Saturday, October 8, 2011

Lover's Revenge

Over these last two weeks my poor body has been bruised and beaten during the move from one house to the other. There are big purple blotches in places I don't remember bumping. It's wonderful that the weather has gotten cool enough to wear long sleeves. Strangers will not be leering at me in the grocery store, wondering what violent man has laid his hands on me.

I was estranged from regular internet access for four entire days. My phone is great, but sitting down with the laptop is really the way to go when I'm trying to read blogs, or write them. Not that I had that kind of free time. Moving is an exhausting experience. If I sat, I slept. The dreams were violent and confusing.

I can feel the daily discipline slipping away from me. I can feel the habit of typing out fifteen hundred words a night fading from my fingertips. This is not the sort of thing I'd like to lose. Writing is too relaxing for me.

Did you know I have only had two migraines this past year? When we moved into this new place, I didn't even bother to hang the black-out curtains in my bedroom. That's how confident I am now, about the migraines, that is. I think it's the writing that's doing it. It's strange, really, to think that something that requires so much cognitive thought and decision making can reduce my stress levels so much.

I'm back online now, and my house is slowly being put back together. I moved from a four-bedroom into a two bedroom with no dining room, so naturally, there were a few things to get rid of. Extra beds, the dining room table, the old toy box my dad built in 1977, the refrigerator. Most of those things are gone, but there are a few still sitting in my garage, waiting for some needy soul to come along and claim them.

Matthew and I are going to be quite comfortable here, though I have found a few freeloaders hanging around, taking up my space rent-free. There's the ghost in the fence. I posted a picture earlier in the week. He jumps from picket to picket, watching my every move. On windy nights, he whistles.

There are the puppies and the mama dog. They've been banned to the garage as well, but it'll be a couple of weeks before we let them go.

There was a nice big wolf spider in my living room a few minutes ago. I smashed it. It's juicy corpse still lies there, awaiting Matthew's return, because even dead spiders scare the shit out of me. Even more frightening is the fact that wolf spiders usually skulk about in pairs. My mother told me once that they mate for life, like penguins. That first one was about the size of my palm. Every time I see something move out of the corner of my eye, I seize up, certain that the forlorn lover of my eight-legged friend has come to exact revenge for his death.

 I've got a "smashing" book right at my fingertips. I eagerly await the battle.

8 comments:

  1. Moving is a pain in the ass. Every time I do it-for me or helping someone else-I swear it's the lastmuthafuckingtime. Purging words can be amongst the best of therapies. I want to hear more about your fence ghost.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I f***ing hate moving house! I've moved 13 times in my lifetime, but my poor eldest daughter and her kids have done that many in the last 4 years!!!

    You have my sympathy. Glad your back online- horrible not have the www at your fingertips. Interested about your views on writing and migraine. I agree with the anti-stress idea.

    Great post, love it... still think that "fence face" looks spooky (story in there somewhere).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Downsizing is great. Inconvienent at times, but in the end, really good.

    And I am horribly allergic to wolf spiders. One bite in my leg rendered me immobile for 12 hours. *sigh* I had no idea they hung out in pairs.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Robbie- I've chanted that mantra every time I dismantle my four poster bed. lastmuthafuckingtime.

    Dicky-My dad was in the US Air Force. I couldn't even BEGIN to tell you how many times I've moved. But...I suffer that same anxiety with my daughter, wondering where my grandson is sleeping.

    Julianna-this down-size ROCKS!!! (I got bit by a brown recluse once. It was pretty nasty.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh yeah....moving house....about as fun as being poked in the eye with a blunt stick...i did the move thing a few months ago and still have not entered 'the room where the boxes are'...it is fast becoming a dust repository....
    oooohhh wolf spiders..arent they the ones that cause creeping necrosis of the flesh when they bite you?? Maybe not....we have white tail spiders here...tiny little buggers that will really mess you up...but thats another story...
    congrats on the move!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I used to love moving. Especially when I was in Boston and it was from one little apartment to the next, in search of the cheapest rent. But now that we're 13 years settled in white-bread suburbia with all its consumer trappings, I dread the thought of packing up--but not the thought of moving.

    I'd love to move out of this big house, in this bland neighborhood, as soon as my son is off to college. The girl is up for an adventure anytime. (As long as she can stay at the same school.) Smart girl she is. Maybe she and I will move to the city and her dad can stay here. I don't think he'll ever move. Meh.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Dan- they're venomous, but not fatal to humans. This human, however, is quite fatal to wolf spiders.

    Jayne-I like your girl's perspective. I'm always up for an adventure myself.

    ReplyDelete
  8. hmm, i wasn't aware of the mating for life with the wolf spiders, that's almost endearing. i think instead of killing it, you should've caught it and put it in a jar outside, as a way to lure its mate out into the open for a rescue attempt of something, hehe. i like looking at spiders, but they do give me the heebie jeebies.

    ReplyDelete