West Nile is not a Vacation Destination

I haven’t been sleeping well lately.  Yes, my To Do list is longer than this election process feels and I am under no delusion that I will complete everything before we somehow manage to eliminate our national debt. In other words, I’m screwed.  Mr. Dingo is always telling me that I take on too much.  To prove his point he sent me an email that listed all the things I said I was going to accomplish that day, all the things I wished I could accomplish that day, and then, for kicks, because he’s silly like that, he added on a few things that no one in their right mind would think was doable in the amount of time that I have.  I, never claiming to be in my right mind, added them to my To Do list.  Yes, it is possible to learn Italian before I go to Florence, to train Dingo Girl so that we can win the Obedience Competition this Fall, and to find Osama Bin Laden before summer break begins.  I. CAN. DO. IT. ALL!!! 

I feel as if I am in a constant state of motion.  I can’t slow down or I’ll fall behind.  I don’t even know who or what this thing is I’m afraid of falling behind.  Whatever it is, though, all I know is that I don’t want to get behind it.  Maybe it poops a lot. Or drives down the highway with its left turn signal on.

The other night I woke up from a nightmare in which I dreamt that my English Literature Subject Matter test was in November and not only had I not started studying for it but I hadn’t even begun working on my applications to Ph.D. programs.  And then as the blood started pooling on the bed as I frantically pinched my arm harder and harder to wake up from the nightmare, I realized it was not a nightmare. 

For those of you who don’t know about the English Subject Matter test, it’s a test that you have to take to get into most English Ph.D. programs.  It doesn’t test you on the things that you’ve learned in undergrad or grad school.  Oh, no, that would be too easy.  Instead, it tests you on arcane literary devices and novels, essays, and quotes that no one who wasn’t alive to smoke opium with Poe would ever know.  Things added to my To Do list this past week: read every single Norton Anthology; write a personal statement for my Ph.D. applications worthy of the Pulitzer Prize, memorize and/or tattoo onto my inner thigh esoteric poetic devices; break into a big blubbering puddle of tears; eat Entemann’s.  I’m pretty sure I can accomplish the last two without much effort.

If my To Do list was all I had to do, I could do it.  I would be a raving, foaming at the mouth, hopped up on amphetamines unwashed, disheveled bitch, but I could do it.  I would not be happy, Mr. Dingo would not be happy, Dingo Girl would put herself up for adoption, and Not a Dingo would go on as usual, sleeping on my keyboard and only waking occasionally so that I could drop a treat into her mouth.  I. CAN. DO. IT. ALL!!!  But I can’t do any of it without sleep and I haven’t been getting much of that. 

No, it’s not these worries keeping me up at night, Valium Xanax meditation helps me with that.  It’s the damned mosquitoes.  Yes, you read that right, mosquitoes.  I am a magnet for bloodsuckers. 

As I sat down to write this, I counted 31 mosquito bites on my body.  No, I am not exaggerating.  No doubt by the time I hit Submit, there will be more.  The itching and scratching keep me awake at night and no amount of hydrocortisone or calamine lotion helps. 

During the day the itching is bad but I can sometimes forget about it in the frenzy and activity of my life.  At night, when the world is silent except for the mosquitoes buzzing above my bed like a cult of Satanists ready to drive their knives into my veins to bask in my blood, it’s all I can do not to climb out of my own skin.  It’s not just summer, although that’s when the fuckers are at their worst, but year round.  Mr. Dingo thinks that it’s somehow a point of pride that I am the only person in New York City who can be bitten by a mosquito in December.  By the way, Mr. Dingo never gets bitten.  Ever.  Mosquitoes find him thoroughly unappetizing.  He is the rice cake of the mosquito world.  Sometimes I wonder whether he is one of them.

The mosquitoes can’t just bite me and be done with it.  Oh no.  As it happens, I am allergic to mosquito bites.  Whereas most people get bitten and have a small red bump to show for the experience, I swell up like a bloated corpse.  By the end of the summer, I will be covered with enough mosquito bites that people will think I am in a Tyler Perry movie.  And because I can’t stop scratching, I have a scab or two.  And then, because my skin hates me, I don’t heal well so I have scars that will not fade until the next appearance of Halley’s Comet.  Am I creating a lovely visual image for you?  Aren’t you just picturing a misshapen mass of a woman with enormous bags under her eyes from lack of sleep plugging away at her keyboard stopping occasionally to pick her scabs and shoo away a swarming mass of nature’s vampires between bites of Entemann’s?

Mr. Dingo and I have done everything short of having me bathe in Off.  I am hesitant to wear a chemical barrier to mosquitoes 24/7 because that can’t be good for your skin and it smells.  But I’m running short on options and on unbitten skin.  Then, this morning, in an answer to our burnt offerings (my last two turns at the stove ended short of calling the fire department but that’s a story for another post), I received an email from a friend about how to get rid of mosquitoes.  This is the text of the email:

The best way of getting rid of mosquitoes is Listerine, the original medicinal type. The Dollar Store-type works, too. I was at a deck party awhile back, and the bugs were having a ball biting everyone. A man at the party sprayed the lawn and deck floor with Listerine, and the little demons disappeared. The next year I filled a 4-ounce spray bottle and used it around my seat whenever I saw mosquitoes. And voila! That worked as well. It worked at a picnic where we sprayed the area around the food table, the children’s swing area, and the standing water nearby. During the summer, I don’t leave home without it.....Pass it on.  Also can be used to dab any bites you receive. It will stop the itching quicker and go away faster.

Really?  Listerine?  As it so happens, we have Listerine on hand.  Is the orange-flavored kind okay?  I’m not sure exactly where we should spray it.  We have already saturated the areas around our doors and windows with Raid, Off, and any other chemical repellant that, in two years, will be found to cause irreversible brain damage.  But I am open for anything at this point and have spent the day dabbing at my skin with the mouthwash.  Should I make a body spray out of it and douse myself with the mediciney smelling concoction?  I didn’t wear Off because I didn’t want to smell like a chemical factory, but will wearing Eau de Listerine make me smell like an alcoholic trying to hide her addiction?  Because really folks, if I can’t find some relief and get some sleep, I’m going to have to bring my buddies Jim and Jack out of retirement just to get some shut eye.  And then I would have to add another task to my To Do list: Rehab.

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YouTube is a Time Suck

You Tube is a time suck. I sat down hours ago to write a post about Dingo Girl’s birthday and ended up watching videos like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain’s rendition of "Hey Ya," and at least three different versions of Kate Bush’s "Wuthering Heights." I finally realized that tomorrow’s lesson plan is not going to write itself and Scrubs is probably the best sitcom I’ve never seen. It seems they have a song and choreographed routine for every occasion. Hell, anyone that can belt out tunes and Boys2Men footwork at a moment’s notice is a friend of mine. And, if you can do it in a hospital without slipping on blood-drenched floors or tripping over bed pans, well, you’ve got my Neilson rating. Where has this show been all my life?

Like JD and Turk, I have a song for everything.  EVERYTHING.  You know that game where you have to start a sentence with a word beginning with the first letter of the last word in the sentence?  No?  Geez! What did you guys do on your long-assed family road trips, or was that just an ingenious game invented Mom to keep me stumped and quiet after she said, “Yesterday, I went for my x-ray?” Well, anyway, my life is kinda like that game.  I have a song for anything anyone says.  I’m sure it often makes Mr. Dingo feel as if he’s trapped inside a 1970s station wagon with wood panel siding and no air conditioning headed to the Grand Canyon but, well, he’s stuck with me.  I’ve been playing this game all my life and I’m good.  I’m also not proud.  I’ll dredge up Schoolhouse Rock.

Mr. Dingo:  I can’t find the macro function on the camera.

Me:  (singing) Conjunction junction, macro function?  Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.

Mr. Dingo: Are you done?

Me: (singing) Conjunction Junction, how’s that function?
I got three favorite cars
That get most of my job done.
Conjunction Junction, what’s their function?
I got “and,” “but,” and “or.”
They’ll get you pretty far.

Yes, now I’m done.

I admit that it’s probably annoying but I can’t stop. 

My blog should really be called, As I Was Singing.  A childhood raised on musicals, church camp, country music, Motown, and Casey’s Top 40 made me the most versatile singer not in the business.  I would stage musicals for my neighbors and, at ten cents a ticket to my backyard performances, I thought they were getting a great deal.  Where else could you see a nine year old make a seamless transition from Grease’s “Summer Nights” to A Chorus Line’s “Dance: Ten, Looks: Three?” Oh yeah, Momma was proud.  I think she stayed home from church the next morning just to plan my Broadway debut. 

With MTV, VH1, and the internet, my musical repertoire expanded.  Mr. Dingo, Dingo Girl, and Not a Dingo are the grateful recipients of my musical endeavors.  The problem is that once I hit puberty, my vocal prowess went the way of Peter Brady (“When it’s time to cHAAngE…”) and never came back.  I can’t carry a tune in a Kate Spade hobo bag.  No, no, I’m not being modest.  I really can’t sing.  But I can’t sing loudly.  I mean, I can’t sing but I do it loudly.  In the seclusion of my own home, of course.  Or the car.  Or on deserted running trails.  Yeah, it’s that last one that causes a bit of embarrassment from time to time.

On days when I haven’t encountered another runner since leaving the trail around The Reservoir, I feel as if I’m the only one in the park.  Yesterday the cherry blossoms blew their heavenly scented petals in my path and the sun was shining brightly.  Life was a Disney movie — before the Elton John sellout and all that Circle of Life crap.  I’m talking Snow White.  Squirrels and pigeons gathered around my Saucony running shoes to guide my steps over the uneven bridle path, so it seemed perfectly natural to crank up the iPod and start singing.  Toward the end of my run I like to kick it to Melanie C’s “Suddenly Monday.” It gives me that extra boost I need not to sit down on the curb and start crying to keep going.  Singing along is fine.  But this song makes my tired legs want to dance as well.  Singing or talking to oneself while running is not unusual.  I see perfectly normal looking people singing to themselves as they run all the time.  Singing to oneself and breaking into a jig is not normal.  It’s just bizarre.  But yesterday I couldn’t help it.  And of course as Melanie C and I are singing and dancing to “together we flyyyyyyyyYYYYyyyy….” this couple comes from out of nowhere and passes me, giving me wide berth and trying to pretend like they’re not frightened by my wailing and flailing but they clearly are.  I’m tempted to turn all Aquaman on them and direct the squirrels and pigeons at my command to attack — but I restrain myself.  I do not want to go from Disney to Law & Order in one morning.

So that’s the end of my post.  Nothing witty or wise to get you started on this Monday morning.  Nothing but Melanie C and “Suddenly Monday.” Enjoy.  And I DARE you to listen to it without dancing.

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Furry Frenzy

I had planned to write a witty post this morning about how I quit my job and the how trying to find someone to replace me has my former coworkers in a frenzy.  I was going to gloat about how Mrs. Garrett runs late to meetings and curses the day I walked out the door.  I was going to write about all of that this morning.  Instead, I chased Not a Dingo around the apartment with a pair of scissors. 

Not a Dingo had a massive dingleberry hanging from her butt and I had to remove it.  It was gross.  Really gross.  I first noticed it this morning when I smelled a rotten stench on the bed.  At the time I blamed it on Mr. Dingo and the delicious burritos we consumed last night.  “Very funny, Sweetie,” I said, before making a quick escape to the living room.  Well, it wasn’t exactly a quick escape.  Not a Dingo sleeps on my pillow and Dingo Girl sleeps across my legs, but I extracted myself as quickly as possible without inflicting bodily injury and hightailed it outta there.  The girls were close behind.  I did not believe Mr. Dingo’s drowsy denials and was a little miffed that I was driven from bed and robbed of thirty additional minutes of sleep — robbed, I tell you! — by his malodorous wake-up call. 

About 20-minutes later, Not a Dingo joined me at my desk.  She often takes up residence in my outbox while I am working.  When she’s not in my outbox, she’s sitting on my keyboard, trying to sit on my keyboard, or sitting in front of my keyboard with her furry face five inches from mine trying to hypnotize me with those big eyes of hers to get up and get her a treat.  So, when my feline inhabited outbox produced the odor of a fully inhabited catbox this morning, I knew that I had unjustly maligned Mr. Dingo — but I didn’t apologize.  If he didn’t deserve my censure this morning, he certainly has on other occasions.  He had it coming.

Lifting Not a Dingo from her perch I was immediately disgusted and repelled at the nastiness appended to her.  And now, you are disgusted and repelled as well.  That’s what blogs are for, no?  But you didn’t have to wrestle with a pissed-off cat this morning.  And neither did Mr. Dingo.  Two seconds after I told him of our dilemma, he suddenly had to be at work early for a conference call or some such sorry-I-just-checked-my-calendar-and-noticed-it-have-to-run-don’t-want-to-be-late-very-important-bye thing, and out the door he went.  Oh Mr. Dingo, you will get yours....

So, this morning was spent running with scissors.  Not a Dingo was far from cooperative.  Without getting into the gritty details of this morning’s bout of Twister with my normally docile kitty (because I expended all the grittiness describing Not a Dingo’s poor hygiene), let’s just say that I’m reconsidering our decision not to declaw her and have notified the CDC that my local hospital will need antibiotics to counteract the effects of cat scratch fever. 

This was definitely a two-person job.  I could not hold a wiggling Not a Dingo and use a pair of scissors to clip a foul-smelling golf ball size mutant appendage while trying to calm Dingo Girl.  Yes, Dingo Girl had to get in on the act.  Any sign of distress from Not a Dingo caused Dingo Girl to whine, bark, and nudge my elbow with her nose.  Between the mewling, gyrating, barking, nudging, stinking, tears and tears, I was truly in awe of people who work from home and manage to be productive. 

When I quit my job a little over two weeks ago, I had blissful but seemingly realistic visions of morning workouts in Central Park followed by several hours of writing, preparing for my English subject-matter test, a break for some play time and a walk with Dingo Girl, working on my thesis, and then studies before running off to teach and returning home to a warm, hot, nutritious meal and glass of wine on the beach, the sunset glittering off my diamonds and too-white teeth.  But it was not to be.  There are not enough hours in the day when my days are filled with things like dingleberry distractions and extractions that prevent me from sitting at my desk and working.  I need to come up with a system that makes me just as efficient and as organized at home as I was at work.  Any suggestions that do not involve violence?

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It’s All Happening at the Zoo

Several times a week, Dingo Girl and I walk past the entrance to the Central Park Children’s Zoo.  When she was little, she’d paw at the wall on Fifth Avenue that overlooks the Children’s Zoo.  I would hoist her up so that she could see the animals, particularly the goats.  She was fascinated with the goats.  When I think of a zoo, I think of penguins, polar bears, lions.  Not goats.  I guess it’s not a good public relations move to let children run around a lion enclosure.  It’s not that goats are any less dangerous; not by a long shot.  In fact, at the entrance to the Central Park Children’s Zoo there is a statue of a child being mauled by two goats!  Somehow the goats tearing the clothes off of this child fails to deter parents from buying their overpriced tickets to the “petting zoo.” I have only seen one child balk at entering the Children’s Zoo.  This marvelously prescient child must have realized that the “children’s zoo” was a ruse to get cheap human fodder for the goats and other animals behind the enclosure.  The parents of this child ignored her tears and, as they dragged her through the entrance, I swore I could hear her shout, “Soylent green is people!”

Update:  It is with irony and sadness that I need to update this post to let you know that Charlton Heston, one of the old school actors of the big screen died on Saturday, April 5, 2008.  He was 83.

Heston had a prolific film and television career spanning more than six decades.  Although in his later years Heston became better known as the face of the NRA, at one time the silver screen icon was the king of blockbusters.  He often portrayed the gritty, rough around the edges leading man in blockbusters such as Ben Hur (1959), Planet of the Apes (1968), and one of my favorites as evidenced by the film clip that is linked above, Soylent Green (1973).

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