I miss Rae. Desperately.

It's going to be about five and a half weeks until I see her again. The time of Rae-not-being-in-Detroit is more than half way over. It is not getting any easier. Most of the time it's a bit difficult to be all the way happy ever because there's something wrong and unfulfilled pulling at the back of my brain, and that is the fact that I have not seen the person who I am in love with since May.

We talked about possibly moving in together when her lease runs out next spring. This is a pleasing fantasy. It includes a Rae, a dishwasher, Rae, a spacious sunlit two bedroom apartment, Rae, evenings spent watching Firefly with Rae, cooking for two, Rae, my very own floor loom, Rae, and no bedbugs.

I'm at work and it is summer, therefore my fingers and nose are really cold.

Katherine and I both have become bug hypochondriacs because of various incidents. Though I have never actually encountered a bed bug crawling on me, I have seen other bugs, since it is summer and bugs are around, and Katherine found a centipede crawling on her, so that's her story. Both of us have been, whenever we feel an itch or tickle, immediately inspecting the affected skin for crawling things. Because the idea that there are bugs at all leads to the idea: "well there are bed bugs that live in the walls and only bite me sometimes, but wouldn't it be worse if I had lice and scabies and fleas and ringworm?!?!!!" And so you have to continuously tell yourself, despite the normal random itches that you're far more aware of than normal, that no, you don't have lice or scabies or fleas or ringworm. All you have is PARANOIA.

I have woven about 25 inches of cloth on a 12 inch wide warp. I want to be in there all the time weaving. It is a good and happy activity. I'll probably spend all the time this weekend that I should spend cleaning, in the studio finishing the first project and staring my own damn project and finishing it. Because that's what I really want to do. Imagine, a class I'm excited about! I bet Urban is going to get irritated with me pretty fast.

Blah blah blah.

I've been cleaning my apartment in increments.

Friday's massive triumph was when Tim came over to help me. We wrapped the couch in plastic and hauled it out to the dumpster! VICTORY. My apartment immediately seemed bigger and cleaner.

( more rambling about the specifics of cleaning, which is not very interesting )

I started my weaving class last week! This is exciting. I have already gotten a loom threaded and started on the weaving.

This is probably one of the more positive bits of video I've seen about Detroit.

Detroit Wildlife from florent tillon on Vimeo.

That woman talking about the garden resource program? I know her in passing. I'm also participating in the garden resource program. And that old white guy is sitting in the yard of the Trumbullplex, which is about a half mile from where I live. I used to go over there every once in a while, when they had a potluck. Less often recently. I'm familiar with these things - I'm not in the middle of them, but familiar.

Jesus, I love this city. I've been living here for about five years. I went to Chicago last summer and everything was too fast and shiny and crowded. Here, everything is familiar, and I can go to Eastern market for produce on Saturdays, or go down to Honey Bee to get tortillas and avocados and muenster cheese, and if I feel like getting myself out into the middle of nowhere to look at wildflowers and listen to bugs, I know exactly where to go, and it's only a 15 minute bike ride.

I have a feeling that I'm probably going to lose a small amount of weight in the coming weeks.

This is not a cause for celebration, but a symptom of how stressed out I've been. See, when I get really stressed out, I lose my appetite and forget to eat. And then my blood sugar crashes and I have to take myself to some restaurant and eat something with shaky hands while my stomach goes "what the hell is this?". The eating part reminds me of my mom. It's the advice she would give me, so even if I have no appetite it feels like I'm being taken care of.

Basically the combination of this bed bug shit and Rae being gone has me slowly sliding down into depression. I haven't been cooking or eating here much because I don't feel safe in my house. (Also because I've been "sterilizing" things in my oven, and I can't use it for food while I'm doing that.) I've been taking Benadryl so I can sleep without waking up in the middle of the night freaking out because I had a dream about bugs crawling everywhere.

I'm trying to remedy the cooking situation, though - I am definitely making myself some fried eggs in a minute here, and music helps keep me from getting lost in a spiral of paranoia, so I've been keeping a constant stream of one form of sound or another coming while in my apartment. I've been sleeping to Harry Potter audio books. This is unusual for me because usually things like that will keep me from getting all the way to sleep - I like silence or white noise - but I've been getting used to Stephen Fry reading me bed time stories. It helps me get back to sleep if I wake up in the middle of the night, too.

I've been going through bouts of wanting to find an apartment with Rae and have a family, because it seems like a vision of stability right now. And the fantasy includes never being alone with my thoughts if I don't want to be.

I cried at church yesterday. Music does that to me, apparently, especially when I'm in this type of mood. Hell, I'm crying right now. I have a few things that need to get done today, but I think that regardless of whatever else I do I would like to talk to my mom, and take a bike ride just for the hell of it.

I am sitting in my apartment waiting for the guy to come who will spray pesticides everywhere. There is more stuff I should be doing, but I can't do it because I don't want to be on my way up or down the stairs when the guy gets here.

There is so much cleaning to do. I didn't even realize how much TRASH is mixed in with my stuff, and how much USELESS stuff I have until this bed bug bullshit has forced me to rethink what is worth keeping. I have so much stuff I will never use, that I've just been keeping for the hell of it. And it takes up a lot of room.

I've been doing a couple things with this extra stuff. The clothing, I've been washing and putting in the Trumbullplex free box. I make sure it doesn't have any bugs on it before I put it in there. I've been just throwing away a lot of stuff, especially cardboard (great hiding place for bugs) and art supplies that have been ruined by water exposure. I intend to give away whatever I can be sure is clean, to my friends or to strangers.

This is a purge that really needed to happen. I live in a studio apartment and I have enough clutter for a three bedroom house. I should have been doing this before there were bed bugs to worry about. It's going to take a long time to go through everything but when I'm done my possessions will be so much easier to deal with.

I've been freaking out the last couple of days. I went camping with my family and it made me feel all safe and happy for a couple days. Then I came back here and kept seeing bugs crawling around on the windowsill. It's hard now for me to feel safe in my own house.

Plus, during the middle of the week I always feel frazzled because I don't have time to do anything before or after work. I work 10 hour days on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I left to go camping with my family on Friday morning, and came back on Monday evening. I haven't had time to do much of anything about the clutter in my house between LAST Monday (the first time they sprayed and the first time I saw bugs) and today. I've actually been avoiding my house because it's easier to just stay at Katherine's house and keep my "clean" clothes on for another day than it is to have to change into a new set fresh out of a ziploc bag, while not having the time or energy to do anything about the bugs, and simultaneously having to sleep in the house with them. The only reason I had a decent night's sleep last night is because I put the legs of my bed in containers of alcohol, which I can't keep doing.

So I'm all frazzled but I think that actually being able to get something done about this is helping. I'll probably spend the evening in my house, perhaps cleaning some more, but definitely putting down some DE powder, listening to audio books, taking a bath, putting on some clean sheets, and resting comfortably knowing that if the bed bugs do bite, they will have to walk through poison first.

Last night after I posted I saw a fully grown bedbug walking on the wall. It was about 3/4 of a centimeter long. I caught it in a little gladware container and put it on the windowsill - if it had walked through the pesticide, it should be dying soon, I hoped, so I wanted to keep an eye on it to see if the pesticide was working. An hour later it was looking puny and not really responding when I shook the container. Another hour later I looked and the adult bedbug had somehow given birth to an army of tiny translucent bedbug nymphs - or maybe, now that I think of it, they were bed bug mites that were fleeing a dying host? I don't even know if bed bug mites exist. In any case I'm glad I caught it because those would have gone in my windowsill. I drowned the lot in rubbing alcohol.

I tried to sleep and got about an hour and a half of paranoid sleep filled with dreams and delusions of bed bugs crawling on me. Then I woke up and Katherine text messaged me. We talked for a while (I saw another, smaller, adult bedbug and killed it while we were talking) and she calmed me down. At around 4AM I inspected my bedding thoroughly, put on harry potter audio books and managed to sleep for another three hours, maybe.

So I'm running on four and a half hours of sleep and half a shot of espresso, and shaky with adrenaline. I don't know how much sleep I'm going to be able to get in the next couple of days. My order of DE won't arrive for at least a few days, and I am going camping with my family this weekend. I'm leaving to do that at 6 in the morning on Friday. I have to bring up the laundry from the basement. I haven't seen Rae for two and a half weeks, and I haven't seen Sicily for a week. I'm on my period. Today I am working ten hours. Tomorrow, too.

Needless to say, I feel like shit, and the next few days are going to be hell. Wish me luck.

So, yesterday my apartment was sprayed for bedbugs. They sprayed my bed frame and mattress, and around the baseboards. Last night, and just now, I saw bedbugs (last night was the first time I actually saw them) crawling around on my windowsill. Baby ones. I squashed all the ones I could see, but I'm sure there are more, and they'll probably bite me tonight. And possibly my cat. Tiny vampire bastards.

Oh past self, I hate, hate hate you right now. Why did you have to have that bed frame? Why couldn't you just be happy with the one that was held up by a pile of English literature anthologies?

I really hope that the diatomaceous earth I ordered gets here soon. Because when it does, the legs of my bed are going to be sitting in containers of it for the foreseeable future. It is also going to go in every crack and cranny I can find in my apartment. God damn bed bugs.

I have discovered that I can ride my bicycle with no hands. It is exciting.

Another thing which is exciting is home made frappuccinos, which are better than the kind from starbucks, and cheaper.

Another thing which is exciting is that my apartment has been sprayed for bedbugs, and to prepare for this I had to clean it. Which means I now have a relatively clean apartment, which probably doesn't have any living bedbugs in it at the moment. Which is good.

Another thing which is exciting is that our garden is yielding massive quantities of salad at the moment.

The fifth thing which is exciting is that I will be going camping this weekend with my family!

Have you ever used Yahoo Answers?

I like to use it to try to inject some sense into people. I usually avoid the diet&fitness section, because I don't have that many Sanity Watchers points, but today I stumbled into something worse.

The Gender and Women's Studies section.

Beware. If you click that link, you will probably want to vomit or punch something in disgust about five minutes from now.

I just got caught in a rapid-fire email conversation with Rae while I am at the Kresge desk and she is at an internet cafe in Ecuador. Almost made me cry. I haven't heard her voice since Monday. It's really not that long, I've just gotten used to talking to her every day and seeing her at least every other day.

Rae left for Ecuador on Friday. I will not see her for three months.

Sometimes this fact makes me want to cry, but usually I'm not really thinking about it too much. Mostly I want to hear from her. Maybe it hasn't quite sunk in yet. I mean it's only been three days.

I've been neglecting the internet lately because I've been spending so much time in real life - I tried to spend as much time as I could with Rae before she left, and lately I've been just listening to audio books and weaving and gardening all the damn time. I'm going to go warp a scarf now. Wish me luck!

I have had enough of this bullshit.

Original article that made me mad
Outside Data Verification 1
Outside Data Verification 2

In case you don't feel like going through the articles, here's the pertinent information.

"Egyptian police fired tear gas on Sunday at garbage collectors who pelted them with rocks and bottles over fears they had come to seize their pigs as a precaution against swine flu and at least ten people were injured. Egypt, which Reuters reported was “already hit hard by bird flu,” had ordered the slaughter of all 300,000 to 400,000 pigs in the country on April 29 as a precaution. The number of cases of swine flu in Egypt, according to the WHO: zero. Not even a single suspected case. According to journalist Pierre Tristam in an article titled “Swine Flu Unleashes Epidemic of Prejudice,” the pig farmers are Coptic Christians, a minority in the Muslim country and often victims of prejudice."

"Tests had confirmed 397 cases of Influenza A H1N1, or swine flu, in Mexico as of Friday night, up from 312 on Thursday night, Health Secretary José Córdova said. The number of deaths rose from 12 to 16."

"'The attack rate is not as broad as was thought,' Córdova told reporters, though he said it too early to say if Mexico was bringing the disease under control."

"Of all people reporting to hospitals with acute respiratory disease, only about 1.2% were dying, [Mexican Health Secretary José Córdova] said."

"During a typical year in the United States, 30,000 to 50,000 persons die as a result of influenza viral infection. Frequently cited numbers are 20,000 deaths each year, and 37,000 annual deaths. About 5-10% of hospitalizations for influenza lead to fatal outcome in adults."

LOOK AT THAT. SWINE FLU IS NOT AS FATAL AS REGULAR FLU. FUCK YOU AND ALL YOUR HYSTERIA, MEDIA.

As I suspected, swine flu is really not anything to get worried about.

Myrr. Here is my annoyance, all over your friends page.

I know that losing weight is not about health. I wish people would stop saying it is and moralizing about it.

EDIT:You guys I am a nerd. I just read off a statistical section of that article out loud to someone, and then realized that I was boring the hell out of them. BUT I THOUGHT EVIDENCE WAS THE AWESOME.

Faith in god means believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever.

Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something with a huge amount of proof to the contrary.

We are the true believers.

-Joss Whedon, April 10 2009

I've been reading about taste receptors in Health At Every Size. I'm feeling a bit lazy so you're not going to get references unless you specifically request them.

6-n-Propylthiouracil (PROP) is a chemical marker for a genetically determined sensitivity to taste. To about 1/4 of individuals it tastes extremely bitter, and to another 1/4 it does not have any flavor at all. To 1/2 of all people it tastes slightly bitter. It turns out that sensitivity to this chemical indicates general taste sensitivity - PROP tasters are more likely to find things like cabbage and grapefruit and brussels sprouts to be bitter and unpleasant, while non-tasters detect barely any unfavorable bitterness. I myself love cabbage and brussels sprouts and broccoli and grapefruit - to me they taste sweet and delicious. I suspect I'm a PROP non-taster. What about you?

Here. I'm a nerd.

A dumb present for Rae:

A pattern I got frustrated with after a while, and rethreaded the warp for doubleface after a few feet:

tablet weaving setup:

You guys. If you're ever interested in being mesmerized by something that will make your mind go pleasantly blank, take up an adjustable amount of your time, and is completely non-participatory, go here. Also post your own similar links in the comments.

You guys I had a dream that some random-ass sleazy old white guy got elected president after obama had only been in office for a couple months. Because didn't you know? he was only for show. fucking scary shit happening in my dreams.

saturday: went to eastern market and got:

1 cabbage
little red potatoes
blackberries (which are now gone gone gone and I wish there were more)
oranges
celeries
shrooms
popcorn
cheese (havarti with dill)
and probably some other stuff I can't remember.

and I made cabbage rolls with tvp and rice. The result of all this is that I can't decide what I want in my bento besides cabbage rolls because I really want apples and oranges but I also really want ants on a log and I also really want potatoes. and it'd probably be a good idea to have a bit of cheese in there to keep my habitually non-vegan self from feeling deprived. even though if recent experience is any indicator, when I try to eat it it'll seem too salty and fatty and I will just leave it and it'll go to waste. I should still put some in just in case.

BUT I CANNOT FIT EVERYTHING IN THE BOX. CRISIS.

yesterday I went to help my friends dig up the dirt for the garden we're starting in Sicily's back yard. after a lively and interesting conversation about body odor the four of us plus TIM worked for a bit more than three hours (actually I worked for a bit LESS than three hours because I was tired tired tired and didn't want to turn into a bitch) and we pulled up the sod and tilled the (wormy!)dirt into three long beds. in the process (while I was inside taking a break) they found a pipe buried in the yard. A ceramic pipe about 7 inches across, that went straight down about 10 feet and had some dirt in the bottom. it was capped with a big rock. we buried it again after wondering what the hell it was from/to/for for a minute. then we went and got crepes, an adventure which impressed on all of us the fact that cars, while convenient sometimes, can also be quite cumbersome in certain situations. I was going to go home and make the cabbage rolls and go to sleep for the afternoon, but it happened in reverse order, which is okay because now the cabbage rolls are fresher.

and now it's snowing in april. fuck you michigan.

Last night I called the number where you check your bridge card balance. On the recording was something new:

"As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment act, your benefits may automatically increase beginning in April 2009."

So I used to get something like $132 a month in food stamps. Now apparently I get $200 a month.

Food stamps are wonderful. Especially spending food stamps at Eastern Market is wonderful, because the system is that you go to a counter and present your EBT card, and enter your PIN and ask for whatever amount you intend to spend. And that amount gets taken from your account, and they give you golden tokens worth $1 each that you can spend on any food at most of the market stalls. I like to bring a little satin bag for the tokens. So going to Eastern Market with food stamps is just fantastic - you buy fresh and often locally grown deliciouses with a bag of golden coins, but really it's all for FREE.

Also I will be posting pictures of things soon. ok.

Today is April 1st. I am ALWAYS taken in by a lie on April 1st. I will have to try to remember.

So this morning I got a note that said I wasn't going to be interviewed for the full-time job I applied for. This made me worry and worry and worry because there were some complications that made me unsure of why or if this really was. I was all in pieces for a while. But I got a call back and she told me that there had been 100 applicants, which made me feel better, and now I can think about taking that week vacation with my mom this summer. yes. good.

EDIT: Apparently it wasn't clear. I'm not being considered for the job.

I ended up eating an apple and drinking a glass of chocolate milk for breakfast this morning, because that is what I wanted. To put this in perspective, a typical breakfast for me consists of two or three poached eggs on toast. I also forgot to take my prilosec. These circumstances combine to change my hungriness from its usual time of 2:30-3 to NOW. with a VENGEANCE. I cannot, however, sneak food from my lunchbox behind the Kresge desk because it's rather busy and everyone would see me. So I have to just be hungry for another hour and a half. Mehhhhh.

I'm recovering from the cold/fever/thing that has been going around, at the moment, and the thing that keeps bugging me is that my face is sweaty. I think it's partly because of the lotionated tissues I've been using. Also because, since I had a fever and then went on tylenol for the fever for two days, and now I'm off it, my body is like "how do we regulate temperature again?" Also because it's hot in here.

p.s. you guys, I am behind in all my classes because I was sick the week before and the week after spring break. I'm starting to feel like I might be able to work up enough energy to deal with it, but it's still going to be a pain in the ass.

p.p.s. all three of my teachers canceled classes this week because they were sick. It's not just me. At least I didn't have to come up with a doctor's note and thereby go outside with a fever and make it worse.

The good:

Truth in advertising

The bad:

The end of organic farming