I Wish I Had Never Seen This

Did you know there’s a feature on eblogger which allows you to track traffic to your blog?  I’ve laughed with authors visiting the store who talk about obsessively checking their Amazon sales rank every hour.  Meanwhile in my head, I’ve judged them.  I’ll never be that self-obsessed and pathetic,  I thought.  But… I didn’t know I could track traffic to my blog.

Looking at Sweet with Fall and Fish, I honestly have no idea why a few hundred folks read one post (and let me delude myself that every time someone opens a post, it means s/he reads it, okay?) and another only gets a few readers.  

Some of my recent posts have seven readers.  Seven.  Since 14 people are following me, if you count me (I was trying to see if I’d get an email when I put up a post; I didn’t, and I haven’t taken the time to figure out how to unsubscribe myself), that means half the people interested enough to see what I have to say on a regular basis aren’t really that interested.

My most popular post has nearly a thousand readers.  Is it because I mention all those popular blogs I like?  Or does it come up on a Google search for tips on getting more people to read your blog?  Maybe it’s because it has so many comments.  There’s probably no way of knowing, but it hasn’t stopped me from whining and wondering all week.

I think it’s the mention of all those high-traffic sites, combined with Tucker Max, Maddox, and "Hot Chicks."  I told Becky I should just start throwing random high-traffic generating phrases into my posts, things like Paris Hilton reverse cowgirl Chilean miners, or Jersey Shore Gulf Spill bukkake.  Only half joking, I made particular mention of a certain singer whose video we saw at a bowling alley with Dylan, said singer who has the ability to make a six-year-old really shake his booty.

“If you mention ------ ------ on your blog just to get traffic,” Becky said, also only half joking, “then we would have to part company.  Now I’m leaving the room, and I’m going to forget this conversation ever happened.”

The singer’s first name is the same as the guy who wrote Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever and co-edited The Word Made Flesh with Eva Talmadge.  His last name is very similar in sound to this animal: 

Should hundreds of followers and thousands of readers come to Sweet, my last illusion will crumble.  Author platform, author platform, if you want to be published then what’s your author platform?  If I garner a large audience (and one could argue that the hundreds of people looking at The Heat Lightning and Lip Service and the thousands looking at Books & Books constitute a platform), I’ll have to face the fact that I’m unpublished because I keep my work to myself.  

     Watches Viagra sex Lindsay Lohan big hard Russian Brides upskirt Glenn Beck boobs sexting Catfish orgy fetish video spank Spanx Pulitzer naked pictures fap adult NSFW butts bikini sexy hot wild dirty naughty filthy Nolte   

Just checking.

Roaches Check In. A Lot.

At one point, I thought it would be fun to use my Twitter account to monitor roach activity at the Treehouse. Twitter is supposed to be “the best way to discover what’s new in your world,” so what else is new in my life that I can post about? What page I’m on in the half dozen books I’m reading?

Imagine TweetwithRoach&Silverfish:

“Friday, July 12th: one roach toe up in shower.”

“Saturday, July 13th: one roach toe up in closet.”

“Sunday, July 14th: live roach in living room, killed with Lemon-Scented Raid.”

I could come up with a size rating, 1 for thumbnail-sized baby, 6 for I live here now, too – you got a problem with that? If that wouldn’t get me a hundred thousand followers, nothing would.

One roach visits the Treehouse a day, like a vitamin from hell. Thankfully, the ratio of dead to live is 9 to 1. Still, ew. Fucking, EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW.

Recently, I found two roaches before I left for work, then two more when I got back home. Needless to say, a pity party ensued, woe is me, I’m better than this, is this the best I can do for myself, etc. etc, blah, blah, snooze. The candle on my pity-party cake was next morning’s kitchen kockroach. My only consolation is that these guests didn’t appear at the same time as two-legged guests.

Then, after 5 roaches in 24-hours, nothing. Not a single crawly. Every day I didn’t see one, the anticipation built. After a few weeks, I figured my downstairs neighbor has finally settled in, and the entomological wildlife has once again found its equilibrium.

This morning as I sat at my laptop - dawn hours away, the only light coming from my screen - the feathery touch of a six-legged mambo passed over my bare feet.

Gah. Huhblugh-glugh-huh. Ick.

I capture lizards and spiders and release them outside, but that roach couldn’t die fast enough. If you’ve never been Roached before, let me tell you – like the ghost of a mosquito buzzing in your ear long after you’ve killed it, the memory of that touch stays in your skin and makes your spine shiver all day. My murderous efforts only went unnoticed because Becky sleeps like a coma patient.

Scale of 1-to-6, I give that roach a 7 for sheer repulsion.

Wild Wildlife

Coming back to the Treehouse after turning the air off and leaving it vacant for three weeks, I shouldn’t be surprised that the ceiling fans look like the chandeliers in Disney’s Haunted Mansion; we all know it’s essentially an eighty-year-old attic. Still, just when I think I’m familiar with the wildlife I’m living with, the Treehouse manages to surprise.

Here’s the tally:

- Lizards: two; one alive, one dead.
- Cockroaches: five, all thirty spindly little legs in the air.
- Drifts of Termite Droppings: one
- Drifts of Termite Wings: one
- Live Termites: three
- Millipedes: four, dead
- Beetles: three, living
- Bees: twelve, dead
- Spiders: eleven, alive
- Unidentifiable remains of bugs: three

If you were searching for the surprise on that list and spotted a dozen bees, give yourself a big fat pat on the back. I also have to admit the number of spiders was higher than I expected.

What brought bees to my bathroom to die? Opening the bathroom window, I found a bunch more in the window sill, so we know they came from outside the bathroom window. Probably the neighbors got scared of the hive hanging under the roof of their shed and - rather than calling a bee specialist to come and relocate them, or create hive for backyard honey – decided to bomb them. Several escaped through a nearby window, but they’d already inhaled fatal doses.

Or they were members of a bee cult who decided to perish together in a suicide pact.

Apart from speculating on why bees came to my empty apartment to die, there was also one fun moment while I was making morning coffee. A small cricket – a new addition itself and not part of my original inventory – hopped into the web between the kitchen window and the dish rack. I got to see the classic battle between predator and prey. The fascinating spectacle was never really in doubt, but it was still a fascinating spectacle; Circle of Life Breakfast Theater in my own kitchen.

Even in death, the cricket got the last laugh. This particular Miami native has extremely acidic blood, not unlike a lovebug. Apart from tasting terrible, their blood can be fatal to smaller spiders. Okay, I made that up. But the spider did become sluggish as he was biting and cocooning the little cricket. When I finally cleaned up, the cricket hung in the web, wrapped for safekeeping, but the spider lay curled on the counter, dead. If science doesn’t explain it, perhaps this is a cricket capable of cursing.

I love alliteration.

If there’s one good thing about how much funk accumulates when the Treehouse is empty, it’s the satisfaction of seeing it clean again. Basking in the smell of Febreeze-laden Swiffer wet (I’m not lazy; I mopped the weekend before I left) and Lysol multi-purpose cleaner, dustbunnies and cobwebs relegated to the trash, I can watch hours of TV on DVD with a glass of wine in one hand and not feel an once of guilt.

Except wishing I’d been able to get all the spiders outside without killing them.

Sangria + Tequila = Blogzilla

I am better than this.

I’ve never been one to define myself by the amount of money in my bank account – hence the sorry state of my bank account – but lately, it’s hard not to. In the classifieds of my old hometown newspaper, the Post-Standard, I saw a three-bedroom, two-bath home leasing-to-own at the $650 I pay for my studio apartment. Teachers making twice what I make are leaving in droves because they can’t afford to live here.

KRS-ONE says: “Make sure you got what you need. Put at a safe distance all those things that you want.”

Chuck Palahniuk, via the character Tyler Durden in Fight Club, says: “The things you own end up owning you.”

Buddha says to let go of ego and desire.

KRS-ONE spent some time homeless.

Chuck Palahniuk is a homosexual.

Buddha sat under a bodhi tree for a good long time.

All of them offer sage advice.

Why can’t I take it? I am not in debt, I’m paid decently for someone without a degree, I enjoy my job more hours than I hate it, I travel often enough, and I dine out as much as I like, and I don’t need to trade name-brand cat food for generic. So why, when I look around the Treehouse, do I feel sour?

This is the best I can do for myself? I think. That’s all? I was supposed to do something. . . important. Something national. No one told me this, I always knew I’d be a famous artist.

Then why aren’t I?

It’s bad when drinking alcohol becomes an activity, an end instead of a means to celebrate or a social lubricant. It feels like you’re doing something with your night, though, which is what makes it so dangerous. Like, I think I’ll get drunk when I get home. There’s your evening. I know I should be blogging, or polishing my inquery letters, or writing the column I promised The Heat Lightning. Instead, I feel the sting of tears that accompanies my unoccupied moments. One drink will make those tears flow like a wronged girl in a teen TV show, two will make me maudlin, but three, three will push those pesky feelings aside in favor of the buzz.

I remember being told again and again how my separation gave me the right to alcoholism. A lot of the people making that observation didn’t know my family history.

Walking home in the rain, plucking cockroaches from my drains, surrounded by the pretty people of Coral Gables, it all makes reaching for a bottle when I get home so, so easy.

And getting up the next morning to write that much harder.

A Rude Awakening Part 2: The Startling

I greeted the cockroach I found toe up in my kitchen sink on Wednesday morning with surprising equanimity. I was feeding MiniMe and there it was, long back legs moving to and fro, antennae waving, tiny head cocked inquisitively.

Had it gotten tired of running and pushed itself over to contemplate its life before it died? Dead palmetto bugs have got to always be toe up for a reason. Or was this a cockroach in the prime of health, thwarted by the slick stainless steel, taking a breather from its struggles to get out of the sink?

As I sprayed it with Lemon Scented Death and watched it flail, I marveled at my inner calm. I hadn’t been prepared – and I’ve been bracing myself to see a palmetto bug when I enter a room since 1998 – when I flicked the light on, and yet I didn’t start. I didn’t feel a crawling sensation in my guts. Every hair on my head and arms didn’t feel like they were moving. I swept it into a paper towel and tossed it into the trash, wondering if I’d finally gotten over this irrational fear and revulsion.

Then this morning, it was time to make my morning coffee.

At home, I brew with a French press. You boil water, pour it over coarse, precisely measured coffee grounds, let it soak for four minutes, then press a plunger which pushes all the grounds to the bottom. It’s the truest method for brewing there is, allowing the flavorful coffee oils to be part of the cup and bringing out the true richness of the blend. If you have less than stellar coffee – like this chicory stuff I brought back from NOLO which is delicious in a drip coffeemaker – all the warts will show.

Once I’ve poured boiling water over the coffee, I leave the lid on my teapot ajar. This allows the water to evaporate so that steam doesn’t condense on the inside of the lid and drip back down inside, leaving a layer of stale water on the bottom which mixes with fresh water next time I make a cup. I’ve been leaving the lid ajar for twelve years. I won’t be doing it anymore.

Five am (okay, 5:45am; I snoozed, sue me), mug filled with water as a measurement, I remove the lid from my teapot, and...

It’s nine am. I’ve skipped breakfast and worked on two pieces, I’m wearing an extra-tight hat, and my skin still won’t stop crawling.

At this point, I feel like I’m living in one of those bad horror films. Actually, not even. I’m living in the mock version.

“I…am…so…startled,” Randy keeps telling his hand-held camera in South Park’s Blair Witch meets Cloverfield meets giant guinea pigs episode “Pandemic Two: The Startling.” In a Saturday Night Live digital short, Andy Samberg pops up in the bathroom mirror and behind the bathroom door and the shower curtain over and over, cue a screeching string instrument and sharp intake of breath each time.

The ultimate is “Don’t,” one of the fake previews created for the Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez double-feature Grindhouse. “If you...are thinking...of opening...this...door,” Will Arnett’s voiceover growls, “Don’t.”

For me it's, if you are thinking of opening this teapot … if you are thinking of reading this book, if you are thinking of taking a shower . . . don’t.

Welcome to the Treehouse.

Rude Awakening

I lived in a cockroach infestation during my freshman year of college at Syracuse University, in a large four-bedroom home just off campus. A different student rented each room. The kitchen cupboards crawled with roaches, too many to concern themselves with hiding regardless of light or human presence. The only person I saw eating in that house was the Italian grad student, who brewed espresso and milk and poured it into a coffee mug filled with cornflakes. In his heavy accent, he said, “This is how Italians call espresso.” He kept the coffee and cereal right next to the milk, in the fridge, the only place the roaches didn’t go.

These were tiny northern roaches. Disgusting, and I can’t get some of the images out of my mind, but seeing layers of them squirming over the trash and sinks didn’t instill the spine-crawling revulsion I feel looking at a single Florida cockroach.

This morning, I hit snooze a few times but stumbled out of bed at 5:30. For those of you playing the “What Time Will Aaron Wake” home game, yes, I’ve been better about rising early to write. A combination of Minime’s hunger, getting to bed earlier, and not being so hard on myself about what I choose to write has made this easier.

After the accident, it took a year for my energy level to return one hundred percent. I can’t expect my mental state to be balanced and my heart to be harmonized right away. If I need to write blogs and whine in my journal at five in the morning instead of pursuing murdered children on an Indian reservation or an adopted Chinese girl with a dragon living in her basement or Barbie fighting in a tournament of toys, I’ll do it. I just need to get back into the habit again. Alarm goes off, cat gets fed, coffee gets made, and work gets done.

Anyway, a forcible reminder of the reason I started pouring bags of cat food into a large, airtight container for storage came home this morning, in the form of a medium-sized cockroach. You’ll be able to skip your morning coffee when you see one of these bad boys scrambling around inside a bag into which you’re reaching.

Heart pounding, wide awake, I snatched the bag closed. Minime was freaking out. The food is out of the cupboard, yet my dish remains empty. What gives, Man?

The cardinal rule of cockroach control – and by “control” I don’t mean getting rid of them, I mean maintaining the delusion of cleanliness which allows Floridians to inhabit these great old Gables homes Palmetto bugs seem to love – is not letting one get away once you’ve spotted it. When that happens, it’s like the dealer who lets people accrue debt. Word gets out that you’re soft, and then you’ve got problems.

I turned on every light in the place. I sprayed a circle of lemon-scented death in the living room and set the bag inside it. I let the bag open, prepared for anything.

There it was, crawling around on top of the cat food, freaked out by the light and the sense of two predators in the area. The small, furry predator’s threat was nullified by the stench of lemon-scented death. Moo Cat sat at some distance, ears flat, glaring at me. The large “predator” fairly cowered nearby, wearing hastily donned rubber dishwashing gloves and sneakers, spray can in one hand, waiting for his nemesis to emerge.

Its hairy little legs couldn’t gain purchase on the slick insides of the bag, so I got the chance for a nice, long look. To survive, cockroaches either freeze or run. You never get a chance to see them move in a leisurely fashion, because you’re too busy trying to stamp them into oblivion.

Devoid of the scrambling frenzy to find a crack in which to disappear, antennae blending into the brown of the cat food, the roach looked like a large beetle. I wondered why this insect made my skin crawl more than the spiders of my youth. Spiders bite, after all, and cockroaches don’t (well they do, but only when you’re sleeping). Is it the size? The heavy buzz when they fly across a darkened room, reminiscent of a Biblical plague of locusts? The way they startle me when they come from hiding, a survival instinct which feels like intelligent sneakiness?

I thought of what would happen if it got away. Would I be forced to break my lease?

I wondered what vital purpose cockroaches serve in the Circle of Life, whether the world would be better off if they all just disappeared.

I contemplated the absurdity of a six foot three man over two hundred pounds scared of a weightless, inch-and-a-half insect.

Most importantly, what good is Minime if she isn’t going to kill roaches for me?

With a mighty barbarian yell, I snatched the cockroach from the bag, opened my front door, and smeared it above the frame as a warning to any of its brethren who would dare to enter. Afraid the remains – food now, after all – would attract more of its brethren, I sprayed it for good measure. This wouldn’t kill them of course, but it ensures the next generation spawned will be that much more immune to lemon-scented death.

When I got back inside, I finally fed Minime. I’m sure the feline judgment I imagined coming from her was just the shame I felt at my squeamishness.

Ants Dig Cold

There’s an entomological adjustment involved with moving to Miami. If you’re easily startled, you brace yourself when flicking the lights on, mentally prepared for the mahogany sheen of a cockroach the size of your thumb, sometimes frozen, sometimes running for its life.

Cockroaches run on two legs. Just so you know.

You might shake your coat or clothes out before you put them on, or snap your shoes sole to sole. Okay, maybe you did that up north for spiders, but did you rattle your front door before you left so cockroaches squeezed between the door and the jamb didn’t fly into your face?

Cockroaches can wriggle through a crack the thinness of a dime. Just, you know, FYI.

And Florida cockroaches fly.

If you don’t want an ant problem, you make sure your counters are spotless. You keep your pantry items – the cereal, sugar, flour, corn syrup, bread crumbs, etc, etc – packaged in gallon bags. Even that isn’t always enough.

My first job in Miami was in the kitchen at Bennigan’s. I’d transferred from the Syracuse Bennigan's, where I’d worn the same pair of work boots. When I went to put them on for my first shift in Miami, the boots swarmed with ants. Northern bugs were apparently too sluggish to find the bits of food ground into the treads.

I tried hosing the soles down when I left work for the day, but it didn’t help. The tiniest bits drew crowds. Eventually, I ended up putting my boots in plastic bags and hanging them up when I got home.

To heat my place during the recent cold snap, I closed all the windows and opened all the blinds. I turned on every light in the place. Ants gathered around my lights and died. This is something I’ve never had happen. I’ve fought trails of live ants, but coming home or waking up and finding their corpses in droves around heat sources is new and frustrating. It could be the bug spray. They’re attracted to the heat but they have to pass through lemon-scented death to reach it, so all I find are ant corpses. Or maybe the cold is already killing them when they come inside and the light bulbs just delay the inevitable. Whatever the reason, I got tired of wiping or sweeping them up three times a day.

When the cold snap ended, I went into full-on spotless mode. I basked in a home without little black dots drifted everywhere for a few hours, then went out for dinner. When I returned, there was a cockroach near the coffee table (toe up and struggling, thanks to Minime, who provided torture but couldn’t be bothered to finish the job) and a silverfish on the stove. Damn.

You’ve heard that man plans and God laughs? In the Treehouse, Aaron cleans and Mother Nature sends small, hairy, armored guests.

A Man Without a Home

Apparently, people who enjoy reading your blog like you to post more often than whenever the urge hits. Who knew? After writing fiction in the morning, I don’t always have the gumption to put something together I feel is worth sharing. I figured the State by State deleted scenes would see me through the move from marriage and a 3-bedroom, 2-and-a-half-bath condo to single life and a studio.

Well, the move is taking longer than it should. There’s a leak in the large closet (even though it’s a studio, there’s one huge closet and one small closet) directly over where the clothes would go, and a second leak over the shower. I guess if you’re going to have a leak, the shower is a good place for it. Except the water is brown. The other day when I assembled an Ikea book shelf and pushed it against the wall, trickles of water leaked from around the wall outlet where I’d planned on plugging my speakers.

The landlord has a favorite handyman. The handyman had eye surgery and won’t be able to look at the roof until Tuesday. If this is the same dude who replaced the toilet with two different colors of plumber’s putty, two different colors of grout, and waaaaaay too much silicone gel, then he needed eye surgery. It took me two hours to get floor around the toilet to the point I felt comfortable sitting in it, and it’s a brand-new toilet.

Since I heard someone use a word you seldom hear in conversation, a nickname less pleasant than Treehouse has haunted me every time I open the door. Dank.

This week has been biking from the old place, writing at Starbucks or the office, working a shift at Books & Books, buying dinner and putting it in my backpack, biking to the new place, eating, trying to get the place livable, then biking back to South Miami. Grease and hair and years of dust don’t come out of unfinished wood as easily as you’d think. Ha. I’m sore but it’s good to be busy. What’s not good is feeling rootless.

But grease comes off. The black edges where wall meet floor become cream-colored tile and wood floorboards. The LEBO will fit nicely above my cozy new dining table. A lovely paint combination in the kitchen and fresh corkboard shelf liner will hopefully obscure the fact that none of the doors and drawers close true (or better yet, maybe when I put them back together, I’ll be able to adjust them correctly). Trashing the clear vinyl clown balloon shower curtain felt intensely satisfying, and I can’t wait to replace the vanity above the sink.

I’ve also decided to hire an exterminator. The silverfish will have none of my books. Also, it took a year-and-a-half to see a roach at the Oasis. On day five at Wallace St, I pulled back from hanging an organizer for pots and pans on my kitchen wall and saw a palmetto bug the size of my thumb, disturbed by my drilling (and singing) not one iota. And me without any bug spray (FYI, bleach and degreaser sprayed in amounts copious enough to coat a palmetto bug’s wings and prevent it flying will also drown it once it hits the floor). I don’t see the logic in making car payments or paying for haircuts or buying cable, but I’ll pay the Orkin man a monthly stipend for peace of mind. I don’t want my first few months in the new place to be about fighting creepy crawlies.

Until Dank makes its full transformation into the Treehouse, I’ll have a foot in each world. I used to fear the first time the door closed behind me and there would be nothing but me and those walls. Now I can’t wait to brew some coffee, crack open my advanced copy of Stephen King's Under the Dome, sit in the window (or on top of the wall around the landing outside my door, I can’t decide), and enjoy some time alone in my new home.