I've Been Robbed!

Pay came in today, thankfully, for my first research job. Sadly, I hadn't budgeted on deductions (I guess I thought since it was pretty small and only a one-shot thing it wouldn't be subject to them, stupid me), so I am out $100 I really, really needed. Damn Canada Pension, anyway. We all know there will be no Canada Pension by the time I retire!

And the bugs are regrouping due to the damp, chilly weather. I know one silverfish in the bathroom, and one armoured centipede (NOT the dreaded house centipede) in the living room doesn't amount to much, but I can feel them encroaching again...

Darn on both accounts.

I Take it All Back

Remember when I said that the summer did not have enough work for me? I was an idiot. There’s enough work. In fact, I may not survive my to-do list this summer. Even this blog has fallen in the priorities list… and not just because my life is dull as hell right now (the other day, I almost wrote about the new Star Wars Pez dispensers we got, just for something to say… Actually, I still may do that piece, anyway).

I finished reading Mama Lola… So only 35 books left to go. Yikes. However, work progresses, and I am already working on being behind on Religion and Ethnicity. I have two chapters read, but that’s not too great seeing as how I meant to have it read through by Wednesday. And these are books I have read before. I hate to think about what it’s going to be like when I actually start reading books I haven’t laid eyes on yet, let alone those two weeks in the schedule in which I have two books to read, abstract and process.

And I have a draft of my preliminary dissertation idea finished, but it’s not yet ready to be seen by the Committee. And this is a far, far cry from having the ten page dissertation proposal done, which is due in August. No telling how much reading will have to be done for that.

(If you would like to read and comment on this dissertation pre-prop, let me know and it can wing to you in an instant.)

I have also sent in my field comprehensive exam reading list suggestions, but suggestions are no where near the actual list, and I have a feeling that there will be hours more negotiation in my future over this little matter.

And I won’t even go into the editing work needed on those articles I hope to swing this summer, and I still haven’t heard back from the Editor on the Benny thing. For all I know, that will require a full re-write.

And it is again time for me to choose a Clapboard Jungle subject, and I haven’t the foggiest clue… If I believed in ESP, I’d see many, many Wednesdays in my future spent trying to satisfy that thing.

(If anyone has any requests for reviews you'd like to see me do, please send them my way. I'm hurting for ideas, here, people!)

And we still have no income. Mum sent me $100 for my birthday, which helps, but that is a far cry from the rent money, especially when it will probably go for food between now and the first of June.

Thus, because we are broke, I will have no choice but to be grateful if I find work, even though that situation will leave me even less time to satisfy my school obligations. Wonderful.

And we still have not triumphed completely over the silverfish. I saw one just today. Still, this is a much better daily spotting than a month ago, but a far cry from total silverfish-less-ness, which is the ultimate goal. We also have not gotten up the nerve to call the plumber, so I am getting filthy and paranoid about the shower malfunction… I hate having strangers poke around my apartment on maintenance calls. I really do wish I lived on the Enterprise. Sure the computer would go wacko and try to kill me once every season, but I could live with that if it meant that I wouldn’t have to call in a super or plumber.

Also, I was wrong in my totally romantic view of Waterloo’s wooded beauty. I forgot that a multitude of trees meant mountains and mountains of tree pollen floating in through my windows and covering everything (including my lungs) in yellow dust. I have been fighting a losing battle with this corn-mealy film. Yes, it is better than the black residue of Hamilton, but still a pain in the posterior. I am a little less enamored with our woodland wonderland, now.

I just hope the rain can soak down the trees and dune-like terrain enough to make breathing comfortable again.

And I still hate the yokels upstairs... Only now I also have barbecue stink coming in my windows, as well as stompy-stompy parties to contend with. Joy!

So I take it all back. Summer is not a wasteland of boredom. It is still a wasteland of depression, annoyance and financial horror, but not of boredom.

And, yet, even with all this work, I still find myself wasting time. Wednesday night I spent at least an hour wandering down memory lane by re-reading my blog... (And, yes, being unemployed in Waterloo is much better than being unemployed in Hamilton.)

So now, on top of everything, I also have to learn how to kick my own ass.

Whoever said that my late twenties should be the best time of my life should be shot. If I believed that, I may as well end it now, because I really have to believe that there are brighter years ahead somewhere amongst the three to five decades I may have left on this crummy planet...

Nerves and Gas

Stress and rush, more like. I am behind on this week’s comp readings. Good thing this week’s book was Mama Lola, which I could recite backwards in my sleep, so I can rush through the last couple of chapters before bedtime and still be able to move on to next week’s book on time (I hope). Sunday is the deadline for each week’s reading. Boy, am I a stickler, or what?

I have set the deadline of Monday to submit the semi-final (possibly final, depending on my editor’s reaction) draft of the Jack Benny chapter, so it is down to the last few readings… I am overwhelmed with cold feet. Is it good enough to submit?? What if it fails, or there are errors no one catches, and it become an embarrassment down the road?

It’s going to be printed out, on paper, and placed between covers, and sold to people who care about this subject… What gives me the right to put my words into ink?

If it is accepted and printed, this will be a big first step for me, and I am feeling every inch of pangs that such a leap deserves. My only hope is that these final readings catch as many flaws as possible, so, my wonderful and unpaid volunteer (or drafted) editors, be hard on it. I’d rather you all tell me I’m an idiot than paying strangers.

Oh, and thanks to Amanda who was the first person (ever) to read this thing, and to her friend Allen-somebody in far-off Australia who kicked my ass on a few problematic areas. Keep the insults and assault coming, folks. (And if you would like to review this piece, and have nothing better to do this evening, please contact me through the email listed on the side-bar or go make friends.)

In other news, chemical gas attacks continued on the local silverfish population (this time under and behind the fridge and stove), and their numbers seem to be taking high causalities. Score one for the primates!

Other than that, not much news, except for a small trip to the grocery store for something other than mac & cheese. (Praise be!) Now to settle in for a meal and some more L&O, and take my mind off the stress of it all before I take another run at editing.

(Oh, and a hearty congrats to the first cohort of the UW-WLU PhD in Religion who wrote their second comp in good spirits this week. We all anticipate that they all passed, and we look forward to hearing the final results in a couple weeks. Each milestone they survive is a service to us poor freshmen of the second cohort. Bless you, our vanguard!)

I love the smell of Napalm in the morning

We are up to our necks in life renovations today: Job hunting and generally making ourselves feel human again after our lingering colds and the mournful loss of school. We finally took out our two months worth of recycling, and I cleaned out the storage closet.

General cleaning will also come. The thingy on our shower that controls the water switch from bath faucet to shower head is busted, so we have to call in a plumber, and we don’t want him to see how we live, so we are cleaning wherever he may go or look, and this is also a good shot at silverfish decimation.

Now, as far as silverfish are concerned, the problem seems under control with daily baseboard vacuuming and a “shoot on sight” policy, however, I am more inclined towards total annihilation.

A few months ago this side of my character would have sickened me, but I feel no remorse for them now. Well, ok, maybe a little remorse. But no mercy whatsoever.

So the week or so before we got ill we bought this super bug spray that keeps on killing for weeks, with an intent to blow these things into oblivion with our superior chemical warfare. Then we got chest colds, and, while a part of me wondered if maybe Raid isn’t the answer to killing respiratory disease, we decided our lungs weren’t up to the task, so we were forced to delay the assault.

Today, however, carpet bombing of the enemy territory has begun.

The entire floor surface of the storage closet (the corner of the house to which the beasts have retreated in the face of our offensive tactics) has been slicked with bug-killing-goodness, and I am trying not to think of the victims’ screams and the lingering death it will bring them every time they crawl over it to make futile attempts to save the dead and dying (which is a romantic way of saying they will scurry over the surfaces to cannibalize their dead bug-fellows).

But what really distresses me is how this new Raid is different from the old industrial nasty my mum used to use when we were kids… This stuff is floral scented, and my house hangs with the morbid smell of lilac-perfumed silverfish death.

It seems wrong to bring about the unnatural end of creatures to the tune of flowers.

I am disturbed, but if I can be rid of the colony, I am sure I will recover from the indignities with which war has burdened me. What I do, I do for my country, my sanity, and my kitchen floor’s sanitation. And, more importantly, for my book bindings.

Viva la Raid! Death to tyrants and to silverfish!

Eat my Lilacs of Death!

Lespisma sacchrina (Linnaeus)

Out, out, damn bug!

Yes, we are under siege. No, it is not Commies, or, worse, Republicans (shudder). It is the terror of the library— the lespisma sacchrina, otherwise known as the Silverfish.

Soft and low to the ground, these devils are fast and agile. And they seem to have been growing in number since the spring thaw began (is this fair?). We had a few before, as they seemed attracted to the cat’s food. However, we got a food mat to put under his bowls, and this seemed to take care of the problem.

Now they are back in even greater numbers.

We are now on a strict regime of changing the garbage frequently enough to be considered slightly mental, and we now vacuum the kitchen crevices about twice a day. We also spray the joint between the floor and counter-skirt with some concoction of kitchen cleaner, Agent Orange, and vinegar, daily- although this worries me because they’re supposed to like the damp, and I don’t want them to enjoy their stay any more because of my efforts.

I am hoping just to make the place inhospitable enough to make them pack their little insect bags and move on.

I don’t like to kill things… I don’t want to kill things. I consider myself a pretty animal-friendly person. For example, I make sure never to walk on worms outside during the rain… However, in those cases, the worms are OUTSIDE, not in my bloody kitchen. So I don’t know what to do. I could call the super, but I don’t want a bushel of poisons in my kitchen— my cat can be a nuisance some times, but that’s not the way I want him to go. Collateral damage in the war against the silverfish population of Waterloo.

And it’s not like I can trap them and release them back into the wild- these things move faster than innuendo.

I have come down to the realization that it may be a case of kill them or name them, and I am horrified.

So, I am stuck squirting them with vinegar whenever I see them, to make them slow enough to pick up with toilet paper. Then I dispose of the guilty evidence of my crimes (i.e. their little silver corpses). It is an ongoing genocide, and I am sick of it. But it has also become an obsession. I get up in the middle of the night to go throw the lights up, so I can catch them in the act of scuttling.

I am always thinking of how many of the little bastards might be living it up on my kitchen floor right now. And I pace around with my squirt bottle, waiting for them— trying to head them off at the pass before they can make it to my bookshelves.

Yes, I have become the Lady Macbeth of silverfish.

The numbers seem to be dwindling (or at least moving elsewhere— which is fine with me, as they probably originated in some stanky undergrad’s apartment, anyway), but I can’t shake the feeling that they are merely regrouping… In there under that sink and in their dark, damp holes, they are breeding and biding their time. Waiting for a chance to get their own feelers on that spray bottle…

To get their silverfish revenge on their oppressors. (I have always known that the bugs will inherit the earth, but I don’t want to be here to see it.)

It’s all too much. Please send help. We are desperate!