Light Urple

Today I learned that while it is unnerving to find, late at night, a spider whose legs can stretch farther than my fingers (if it was stronger it'd probably be a magnificent pianist, or Shelob) perched on the wall above the showerhead, it is equally worrisome for that arachnid to be missing the following morning, given that it had no escape save the door to my lair (aka, the rest of my apartment).

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention it earlier, but I've started teaching some (six in total) English classes at night to little 7-13 year-olds (a hundred some in total). They're loud. I end up screaming half the time, just to have them scream back. Not mad, angry screaming, but excited screaming. They're so excited to learn a new word that they just have to scream it. The other way to keep their attention is to sing. So I sometimes sing lessons. I think they prefer being able to shout. I'd prefer being shot. But no, it's just my voice that ends up so lucky.

It must be almost 40 outside. Not the good 40. The Celsius 40. A muggy, buggy Celsius 40. I cannot but think that it must have been the original inhabitants of this land who invented air conditioning. Their Prometheus must have stolen not fire, but ice. Or maybe that's what Uncle Ho Chi Minh did for this nation. God bless Uncle Ho. He stood years of torture, shackled by Papa Zeus to the Caucasus Mountains, to keep us cool during these stifling spring months. Or at least that's my best guess. I never saw Apocalypse Now, and our history classes never made it more than three sentences past Nagasaki. From what I can gather, post-World War II history goes something like this: J.D. Salinger writes stuff worth reading but then stops publishing even though I think he's still alive (what a selfish bastard), Watson (who also designed a beautiful water bottle for Hong Kong) and Crick (who named all streams in Pennsylvania) discovered DNA^2's structure, Kennedy went swimming in Castro's Pork Pond (Tobias: I thought it was a pool toy!) but then King David wanted his hot wife so he sent JFK to the front lines of the Alamo vs. the Philistines (MLS teams?), MLK gets shot too (James Bond never bothered to protect black men, which is why the world now loves Jack Bauer more. Coincidentally, my nickname is JB; Hollywood and hotties take note), some guys went to the moon so we could make an IMax movie about it later, some other guys tried to go to the moon but had space ship troubles so Tom Hanks could make a movie about it later, Henry Louis "Hank" Hadley Aaron hit a bunch of home runs (while not on anyone's fantasy team, or cow steroids), there were hippies (which Cartman killed, but some escaped to San Francisco and Oregon, where they then captured Harrison Ford, stuck an earring in him, and made him do the Super Bowl this year), Mr. Lucas had a brilliant idea (it involved Harrison Ford, but then someone had the bad idea to exclude him), Mr. Nintendo (or maybe it was Mr. Atari; either way, some Japanese dude) had a brilliant idea (it involved Mega Man, but then someone had the bad idea to exclude him), and then suddenly Reagan was President.

Game, set, match, oil.....errr, national security.....errrr, democracy.

I need a syrupy, frozen treat. Wonder if I can find Otter Pops anywhere.