Bugs 'n Shit

I noticed something about this place. It's hard not to notice, actually. It's like noticing the sky is black at night and blue during the day, or noticing that the ocean is visible from probably about 90% of the habitable parts of this island: bugs. There are bugs everywhere. Big motherfuckers.

I hate bugs.

What do I hate more than just bugs? Let's get away from the umbrella of bugs and focus on a couple things. We'll start with roaches. They're huge here. It's like some asshole's science project that went out of control. They're abnormally huge. Here, they're referred to as B-52s. I was looking in an old box of stuff that hadn't been touched in about 9 months. It had been in storage. I saw a motherfucking cockroach, running around. I could have puked.

Then I saw a centipede. Then it met the bottom of my sandal--about ten or so times until I was completely sure it was dead. Big motherfucker. I'm sure it could have killed me, but I snuck up on it. I had the element of surprise. You should read Sun Tzu's The Art of War to learn how to successfully fight the bugs.

I saw a ghastly terrible movie the other day called Code 46. It was bizarro speculative science fiction. It was odd, because it was so unbelievably bad, it was like I wasn't really watching this. Was the man in Shawshank Redemption and Mystic River in a movie so bad, I would have expected it as a vehicle from a porn actor trying to make it in legitimate films?

Something that always boggled my mind up until a week and a half ago was that no matter where I was (for the most part), I could drive almost anywhere. My driveway led to the president's driveway, the road in front of my favorite Albuquerque barbeque place (Quarter's) meandered its way to the Canadian prime minister's house, and the street in front of my apartment could lead straight into Daryl or Bill Gates's driveways (even though they're not related). It was something almost cosmic, communal--something that made our huge, unfriendly nation somehow close. But here, I'm on an island, separated by thousands of miles of water. It makes me feel kind of small.

Nobody cares. Perhaps I've bored you tonight. Perhaps you can go fuck a duck.