Jimbo: The Adventure

Cleaning. It's something we all have to do at one point or another. If you live in a house with 7 other girls, it's something that you have to do a lot... particularly because most of those girls don't. It's easy to ignore chores when there's so many other things to do such as hanging with friends or getting homework done or going to class.

On top of the general lack of motivation to clean, there's Rush. Formal Recruitment. The week where we have to put on our best and worry ourselves to death over who may be joining our sorority. During this week the house, for lack of a better term, exploded. Decorations and food were stored haphazardly, traded out every other night... and the basement became even more of an unorganized, grungy storage area than anything. It was almost impossible to walk through the basement to get to the washer and dryer to do laundry!

But Rush is over now-- it has been for about two weeks. Tonight I got back from dinner and continued doing my laundry, and in trying to traverse the narrow, dirty walkway to get to the washer and dryer, I decided I was sick of it. The whole place was filthy, and while there was no way I was going to clean all of it, I thought I could at least pick up bits of trash floating around. In the process I moved some of the boxes around down there, making the ally wider. There was dirt and some dead leaves from the fall down there (there's a door up one of the two sets of stairs that go down to the basement; it exits out the side of the house and is convenient for trash). It was ridiculous, honestly, and I was tired of stepping over it all.

So I went back upstairs to get a dustpan and a broom, and what is waiting for me down there, in plain sight, but what I would later learn is a camel cricket.
This picture actually shows an adult of the species, where the one I found was in fact a nymph-- its body wasn't as big. It was still pretty large, though-- at least the size of a silver dollar in circumference (with the legs). At first I thought it was a huge spider, but I noted it had six legs, not eight. The two 'jumpy' legs in the back lead my mind to a cricket, though I'd never seen one of these things before.

Now, I was the only one at the house at the time-- that happens around 6pm on a Saturday. So after staring at it for a few moments, and seeing that it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon, I hurried back upstairs and grabbed a plastic cup and a sheet of paper. Much prodding later, I had the cricket, who I decided to call Jimbo, safe and secure in the cup. He seemed a bit disgruntled, and I imagine rather confused, but overall he seemed harmless. Just really big. And... spindley.

After toying with the idea of keeping Jimbo for display to my sorority sisters later (that would teach them to clean-- but the picture above will suffice), I decided to just take him outside and toss him into the grass-- except there's no grass outside at the moment, simply snow. So I walked (in a t-shirt and socks) out to the nearest tree and tossed him into the snow there. It was kind of dark, but last I saw he hadn't moved, probably trying to deal with the harsh temperature.

Such is the tragedy of Jimbo-- I do hope he found a warm place to reside. I just hope it wasn't our basement.

Excuse me while I go insane outside of my head; everything inside is as normal as ever

Paradox #1: Often thoughtful, introspective, and educated, but at times still naive.

Yeah pretty much. (The more I know about the world the less I know)

NO this post will not make sense (it will make perfect sense)

I'm standing in a very white room with blood splattered all over the walls and I can't remember why, except that it was wrong-- and every time I look at the clock it's further ahead then where it should be, things are slipping by so fast. It's like I'm sitting in a lecture and the professor is speaking too quickly for my mind to even comprehend what he's saying, because I grasp at the edges of words and fail to understand the sentence and the paragraph.

I don't really know how to describe anything except that I feel bad for everyone, because we're trapped inside our heads trying to make sense of this world that is far too vast and dark. We're alone and it is so unsafe to reach out to anyone or anything because they make even less sense than anything else. We judge each other by the rules we've made up inside our own heads so everything is a misunderstanding. Everyone else must be wrong-- everyone else must be evil.

(I keep typing things and when I read them again they're different than when I typed them...)

For years and years I've acted as a mediator between friends, trying to wade through all of the lies each party makes (not because they mean to lie but because we all change reality to save ourselves from being shredded on its teeth) and find out what really happened, but fuck, really, what's the point. I'm so tired of it. I have all of these expectations for people and they always just seem to crumble down around me. I'm just going to sit back and put on some headphones and convince myself that everyone truly is good inside, and that I'm going to be honest with people this time...

(and this has all happened before)

I keep resorting back to people that don't exist outside my head. (I sometimes think they're better friends than anyone oustside of my head. I'm holding out for someone I can touch but so far I've been disappointed.) Characters, I call them. They're actually just methods I use to cope with things. But they have, you know, personalities and stuff (that sounds way less crazy right? Wait why do I care what it sounds like?). At this point one would be sliding his arm around my shoulder and reiterating that, everything changes, nothing changes. People don't change, people can change. (He's right, I say. Well, he should know-- he's been around for a long time). And Rask is like, bank accounts? Overdrawn? Feck that, I'll loan you some gold...

(And Mace is the one in the room with the bloody walls-- he's messed up again and he knows that all too well)

But things will work out, right? In the end? This isn't actually a big deal anyway...

It's Kind of Pretty Outside

Today marks the first snow day of the year for my college, and the second I've ever experienced in my three years here. (It takes at -least- a level three snow emergency for them to cancel classes, and even then I imagine the administrators do so begrudgingly.)

There's at least three inches of snow outside, and last I looked it was still coming down. There are icicles hanging from the roofs of the houses, and the tree branches and power-lines are heaped with a fine dusting of snow. I should be out taking pictures with the digital camera I received for Christmas, but... well, it's cold out! And my boots are still all muddy... so I suppose I'll just sit inside instead and play WoW or make a blog for no apparent reason.

Do you ever wonder why people talk to you? Not in the general sense, but mostly people you don't really want to talk to, particularly about the details of their personal lives? This happens to me a lot. I guess I'm a pretty nice person, and patient, and people see that as an indication that I want to wade through their walls of text (on AIM) or sit and appear to be interested (in person) and give feedback on whatever personal issues they may be having, and possibly even offer advice or like, encouragement. Because obviously this is my preferred way to utilize my free time.

I'm talking about people I vaugely know; you know, the people that you've talked to once or twice, met around campus, friend of a friend kind of deal. That, or people who I've had fights with in the past, who I've gradually broken off contact with. If you are a person like this, here's some advice. One word, non-committal answers (i.e., "yeah", "really", "I see") mean that the person is too polite to tell you to shove it, but really hopes you get the hint and stop bothering them. No answers at all mean much the same; yes, there's a possibility that they're absent from their computer and had no time to tell you as such, but there's an even greater possibility that they're completely ignoring your posts in the hope that you'll talk yourself out and leave them be; particularly if you happen to be whining about your life.

I like to think I'm an open-minded, thoughtful, kind, and patient person. Please don't make me re-evaluate my personal traits by bothering me so much I want to club you across the face.