This Ain't No Garden of Eden and I Ain't No Eve

It was one of those weeks, kiddies. In the immortal words of Pearl Bailey, “I’m just tired.”

Each day seemed designed to put me in a deeper shade of blue. Sometimes the cosmos just drives me to drink. Of course, I really wouldn’t drink at all – It’s just that I can’t think of another way to get the alcohol into my bloodstream.

My week’s highlights start and end in my garden. At the start of the week, I finally admitted to myself that I am 90 percent certain that the amaranthus cauditis seeds that I planted last spring never really sprouted. Or if they sprouted, they were quickly devoured by the voracious vampire rabbits that inhabit my property.

But, you see, I thought the seeds had sprouted many months go. In the general area where I planted them there were many little buds coming out of the ground. So, for over eight weeks, I have been faithfully nurturing a patch of weeds. They are now quite robust.

Heading out of the garden and to my mailbox, I found some timely correspondence from my credit card companies. Since that mean ol' government is forcing them to at least try to play fair, they have decided to jack up their interest rates on existing customers. Will I ever get out debt? It seems unlikely.

In addition to my horticulture and financial failures, my romantic life made it a perfect hat trick. This week brought not one, but two separate rejections. Neither was major, but it doesn’t help a boy’s ego, you know? This has not been a week where I have enjoyed my singledom – at all.

So those stings probably only magnified a comment from an oh-so-precious graduate student. With little warning, ze decided to tell me, “I just can’t wait until I am as old you! I am really looking forward to being thoroughly middle aged.” Wasn’t that sweet? Cuz, you know, I wasn’t already feeling like Quasimodo thanks to the unending torrent of rejections coming my way. Nice. I would look into a bell-ringing gig, but I am apparently too withered and aged for that type of work.



Sometimes I wonder, where did such graduate students learn their manners? Did their parents/guardians make some type of calculated decision during their childhood? Did they decide to forgo the time it took to teach basic conversational etiquette so that they could cram in more grammar rules? All I can say is that I better never see a dangling preposition in this student’s papers.

Project Runway returned to the air this week. That might have been a bright spot, except now they film it in Los Angeles. Let’s be honest: it just isn’t the same show outside of New York. It’s over.

To bring the week to a close, this morning I headed out to check on my weeds’ progress to seed (‘cuz I am sure that all the Miracle-Gro^© that I have been giving them will insure that they spread like wildfire next spring. My neighbors will be so pleased.). As I stepped off my deck and into the lawn, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. In the lawn, there was something dark blowing in the breeze. Only there wasn’t any breeze. And then I realized, it was a motherfucking snake.



My reflexes had me jump backwards three feet. I thought that snakes only lived on planes! Where is Jeff Corwin when you need him? It wasn't the first time I asked that question this week . . .

Before you all go thinking that I am easily rattled (no pun intended), this was no simple little garter snake. I am from New Mexico. All sorts of reptiles have crossed my path. We are talking about a snake, though, that was at least sixteen inches long and two inches wide.

He wasn't one of those charming, Disney snakes either. Trust me, he had neither an ermine cape nor a captivating way with words.



What he did have was half a frog hanging out of his mouth. Yes, I surprised the snake during his breakfast hour. It was a horror show. The frog’s little legs still twitching as the snake reared its head towards me in an attack posture. Apparently his parents didn’t take the time to teach it proper attack etiquette. Didn’t he know it was rude to look menacing with its mouth full?

Being superstitious (or maybe I just want such a disturbing scene to have some meaning -- any meaning), I thought it must be a bad omen. Then I realized something important. My week may have been an unpleasant one, but it wasn’t worse than the week that the frog had.

Tippi Hedren Has Nothing on GayProf

A few days ago, I came home from work late after having met a friend for dinner. While I should have been focusing my energy on the Never-Ending-Research- Project- of-Doom, I decided to zone out a bit on the couch. Every so often, a ruckus came from the chimney of my wood-burning stove. Cat had also suspiciously positioned himself directly in front of the window of the iron box. At first, I figured that the sound was soot being dislodged as the house settled. The past week has brought colder temperatures and I believed that it made sense the that metal would change shape a bit.

Then the sound became much louder. Given that it was much too early for Santa Claus to be appearing in my hearth, I decided more investigation was necessary. When I opened the top of the stove, I was a bit alarmed to see a pair of eyes staring back at me. Somehow a finch had flown down the chimney and into the stove through the open flue. Once inside, he had no idea how to return and only accomplished coating himself in a thick layer of soot as he banged against the metal walls.

It made me wonder, why is my little cottage so vulnerable to wildlife? First the bees, now the crazy-ass finches? See? I don't need to go camping. Nature comes to me. Now if only forest animals would help me dress in the morning like they always did in those Disney films. . .

Whatever the case, I consider myself a friend to the aves world. Getting the little guy safe and out of danger appeared as a noble cause. Thus, I tossed Cat into the basement (who was clearly imagining a Thanksgiving dinner with the finch as the guest of honor). Given that my back door is a straight line from the wood-burning stove, I imagined that the finch would easily fly out. With the door open, I unhinged the front of the stove, let the bird loose, and triumphantly hummed "Born Free."

It turns out that this was not the smartest finch in the flock. He immediately flew straight into the ceiling and then fell onto the floor a bit dazed. Above him, he had left behind a black-soot impression of his body. It’s kind of like the Shroud of Turin, only with a finch.

Then started the really annoying bits of the evening. Once the finch recovered, he flew everywhere in the house – into the kitchen sink, into the bedroom, into the office. Everywhere he went, he left behind a blaze of feathers and grime from the fireplace.

Finally, I managed to once again shoo him towards the open back door. He landed at the top, paused, and lowered his head to feel the blast of cold air from outdoors. He then promptly flew back into the living room. Maybe the bird wasn’t as dumb as I thought.

For about an hour, I contemplated numerous ways to trap the bird without actually harming him. My failed efforts involved a towel, a laundry hamper, and a shot of tequila (Okay, that last one really wasn’t about getting the bird out, but it sure was tasty).

Eventually, I opened almost all of the windows and both doors. As the temperature in my house plummeted, the bird finally decided that life might be better where he doesn’t ram himself into the ceiling.

Here are my basic thoughts after this encounter:

* I wondered if I will soon die of bird flu that the finch brought into my house. This realization prompted a massive (though, I am sure, futile) cleansing campaign once the bird exited. It is the same level of sterilizing and bleach that I would use should Dick Cheney ever show up uninvited to my house.

* I wondered if one bird managed to make it into the fireplace, does that mean it is going to be a regular occurrence? What will this mean when I actually light a fire?

* I wondered if there was a way to tell my friends "a bird flew down my chimney last night" that didn't sound like a dirty metaphor for something else.

* I wondered if I should have fitted him with a radio tag so that I could track him for later study.

* I wondered if I should have initiated him as the first member of a new bird army that I could eventually use to rule the world.

* I wondered if I would have been as humane/ calm if it had been a bat rather than a finch.

* I wondered if the finch was really a genie in disguise and would soon return to grant me magic wishes in exchange for freeing him.

* I wondered if making this event into a blog entry shows that I really need more interesting things to happen in my life.

Making the Nine

Time is slipping past me rather rapidly. Breaking my series of “nines” in the month of September, however, seemed like a bad omen. So, I’ll just jot down a few things. Besides, the blogosphere is so empty without me.

This past weekend I had a small cocktail gathering. Two major things occurred to me. First, I ran out of cocktail glasses about midway through the evening. Even though I have eight, my first thought was, “I must buy more.” This, I believe, is a symptom of my dish mania. What am I hoping to do? Accumulate enough stemware to open a bar? How much larger am I imagining future cocktail parties will get? If not all of my guests end up with the perfect glass, it’s no big deal. Right? Of course!

Well, that is what I said until one of the other cocktail glasses broke. Then I took it as a sign from God that I must purchase more. I am very religious like that. God is always giving me messages that I should shop more. Who am I do to argue with the will of God?

The other thing that happened was that I had been battling a swarm of never-dying bees that have built a nest in between the siding on my little cottage. I have called out a professional exterminator twice to kill the little bastards. Yet, they just won’t die. Now they are burrowing into the inside. On Saturday, I killed twenty of them who made their way indoors. As I frantically participated in a bee mass-execution in the hours before the party started, I had very grave visions that they would swarm over my guests. That probably wouldn't win me any awards as host.

Part of the problem is that the exterminator seems a little conservative in her application of poisons. She has expressed concern for spraying the whole house because of Cat. While I appreciate that, I actually think that the bees are the greater danger. I mean, the chances of Cat dragging his tongue along the baseboards are fairly slim. Meanwhile, the chances of him deciding that the bees are a new plaything are very high. Coming home and potentially finding a bee-stung kitty makes me quite anxious.

To deal with the problem on Saturday, I purchased some spray that I used myself along the windows and baseboards. This only reminded me that I am fairly sensitive about killing things. Trust me, I want the bees gone. Still, I feel bad about killing insects. I mean, they are important to the environment. They pollinate the plants and stuff. Bee vomit is delicious. Who am I to disrupt the cycle of life? What if one of the little bee larvae that I sprayed now would have grown up one day to cure bee cancer?

Waking up in the morning and finding the floor strewn with dead and dying bees seemed grim. Actually, it was just dying bees that bothered me. Maybe I just want them dead, but not suffering. I half expected to see a tiny bee Scarlett roaming around the dying bees looking for a bee doctor.

This made me want to learn more about bees. Well, by “learn more,” I don't mean that I wanted to do actual research or anything that required, you know, work. So, I turned to my old friend, Professor Internet.

Here are some things that I learned about bees:

Bees are decedents of wasps.

Bees are also related to ants.

It is likely that the “bees” in my house are really wasps (which makes me oddly feel better about killing them. After all, we all know that wasps are the mafia thugs of the insect world. They wouldn't hesitate to kill us.).

There are 130 different kinds of bees, wasps, and hornets in the continental U.S.

The honey bee is the state insect of Utah.

Apparently the Utah legislature has a lot of time on its hands if it’s naming state insects.

Dodge produced the famed muscle car the “Super Bee” between 1968 and 1971.



The popular (and now shockingly overpriced) motor scooter's name "Vespa" means "Wasp" in both Latin and Italian.

Saint Bee, according to the Catholic Church, lived between 615 and 693 CE. She founded several churches and built a convent in Belgium.

Spelling bees are not widely practiced outside of the U.S.

Bee is a brand of playing cards in the U.S.

The majority of bee species produce almost no honey.

California has three “bee-titled” newspapers: The Sacramento Bee, The Fresno Bee, and The Modesto Bee.

Samantha Bee, a regular correspondent for The Daily Show, was born in Toronto Ontario, Canada. She was the first non-U.S. citizen to be a regular on-air correspondent for the show.

A “bee” was a term used widely in the eighteenth and nineteenth century to describe activities that required community involvement (e.g. Quilting Bee, Husking Bee, Orgy Bee. Okay, maybe I made up that last one. They just called them orgies.)

Bees are strictly vegetarian. Wasps, on the other hand, digest meat to feed their larvae.

Bea Arthur was born in May, 1922. She is a Taurus.



Reading about wasps and bees creeps me out. I am also now totally convinced that both I and my cat will soon perish and then be served to wasp larvae as hamburger.

Memento Mori

My friends, this is the end. The weekend holiday marks the end of summer and GayProf’s return to the classroom. I have got to earn those coins. Don’t worry, though, GayProf still has some tricks up his sleeve for the future.

Since I knew that I will soon be swamped with meetings, students, grading, preparing lectures, etc., etc., I wanted to get my little cottage in as good a state as possible before the semester starts. This involved purchasing and repotting a number of new houseplants (ones that Cat will not torture and make beg for their lives (the list of those varieties is quite small)). I also gave the place a good cleaning.

As we know, GayProf likes living in older places. Indeed, with one exception, every apartment or house where I have lived in my adult life was built before 1940 (The one exception was a temporary apartment selected because of other circumstances). Indeed, there seems to be a theme in my life as I also surround myself with material things created between 1900 and 1940 (dishes, furniture, etc.). My research projects usually focus on the period before 1940. Even my iTunes has a significant chunk of disc space devoted to music from this period.

It all makes one ponder if I was reincarnated. Maybe I lived some tragic, but very glamorous, life between 1900 and 1940. Perhaps that will manifest itself today. Maybe you will see GayProf wandering the streets in a grey wool suit muttering, “There is something I must do, there is something I must do.” Do fish me out of the bay when I fall into it.

The thing about reincarnation, though, is that everybody believes their former life was quite romantic. People imagine themselves as long lost knights or ladies of the manner. I can’t even tell you how many former Ladies-in-Waiting to Cleopatra I have met. Statistically, though, most people who were reincarnated would have had to have been serfs. You were more likely to have been the shlep who polished King Arthur’s Round Table than to have had a seat at it. Peasants had no armor and no pretty clothes. They just toiled hard in the soil and then dropped dead somewhere around the age of 30. Just once I want somebody who believes in reincarnation to claim that their former life was dreary, but unremarkable.

Whatever the reason, I seem to bristle at living someplace newer than 1940 (and downright cringe at living anywhere built between 1970 and 1989). My vision of hell would be an apartment built somewhere around 1975 with faux Tudor windows and orange counters. Hell isn't other people -- It's bad architecture and poor lighting.

Luckily, I have been very happy with my 1940 rental in Midwestern Funky Town. Indeed, my little cottage has been one of the best parts of moving here.



Living in older dwellings, though, sometimes requires one to take their [current] life in their hands. While it has actually been renovated fairly recently, my house still has some quirks that come with age. I have been struck by how many things are around that will potentially lead to my untimely demise. These include:

** A garbage disposal that sounds like it is grinding something metal. I have searched for something inside of it (including an unwise mission of shoving my hand around inside). Nothing has been found thus far. Yet, periodically, it jams after sounding like I had tossed an aluminum TaB can inside of it. One day that mysterious piece of metal is going to fly out, impale me, and I will die.


** Older houses also usually have mature trees. In the case of my little cottage, there is a great Maple tree in the front lawn. I like the tree a great deal and appreciate its soothing shade. After all the rain a few weeks ago, however, I was certain that the tree was starting to lean towards the house. It will likely collapse and crash into my bedroom, killing me instantly. Or perhaps they only moved the tombstones and not the bodies when they built the house. Thus, the tree will come to life on a stormy night and just snatch me from my bed. Either way, I am certain that the tree will cause me to die.

** The house has a central fuse box. Until I moved into my cottage, I literally didn’t know any house still had a fuse box. I thought every dwelling in the U.S. had been switched to circuit breakers. How does one actually change a fuse? I am uncertain about the steps required for that. What does make me certain, though, is that my first attempt will result in me electrocuting myself and I will die.

** That fuse box is located in the basement. I will likely fall down the stairs and break my neck. That's not at all the house's fault. I am just clumsy. Even before being electrocuted, I will likely take a misstep and die.

** Speaking of being electrocuted, for mysterious reasons the electrical plug for the washing machine is positioned directly above the wash sink (where the washer also drains). Modern houses can’t put an electrical outlet within several feet of a water source. Back in the day, though, they apparently thought it was just dandy to shove an electrical cord directly in the path of running water. This struck me as a very bad hazard. It was made worse by the fact that the electrical cord from the washer didn’t even reach the plug. Thus, I had to add a power strip which I then balanced on a cardboard box to keep it off the floor. That box probably already saved my life as the washing hoses started leaking shortly after I moved into the house, covering the floor in water. That was lucky. At some point, though, I am certain that I will enter a flooded laundry room with a free flowing, though Downey^© fresh, electrical current. One step in and I will die.

** Then there is electric mower that I bought. Granted, this has nothing to do with the age of the house. I wanted to select the mower option that was better for the environment. In Texas, the grass was simply too thick to even contemplate an electric mower. Here in the Midwest, though, the grass is delicate enough to consider buying a mower that doesn’t belt out a ton of pollution (Note: Electric mowers are better than gas mowers, this does not mean they are good for the environment). Nobody told me what a pain in the ass it is to drag around a giant electric cord as one mows. I am certain I will be careless, run over it, electrocute myself, and die.

** Perhaps I felt so inclined to think about the environment because my neighborhood seems disproportionately populated with Priuses (Prius? Priui?). Several times I have been out walking in the neighborhood and barely been aware that they were even there as they were in “quiet/recharge mode.” It is likely that one day I won’t be being attention and will be run over and die.

** Of course, I cared not at all about the environment when I discovered the nest of bees between the siding of the house. In that case, I called for an exterminator to slather the grounds and structures with profoundly toxic chemicals. Though the bees are dying, I am sure that the chemicals have also given me cancer and I will soon die. If not, I will be attacked by drug-resistant killer bees and die.

At least the advantage of renting is that my estate would not be not responsible for the repairs that would come about after my death. So, I can mostly sit back and enjoy the house. Besides, there is always the next life. Maybe I will come back as a pretty, pretty princess . . .