I’m a little tea pot

High culture.

A note from the 15th:

I stepped on a bee today. I don’t have many run ins with the hive dwellers, which is probably what made the pain of the sting so surprising. I assumed I had stepped on a nail or a shard of glass. The stinger twitched in the joint of my tender little toe until I bravely extracted it, along with a writhing bundle of venom pumping innards. With my teeth.

(after, of course, killing the bee with a jackknife)

The toe has puffed up into a mass of flesh that looks more like a mongoloid’s nape than a digit.

No rose without a thorn, but many a thorn without a rose.

Jun. 25th

8AM

Just when you think you have sustained the worst possible sting, some greater power smirks, knowing something greater can be thought.

This bite is just incapacitating. It is an obstacle to all comfortable living. Plus, I have to explain it to my housemates to dispel the easy assumption that it’s conjunctivitis.

12PM

My housemate Kevin took a look at my eye and proceeded to tell me a story. He once stayed in a paralytic rehabilitation center where a service worker sustained a bite of the same species.

The worker casually walked through the rec. room to the shock of some relaxing quad’s.

“It’s the size of a golfball!”

“I’M GONNA POP THIS MOTHERFUCKER”, said the service worker, intent on adding some flavor to the day by seasoning it with his juices.

And he darted off to the men’s room, tailed by several squeaky wheelchairs, whose occupants trembled in anticipation of the squashing.

He then stood in front of a mirror thronged by patients, and slapped the bulging eyelid between two open palms. This forced a quick spurt of gore through the bite hole, which was immediately corked by a gooey green string.

This green eye slime caused the service worker to faint, but this fainting episode also meant that an aghast paraplegic would break his fall, resulting in a collapsed wheelchair and a renewed and forceful ooze from the bite hole.

Kevin dived to the worker’s rescue, wad of toilet paper in hand. He applied pressure to the leaking eye, which pulsed between his fingers, a pulsing that he thought signified the eyeball’s imminent expulsion from its socket.

8PM

But just when you have the bite that than which nothing greater can be thought,

you discover that there is something greater that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Which is impossible.

Now everything in the room goes into the washing machine or the incinerator. I have changed my clothes and I want nothing more than sleep or a merciful lightning bolt from the Deity.

9PM

The ridiculous summer heat is keeping me from sleep and the bites are still coming. I have stripped down to nothing, and now I will sleep in the nude with nothing to cover me.

11PM

I am freezing and all articles of cloth are suspect. This is the last resort: The Emergency Blanket. I don’t know whether the things that prey on me jump, fly, or crawl, but I’ll suffocate them or steam them to death in my sweat, wrapped in this shimmering robe of death.

Jun. 25th

9AM

A text message from: Ecce homo
To N. Castillo:

One flea (?) bite along my waist (consequently exposed to the pressure of my trousers) is over four times the size of a quarter.

3PM

I just received a single cellphone ring from Natalie.

Which I guess means that she returned my call as a reflex before she realized she had no desire to talk to me. =p

I promptly sent her a text message, which practically obligated her to call again… And she did.

She referred to me as “buddy”, told me that a flea bite four times the size of a quarter might very well be infected, and advised a dose of Benadryl.

The really funny thing is that I received the impression that she just called to chide me for neglecting myself.

4PM

Whatever is pictured above has evolved into some kind of random swelling that I can’t really laugh at anymore. By random swelling, I mean swelling that appears on remote parts of the body without any apparent connection with other swollen regions.

There is something greater than something greater that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Which is impossible.

6PM

Now my ears have become so swollen that they have lifted off the side of my head. Now they point forward, with my eyes, instead of pointing to my sides, toward my shoulders.

I’m convinced that instead of some dread allergy, these dramatic physical changes actually occasion my metamorphosis into a large monkey.

I realize that the swelling is not evident in this photo. It eventually became severe, with my ears swelling to about twice their size (eliciting Dumbo comments from dad). My eye also swelled shut.

My mother worried that my throat would soon follow, so she whisked me off to the hospital.

(I on the other hand, warmly reflected on the prospect )

Paul: This image is not hosted on yeepx.

Aged 15.  This picture is amazing to me because I look so skinny.

In my days as a Catholic school girl.  Aged 16.

In my days on the cross country team.  At the Bell Jeff Invite, aged 15 or 16.  (I’m the one just running across the finish line.)

Age unknown.  No comment.

Aged 18.  Back when I had hair…

… for those who have not yet sampled it.

Above the Ralphs (a grocery store) about three blocks away from my house, you can see the hills and the houses on the hills. The hills are perhaps my favorite thing about Glendale. They are a pretty sight, and as I walk around, I often feel like they are watching over me.

This is just an alley.

This is a Lutheran church with a mosaic of Jesus on the side. I like this photo. I always used to think Jesus looked like he was flying.

That alcohol should make me feel so good is at the same time unsettling. Not unsettling enough to send a shiver up my spine, but just maybe to the utmost degree that a mundane thought may be disturbing-the way it buzzes around one’s head to make a nuisance of itself.

Then the entire beauty of drunkeness is that this pest can be effortlessly plucked from the air and one can lay in peace.

There is the platitude that people drink to get away, but this isn’t true. We drink to dance with the world which we are in and of and walking up and down in, to have courage to speak, and to stimulate vomit. Not because the world really makes us sick, but because we are filled with so much vomit.

Which is not to say that we are ugly people, (glug glug) but of course it is!

Dawn.

This is a story that my Abuelita told me when I was a little girl.  It is very sad, but it was one of my favorites of her stories, and I asked to hear it again and again.

Once upon a time there was a neat and tidy young ant named Hormiguita.  She cleaned her house regularly and always kept it clean as a whistle.  One day as she was sweeping her floor, she came across two silver coins.  Excited, she said, “What am I going to do with these coins?  Should I buy candy?  Or maybe some cookies?  No… I don’t want to be a glutton.  I know!  I’ll buy two ribbons to wear in my hair.”  And so she did.

With her new ribbons adorning her hair, Hormiguita looked beautiful.  The very next day, as she was outside sweeping her sidewalk, Donkey walked by and said, “Hormiguita, you look so beautiful.  Will you marry me?”  Hormiguita thought about it and said, “Tell me, Donkey, how would you lull our children to sleep?”  Donkey thought for a second and replied, “Hee haw, hee haw.”  Hormiguita said, “No, no, that will never do.  You’d scare them!” 

Then Dog walked by.  He too noticed how beautiful Hormiguita was and said to her, “Hormiguita, will you marry me?”  Hormiguita said, “How would you lull our children to sleep?”  Dog replied, “Woof woof woof.”  “Oh no!  That will never do.  It sounds like you are about to eat them!”

And then Raton Perez walked by.  He said, “Hormiguita, you look so beautiful.  Will you marry me?”  Hormiguita asked him, “How would you lull our children to sleep?”  Raton Perez replied, “Sqeak squeak squeak.”  Hormiguita grinned and said, “That would be perfect!”

Raton Perez and Hormiguita soon married and settled into their new life together.  Before too long, they had a little baby to take care of as well.  Ever the hardworking woman, Hormiguita busied herself with taking care of her house, her husband, and her baby.  On this particular day, Hormiguita was going to go down to the creek to do her laundry.  Before she left, she said, “Ratoncito, the baby is sleeping, but I have a big pot of soup on the stove.  Please watch it and stir it if it needs stirring.  But be sure to use the long-handled spoon and not the short-handled one!”  And so she left and walked down to the creek.

While Hormiguita was gone, Raton Perez went into the kitchen and saw that the soup was starting to boil.  Forgetting Hormiguita’s advice, he climbed up onto the counter with a short-handled spoon to give it a stir.  But poor little Raton Perez lost his balance as he leaned over the pot and fell right in! 

When Hormiguita returned to the door, she knocked and called, “Ratoncito!  I’m back!  Please let me in!”  But Raton Perez did not respond.  Since Hormiguita was an ant and could crawl up the walls, she crawled up and into the house through an open window.  She knew something was amiss.  She went and checked on her baby, who was still sleeping peacefully.  Then she went into the kitchen — and she saw poor Ratoncito’s tail sticking up from the pot of soup!  Hormiguita cried and cried and cried.  If only Ratoncito Perez had listened to her advice!

THE END

To ease my nerves before a job interview, I said to myself, “What would I do if I weren’t afraid?”

After that, I only shuddered, because I know it wouldn’t be this.

courtesy of elouai.com