Thursday, April 07, 2005

It's raining!

The first spring rain of the year! - in my opinion anyway, because it's the first warm rain we've had.

I'm excited. If it lasts more than a few minutes I'm going to go play in the puddles :) and run barefoot again. I went barefoot most of yesterday with the exceptions of walking around classrooms and getting food, and it was wonderful. The weather was summerlike and today several of my classmates are sporting reddened skin. It's good to see everyone cheering up after all the midwinter depression that went on around here.

This morning I got quite a scare. I was holding an open cup of berry applesauce in one hand and had just sat down and licked the lid when I felt something crawly making its way up my back. Naturally, I reacted by jumping and squealing and brushing at the unseen assailant... and splattering the full cup of applesauce on the carpet. Whatever my mysterious morning visitor was, it disappeared somewhere and I haven't seen it since. Being arachnaphobic I simply assume it was a spider, likely one of the quick, jumping kind that scare me the most. It felt like one.

I remember that when I was a little girl I would actually burst into tears at the sight of a spider. We lived in an old house back then and creatures with more than four legs were a regular occurrence. We had an ant colony just outside the kitchen, we had ladybugs around the windows and of course there were spiders in every corner. The other bugs were just bugs - they didn't bother me in the least, except the time I found a silverfish in the bathtub. For a while, I actually ate the ants on the sidewalk. I don't remember why, I simply recall one sunny day that I spent crouched over a scurrying group of ants, trying to pick them up and happily popping them into my mouth. My sister refused to join me, though.

There is one day I recall very strongly and have often used as proof that I have gotten much better about dealing with spiders. I have no idea how old I was and vaguely remember that it was summer. The details are still clear, though. I had seen a spider in my bedroom earlier in the day and while I had daddy take care of it for me I was still nervous and a little upset. Less than an hour later I was in the kitchen when another one, this one a little larger and far more scary, appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It looked like it could leap at my face - and was going to. Not only did I scream and jump away from it as it scurried up the wall in search of a meal, I broke down entirely. Even after dad had chased the spider away it was a long time before I stopped crying and calmed down enough to look around again. The utter terror I experienced then has largely disappeared but I still get nervous whenever arachnids are involved.

I haven't been supremely jumpy in a while. In fact, when I was at camp last year I got to the point where I would barely start if a spider hurried across my hand. I guess not having them around (or at least not having them visible here in the residence hall) has sharpened my sensitivity to them. I've only seen two since I got here and one of them was probably dead. I didn't bother poking it to find out. Anyway, the spider/ant/imaginary beast from under the bed put me on edge and I had to sit down facing the opposite way a few feet from where I'd been just in case it decided to come out of hiding. I dislike being woken by creepy crawlies.

Maybe if my curiousity stops cowering in the corner I'll go look among my food supplies, as that's the most logical place for it to hide. But I'll go cautiously, with many pauses and starts and careful movements, and I'll carry a weapon in case squishing is necessary. Ew, bug guts on the carpet.

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