recess!

And so it went.

Crazy with the relief that the droplet provided, it wasn't long until the full deluge was released and creeping its way across the old, wooden floor.

Someone must have informed the teacher, but I didn't care. The warm, wet bliss of relief had enveloped me. It wasn't until I smelled the sprinkling of sawdust that I was wrenched out of my euphoric coma. My teacher was standing over me asking if I had a change of clothes. "NO!" I shouted my back to her, relieved that I could finally speak at normal volumes and was no longer a prisoner of my swelling bladder. She informed me that I'd need to go to the nurse and call my mom.

I sloshed my way down the hall to the nurse's office, and, as if a urine-soaked 7 year old required a great deal of deciphering, explained the situation to the nurse and asked to use the phone. When my mom arrived with an extra dry pair of clothes, I reiterated my explanation of what had happened, further cluing everyone in to the mystery of the saturated, pee-smelling clothes. I changed my clothes, apologized enthusiastically to them both, and skipped back to class.

The embarrassment of publicly peeing myself was a small price to pay for relief. The sideways glances from my peers bounced off me like bullets off of Superman. I wasn't the first person to pee my pants between those four walls and would certainly not be the last. It would be old news by recess. When the second bathroom break rolled around and everyone else trudged down the stairs, reflecting on their short lives on this planet and hoping to stave off their imminent doom, I stayed at my desk with a thin, smug smile on my face. Not this time, I thought.

Not this time. 

Guns Don't Kill People, Spiders Kill People

I recently saw a t-shirt that said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself. And spiders." I promptly ordered one for myself and wondered why that statement rang so true for me. Surely, there are scarier things in the world besides spiders, right? (Spoiler Alert: there is nothing scarier than spiders anywhere or ever. And stop calling me Shirley.) Most spiders just want to be left alone to go about their business of building webs, turning people into superheroes, and other such spidery affairs. But since I turn into a quivering pile of chicken-shaped Jell-o Jigglers whenever a spider is around, I figured it was worthy of some reflection.

Initially I posited that the fear has to do with the overall creepiness of a spider's appearance. Because when I look at a spider, I don't just see 8 legs, a few sets of eyes, and an exoskeleton. When I look at a spider, I see a spindly, looming creature, poised for attack, with venom-infused saliva dripping from its fangs, wielding a quadruple barreled shotgun that shoots ninja death stars, light sabers, and fear. So, needless to say, this can be cause for alarm.

What is equally concerning to me about spiders is that I'm quite certain that they lurk around my house waiting for a prime opportunity for me to let my guard down so they may crawl into my mouth/nose/orifices and have a huge, raging spider disco orgy which will result in the production of thousands of illegitimate spider babies suffering from coke withdrawal. I'm all for a good party, I just don't particularly want that going on in my sinuses.

If spiders at least had the decency to have audible footsteps like the rest of us, I'd know they were coming and could prepare myself mentally. Instead they just sidle up to you like the creepy, skulking produce guy at Safeway that always just seems to "be there" when you can't find the shallots.

Spiders never make their appearances when you've just come home from a rousing game of tennis or badminton and are jacked up on endorphins and wielding the perfect instrument of spider destruction. It's usually when you're at your most vulnerable, like when you're in the shower and happen to look up and see one hanging from the ceiling baring his fangs and telling you that you should really condition more than once a week. Or, when you've settled in on your couch to enjoy a glass of wine and the latest Nicholas Sparks novel and boom! There he is, spinning his web like Charlotte, but instead of it saying something helpful or uplifting, it says something menacing like "god is dead" just to mess with you.

If that won't ruin your night, I don't know what will.

Because of this, I don't handle seeing spiders in a particularly "adult" "manner". In the event that there is a spider in my proximity and someone is around who can translate my little girl shrieks into human language, they are pretty much expected to run point on the subsequent spider slaughter. I'm sure it's a little confusing when, in the heat of the moment, I'm shouting at them, "that's not going to do it!" as they approach the spider with a shoe or a magazine or (god forbid) a tissue. I'm just trying to prevent them from going into battle egregiously unprepared for their safety and mine. But mostly mine.

Once, filled with an inflated and very much misplaced sense of having finally conquered my fear, I made an attempt at killing a spider on my own. I was looking at the spider in the bathroom pondering my attack when the spider leapt across the room, tackled me to the ground and then banged my head against the toilet seat until I lost consciousness. It then made its escape into the night never to be seen again, taking with it my hubris and my iPod.

Due to this harrowing experience (conveyed without an ounce of hyperbole), I'm unwilling unable to take on a spider independently. I recognize that because of this I should not be overly critical of those that come to my aid. But on what crazy, backwards, spider-free planet are people taught that a broom is a good tool for bringing about the demise of an arachnid? I understand that if a spider is on the ceiling it may be difficult to reach, but really? The broom bristles are completely lacking in the puissance needed to finish the job. The spider will not only be decidedly undead, it will instead be catapulted to an unknown location via the snapping action of the bendy bristles!

To recap, utilizing a broom to kill a spider has done one, if not all of the following:

1. Not killed the spider.

2. Given the spider key intel regarding your intentions to kill it.

3. Sent the spider into a blind rage.

4. Catapulted the spider to an unknown location via the bendy bristles.

5. Allowed the spider ample time to consider how nice of a place my nostrils would be for its next spider disco orgy.

So, in the interest of preventing the propagation of another generation of coked-out hapless spider disco babies, please... no brooms.

Seeing how irrational I become in these circumstances, people often try to help by saying things like, but they kill other bugs and they're so helpful to the ecosystem and blah blah blah science. Typically, however, I fail to consider the global benefit in a moment in which I'm being assaulted by the absolute scariest creature on earth. Frankly, I think we'd all be willing to sacrifice the robustness of a few ecosystems to put our minds at ease. I am certainly happy to absorb any of the bug-killing burden that was heretofore being shouldered by spiders if it helps ensure my own spider-free existence.

I suppose it's evident that I may not have the best, most rational reasons for my fear of spiders. But really, fear that is based in utter nonsense tends to be the most potent (and the most fun when it's happening to other people). Realistically, unless I move to Antarctica, I will still have to deal with spiders in one way or another. All I can really do is hide my iPod and make sure I always have a tennis racket handy.

Diary of a Mad Black Cat (#2)

I believe it was Plato who said, "what can't be said about poop briefly shouldn't be said at all." Or was it Confucious? Either way, poignant, so I'll try to keep it short.


My cat is technically an "outdoor" cat, but ever since I moved into my new condo a couple of months ago, he seems to regard the outdoors as daunting, depressing, and like something he only wants to deal with if he absolutely has to. Like Walmart.

Suffice it to say that since he's not going outside, he's doing all of his business in his litterbox in my one-bedroom, 740 square foot condo. Said condo does not afford me the luxury of being able to cloister off said litterbox in a hepa-filtered walk-in closet specifically designed to eliminate any unsightliness and odors, as would be my preference.

So as to avoid putting it in the kitchen or other areas frequented by my esteemed guests, his litterbox invades my bedroom's peaceful landscape and is a giant, stinking, pooped-filled eyesore. Like Walmart.

I try to stay on top of keeping his box clean to avoid any prolonged assault on my olfactory sensors (smell it, scoop it, bag it, curse at cat, repeat). Lately though, he seems to be inclined to void his bowels right after I've hung up my poop scoop for the day and crawled into bed.

Just as I can feel myself letting the last shreds of the day go, I hear him climb into his box. What he does with the litter in there is beyond me, but it sounds like a production that is could pass for the creation of a Dubai man-made island. It is precise, it is orchestrated, and for him it seems to be all about producing an atmosphere in which he can enjoy bowel releasing perfection.

Sometimes it starts as a trickle and then hastens into a torrential release. This is of course a massive relief (to both of us, I'm guessing) because I know I can roll over and deal with the clean up in the morning. The times I'm not so lucky, however, are when I hear a few quick kitty grunts followed directly by the plopping sound that can only be made by a good old-fashioned kitty bowel movement.

Then it's a race against time. The permeating smell of his latest creation waits for no one.

I jolt out of bed and make my way to the kitchen for a plastic bag as the smell chases me like a villain in a horror movie. I am clumsy and making too many mistakes and cursing myself for not being prepared for once in my life for Christ's sake.

My cat, thrilled with himself, usually sprints around the house in what I refer to as his "victory lap". What I don't know is if he is celebrating his endeavor, footloose and fancy free, or is afraid the poop will somehow jump back into his kitty bowels if he doesn't get away quickly enough.

Either way, he is too caught up in his celebration/escape and is of absolutely no assistance to me. I'm almost never able to extricate the poop in a timely enough fashion so that my living space does not smell like something out of Slumdog Millionaire.

Anyway, it's nothing with which the average pet owner or parent isn't well acquainted. And I've already said too much on the topic. Luckily for me, when the snow thaws and the spring comes, there's the possibility that he'll head outside and conduct his business in somewhere in nature's bounty. Most parents will not be so lucky.