Spiders and exhibitionism…

[little creeky sage Yoda voice] Apropos to the Halloween season this story is!!!

I have been in a complete state of befuddlement lately apparently. There’s lots going on in many areas of my life so I’ve just been trying to keep an even keel and maintain the day to day order. Hazel is really starting to charm me so the detail focus is a big part of that. Right now I’m doing what many are used to doing in prepping: filling in little nicks and knacks to smooth them, measuring little aspects and matching them up. Then comes detailing to the n’th degree… no point in detailing until smoothness and all the matching up is achieved.

I have 3 old CD players and none of them want to play my books on tape CDs anymore. I love to listen to books on tape while I work (all generas – fiction and non). And the tape decks are long past the point of safely running borrowed library cassettes (love that crunch!) so I’ve resorted back to TV for background noise. UGH. That would certainly explain some of my state of mind indeed! I’ve made the human resources decision that radio (even clear channel sanctioned) would be better for the brain than that mush. Anyhow, so this week when the video store told me that I only had returned 2 out of the 3 movies we’d rented last month I was really lost. I made the fellow go look back on the shelf because I had a distinct memory of trying to stuff all three into the drop slot. I also made them check the slot too (blushes) in case the 3^rd had gotten jammed in… I don’t put these in many places but I began a wild search for the 3^rd after this. Tearing apart my car. Digging around behind the DVD player in dusty long ignored crevices. I was totally at a loss for where it could be.

In the midst of this yesterday I decided to go to the bank and deposit the boarder’s payments.

Horror ensued when I couldn’t find my envelope of checks. By yesterday afternoon as bank close time draws near I’m getting really distressed and home and mind are in complete and utter disarray.

A far more aggressive search for the checks begins. So I’m sitting, surrounded by piles of paperwork on the floor in my office area (the one living quarter portion of my studio apartment is sectioned into “areas” of course). I’m in a true funk and trying to recall the past 3 days and the very few places I’d gone to. There really weren’t many opportunities for it to have fallen out of my purse.

As I sit there I don my headset and clip on my phone. I don’t even remember who I needed to call at that time. There was a bumpy tickle on my neck. I look down and it’s not the headset cord, it’s a big fat bellied spider. I blow him off quickly and forcefully (he made a little thunk hitting the wall!) and try to regain composure. Justification for my phobia: Once upon a time when I was 18 and an indentured servant (ala “working student to a dressage trainer), I found myself covered in thousands of tiny little baby spiders. Ever since then I’ve been a lot more prone to arachnophobia. Anyhow, so I try to pull myself together as I sit there with the phone on and decide to check my pony tail.. nada. And then LO! Another spider walks across my shoulder! AAAAAAAIGH! So now I’ve removed the phone and am shaking out my shirt and prancing about the house. Where on earth are these things coming from!!! (I still don’t know btw)

15 minutes later I’ve recovered and haven’t seen a return of the 2 (!!!!) spiders. I have now promptly changed the days itinerary and done a major body/clothes inspection in the bathroom. I am dressed again (different clothes too). I go back to make the phone calls but my friend calls me first. I am halfway through telling her about the mystery spiders as I peek and poke about the place (who cares about pending bankruptcy from a lapse in prompt depositing)… when yes, ANOTHER FRICKING SPIDER crawls over the very same shoulder.

I live over a little block of shops. My apartment faces the rear of the building and I can easily talk to folks in the parking lot. Being the tiny town that it is we all know each other and bake cookies and swap gossip and all the rest. But yesterday here is what my neighbors and friend on the phone were treated too: Me leaping and squeaking over by the windows atop a chair and couch (farthest from the point of origin of spiders as near as I can tell), which were of course wide open. Ripping every stitch of clothes off and pulling out pony tails and shaking hair vigorously all the while.

I spent a good deal of the day after that on the phone on a simple chair with my feet tucked up under me (in a third new outfit of course), suspiciously staring across the room wondering where the mystery spiders could be spontaneously appearing from.

The video store turned out to be wrong. A second clerk did indeed find the movie on the shelf after a long talk on the phone.

The checks were in my purse all along, folded up neatly though btwn two phone numbers.

Hazel got some attention before my nerves were shot to hell.

I went out last night.

I still don’t know where the spiders came from though… [shivers and looks around]. I don’t want to sit here too long typing…. So I’m going to go hide in the other room now and see if I can find a station on the radio that I can stand. Cheerio!