One week from now, I will be landing in Bangkok and then Chiang Mai. I have such slim hopes that Thailand will provide much, if any, relief from my general Over-It-ness, but I will at least eat different food and be alone for a while, which appeals immensely.
I feel like a cross between a veal calf and a trained seal; inactive and caged by the heat, all-but force fed on a diet & schedule not of my own choosing, and performing happy friendliness when all I want to do is crawl into a meatlocker somewhere and be Alone with a good book. I exaggerate, of course, as is my wont, but Oy Vey, I really do need a change. I only wish I were flying to Sweden , or the Arctic Circle, instead of yet another insanely hot & humid country with new, more, and different varieties of stinging, buzzing, biting things to plague me. I watched a nature show this afternoon, sprawled out on the living room floor under the big ceiling fan. Watching nature shows is something I do to get a little perspective when I am teetering dangerously on the edge of self-pity. The miserable, idiotic life cycles of so many of the planet’s other creatures makes me see my own “plight” in a more favorable light and I can just Get On With It. This particular show, an episode of BBC’s Planet Earth series about lakes and rivers, featured an exposition on the Lake Midge Fly, a creature even more disgusting than I am presently finding all Flying Things (well, not birds, obviously, just all those of the insect realm). The larvae are cute enough, as larvae go, just hanging out at the bottom of the lake, but then they float up to the lake’s surface and hatch into the most hideous swarms of adults flies; thick clouds of them over a million flies per, which form these massive, towering plumes of now mating flies, which look like the smoke from a thousand giant campfires burning down to cinders on surface of the the water. It’s DIS-GUSTING - made me feel sick and itchy just to watch it on a screen. I sound hysterical, nehe? Well, I won’t deny it, I very nearly AM, and I no longer care what it says about me or my character - I MUST get somewhere “safe” (bugless) very soon, or I am sure I will go absolutely postal. Good morning again. Last night I found a handful (as if!!!) of pellets of gecko poop right where I had been sleeping… did they drop from the ceiling whilst I was out peeing, or was I in bed with a gecko half the night and not know it? This morning, a tickle on my thigh that did not resolve with the blind brush of a hand under the sheet… on closer inspection, a spider… Have I mentioned yet how quite Over It I am of living in Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom”??? And isn’t it funny that with all the dangerous and poisonous animals and reptiles this place has to offer, it’s the bugs that will succeed in terrorizing me to the point of unraveling? funny…right. ha ha ha. This all must sound not only crazed but terribly whiney, to boot. Perhaps I just need to read more Simone Weil - the champion of eschewing material comforts in order to advance one’s spiritual growth and approach toward grace. Perhaps. Or perhaps this northern girl just can’t hack living in a tropical country and will have to modify her plans. Trying to accept this possibility without judgement. I think I just need a break, and to be more meaningfully engaged. The go-to mantra holds - “We shall see.”
1 Comment
pat
10/26/2016 04:38:02 pm
Living with bugs that do not try to avoid humans is creepy. Bugs / insects here scoot or fly away when I approach them. Maybe it's because they know that I HAVE killed a few living things. One place where I lived in Honolulu was filled with cockroaches. Whenever I had to pee at night I would open the bathroom door, turn on the light and wait a few minutes so that most of the roaches had time to hide. Sometimes they crawled over me in bed. They didn't bite and weren't a danger but VERY creepy. To have that happen AND be in danger from their bites is boggling.
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