Me and Janet Leigh (screech screech screech)

San Francisco is blessedly free from bugs and pests in general, which is good since my windows remain open year-round and none of them have screens. The worst I have to deal with is the single annual mosquito who finds her way into my bedroom and interrupts my sleep by buzzing in my ear and vanishing the moment I give up suffocating beneath the sheets, flip on the light, and lunge around the room with a rolled up magazine.

Anyway, rarely do I encounter anything worse than that, including spiders - to my relief given my total and irrational fear of spiders. This fear is ridiculous, I'm aware, but completely beyond my control, and probably dates back to the clearly-remembered moment when, at the age of 5ish, I wadded up a tissue and bent down to squash one of those tiny little hairy house spiders on the bathroom wall. Those little buggers were remarkably nimble and as I closed in on it, with a distinct "boink" sound (surely not imagined), it sprang squarely to the middle of my forehead.

Ever since then, the sight of a spider from across the room is enough to set off my flight-or-fight reponse, torn between the urge to be in a far distant corner of the house and the need to stay close at hand so I know exactly where the thing is at all times lest it make a break for my bedroom where it would... I don't even know what, crawl across my prone body or something equally dreadful... while I slept. And each spiderweb in the face (of which there are many, I assure you, as a tall person) sends me into momentary panic wondering where the originator has got to.

Because of their rarity, it's been a while since I gave any thought to spiders, but in the last 2 days they've been the subject of several conversations as a friend and I recalled clutching each other in terror in Tuscany as tarantulas invaded the villa on the last night, my boss told me of the black widow she discovered in a bunch of grapes she bought at Safeway, and someone told me of the enormous spiders she was battling lately in her bathroom.

So of course, because that's the way the world works, this morning as I was at my most vulnerable -- naked in the shower -- what do I see (even without my glasses) on the ceiling directly overhead as I leaned back to wash my hair? It was enormous, gargantuan, horrifying, and it was staring right back at me with all 8 of its awful eyes. Seriously.

I fought the urge to scream, though I will admit to an involuntary gasp, and I finished my shower awkwardly, refusing to take my eyes off the thing should it decide to drop onto my bare shoulder when I turned my back. I even resisted the temptation to seek roommate assistance since I have yet to live down the mouse incident.

Fortunately, Shelob hadn't wandered far by the time I returned (with clothing and proper eyewear) to escort it elsewhere* with the end of the very long broom handle.

*and by elsewhere, I mean into the next world with a flush of the toilet. Sorry all you live-and-let-livers but I couldn't risk it coming back through an open window seeking revenge.

Now everybody do the propaganda

As I've mentioned at various times previously, there's been an increasing number of scientific studies being published reporting the mounting evidence of human-activity-caused global warming in the past year: collapsing ice shelves in Antarctica, quickening glacial melts in Greenland, dramatic retreat of polar sea ice, slackening North Atlantic Current just as the computer models predicted, massive temperature-related bleachings of coral reefs, hard evidence that the 1990s were the warmest decade globally in more than a millennium, increased global river flow not due to an increase in rainfall but due to plants' response to higher carbon dioxide concentrations, faster than predicted sea level raise, ice-core data indicating 30% higher CO2 concentrations now than at any time in the last 650,000 years, etc., etc. Even backyard observers are finding it difficult to deny when the spring thaw arrives earlier each year, and bugs and plants normally seen in southern habitats are working their way northwards, overwintering in places they had never been seen before.

Amidst all of this, then, we finally have the following, brought to us by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a "public policy organization" funded in part by Exxon Mobil, among others, which holds that the free market alone will settle on what's best for the indivdual: We call it Life (WMV; Quicktime). Yes friends, it's a commercial airing in 14 US cities extolling the virtues of the much-maligned air we breathe out: Carbon Dioxide. I shit you not.

Yeah, it's like that

You know those mornings where you slip out of your deep sleep somewhere near 3am because you have a pounding headache from that second glass of wine with dinner and you try to fight off waking up but can't because you're increasingly aware of the stiffness in your neck and the pain between your shoulder blades from being contorted around the pile of pillows you stacked up to prop against to read for a while but fell asleep upon without flattening out and once you're mostly conscious you pick out the sounds of the Daily Show coming from the TV in the living room where your drunken roommate is most likely passed out on the couch and you can't tune it out and you start tossing and turning and find it impossible to find a comfortable position and your internal thermostat seems to have aboandoned its temperature regulation now that you're half awake so you go from too hot and and annoyingly sweaty to too cold and still a little sweaty and you stubbornly refuse to open your eyes to see what time it is let alone get out of bed to take an aspirin and ask your roommate to turn down the television since you can't focus on anything but the muted laughter of a tivoed studio audience and the fact that you are not asleep but should be and you get progressively more pissed off at the situation which makes it even more difficult to go back to sleep until finally you sink into strange and unsettling dreams just as the sun rises over the hill and shines like a laser beam through the crack in the curtains directly into your eyes and you realize you have to get up for work?

This just in: Zoo Apes Have Taste For Red Wine

One of the first things I do when I get to work in the mornings is sign on to AOL Instant Messenger, and one of the windows that I always leave open on my desktop is AIM's little News Headlines screen. On a good day I'll actually go to a real news site at some point, although I'm sad to say that many days this little AIM window is the extent of my news intake.

Now, the headlines generally consist of the standard current events fare we're all used to seeing. But occasionally there will be a headline thrown in the mix which strikes me as utterly hilarious, especially since it's buried in the midst of the more weighty items. See if you can spot which of these things is not like the others:

House Votes to Cut Aid to Palestinians
Mexican President Fox Visits Utah Tuesday
Six Major Hurricanes Predicted for 2006
Penguins Do Not Topple Over When Aircraft Fly Overhead
Thailand Mudslides Leave 10 Dead, Many Missing
Raccoon Survives Massive Electric Shock
Former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen Dies

I believe you have my stapler

Ok, now that all my afternoon meetings have been postponed, I find myself with a few moments to spare. Don't worry, anyone with whom I work who might be reading this, I'm on break: I didn't take lunch because it was interrupted by the fire alarm and I was tangled in my orange vest trying to hold the stairwell door open and direct everyone to safety.

Anyway, an office-related topic today: the issue of the person who sits kitty-corner through the cubicle wall. He's a very nice, overly helpful IS guy capable of solving a Rubik's Cube in under 2 minutes, and I don't want to make fun of or put him down... but wholly craparoonie, he's been bugging the bejebus out of me lately. For one, he snores. Loudly. How do I know this? Because he does it in his cube. During the day. At work.

I seriously think he may be narcoleptic. I know I'm not the only one to have noticed (it's not subtle) so perhaps it's a known medical condition which explains why he hasn't been fired. Also, twice now he has dozed off right in the middle of installing or upgrading software on my computer. Right there, with me leaning on my desk right beside him. Asleep. It started out as sort of amusing, but at this point I'm just more annoyed with every snore.

Also? At the moment he's sick or has allergies or something, because when he's awake I can hear him snorting the snot -- not just sniffles, but full-on back-of-the-throat snot-rattling snorts -- every few minutes. I've had to start wearing headphones to keep from getting too grossed out. And like a true obsessive-compulsive I also wiped down my keyboard and mouse with disinfectant once he had finished upgrading my MS Office. *shudder*

If I could save time in a bottle... I'd certainly get a lot more shit done

So, sorry for the lull. I was doing well there for a while, but once I got out of the habit... well, you can imagine why my gym membership goes mostly unused.

I'm not sure what happened exactly. For one, the weather turned warmer and so I've been getting very little inside work done. Sunday, for example, unpredictably turned out to be one of the 6 days a year when it gets genuinely hot in the City - in fact, out of nowhere we broke the record high temperature set in 1970 by 2 degrees hitting a whopping 87! Of course, today never rose above 60. But anyway, Sunday, after checking out a photography exhibit at the Legion of Honor museum, I spent the afternoon at the beach because, well, any day that you don't have to bundle up in 5 layers only to huddle shivering with your back to the water to avoid getting sand in your eyes is a good day on the beach.

Also, things picked up a little at work (not that I was writing much at work, just for the record) so I've had less time to futz around with any side projects.

What this also means is that I probably won't be finishing my Post-It Note Mona Lisa anytime soon. I have occasional creative outbursts because my right brain has no consistent outlet, and since I spend such a big chunk of my waking hours at the office, I have amassed quite a collection of random office-object art: sketches on documents from boring meetings, Post-It Note mosaics, mobiles of useless CDs, paperclip sculptures, FedEx label origami, etc. I was thinking maybe I could have my own exhibit. Unfortunately some of my better works have been temporary, such as this short-lived dry-erase van Gogh rendition on my cubicle white-board...

Run for the border

Sadly, despite the title, this post has nothing to do with today's boycott or immigration reform or any other important topics about which I could comment. (It's not that I don't have some opinions on these matters, but I'm not generally the debating or political discussion type. I like to hear other people's opinions, but I'm not one to share my own thoughts or commentary readily. We can go into the reasons for this at a later date.)

No, this post is about my embarrassing love for the Taco Bell. Which I had for lunch today. You know, in support of the cause. Now I'm not really big on the fast-food (I haven't had a BigMac in years), but I do have a few weaknesses: mainly In-n-Out Burger, Arby's roast beef slathered in "horsey sauce", and sausage egg McMuffins. But Taco Bell, hell that's like my Kryptonite.

Perhaps because of the complete dearth of convenient Taco Bells in the City, when I happen upon one I am helpless to resist. I don't know what they put in the "tacos" but it's clearly addictive. Even the mixed KFC/Taco Bell sites draw me in, although frankly the idea of being able to order mashed potatoes and gravy with my chalupa completely freaks me out.

After a few months I'll actually experience cravings that get bad enough I've been known to catch a bus out to distant neighborhoods in search of a double-decker taco supreme. To demonstrate my addiction, let me tell a brief tale (which many of you have heard) from a few years ago of just such a mission.

Upon crossing town, with the Bell in my sights, I stepped out into the crosswalk -- with the light, I might add -- when out of nowhere careened a silver car, taking a left and slamming right into me. After flying into the street and rolling across the asphalt, I pulled myself up over the hood of the car (seeing the bloodied spectre of the person she just hit rise up in front of her totally sent the woman behind the wheel into hysteria, which was about the only satisfaction I can take from the whole episode, as it turns out), and after making sure I wasn't dead, trying to calm her down, and exchanging info, what did I do? Yes, I proceeded across the damn intersection and into that Taco Bell.

I did ask to use their restroom to try to clean myself up a little (though promptly realized that if I got my open wounds anywhere near that sink I was likely to contract something nasty), but when I returned the key I... also ordered dinner. After all that, there was no way in hell I was limping out of there without my gordita.