Monday, Feb. 09, 2004 - 11:11 a.m.
Every year around this time my office is invaded by slow, dying ladybugs. They aren't red; they're faded orange with a few weak spots, with tatters of gray wings hanging out the backs of their little beetle bodies and heads like used matches, burnt-looking and drooping. They plod around my desk, climbing into my keyboard and my coffee mug and dying, small and crackly, their bodies wedged into the carpet pile. I don't know how they get here: my office is four floors up with no vegetation, but the ladybugs always come here to die. They are the most depressing thing in the world.
So here's the story I'm telling myself: My office is actually an ancient ladybug graveyard, like the ones elephants have. After these ladybugs have lived very long, satisfying, joyous lives, they make a final pilgrimage to Room 314 to lie among the ghosts of their ancestors. It's honorable, not sad. At one time these ladybugs were red and vibrant, and they are not afraid to die.
L and I have started watching the Buffy series from the very beginning, and I am way hooked. Last night we watched more Buffy and L made me pasta sauce with red peppers and Italian sausage. The sauce was incredible, but my little vegetarian body is not used to digesting such things as intestinal casings and pure porky fat. We went to bed, and at about three in the morning I woke up TERRIFIED of vampires and praying mantis women. I was covered in sweat and muttering and groaning...and my stomach was in full digestive revolt. This has happened a few times when I've eaten overly rich food; my body obliges as far as it can, and then decides it is finished dealing with this, thank you very much. And then I get all sweaty and panicky and have to either throw up or breathe cool air until the fevery thing dies down. Last night I wasn't awake enough to process all this, just scared and hot, and I think I finally just fell asleep again. It was a sausage terror. No more sausage for me.
Public Service Announcement #1: Russell is totally alive, despite recent altering of hair color and various other body modifications. This does not excuse his failure to update.
And this just in:
Eva,
An elephant graveyard is a myth. What is actually the
bones of just one elephant are often confused as the
bones of many due to the large number of bones that
just one elephant has. Riverbanks Zoo has a pretty
interesting exhibit about it.
Hope your weekend was great.
Just being an intellectual ass,
Brent
Thank you for the correction. I can only conclude that the myth of the elephant graveyard spread by analogy to the true existence of the Room 314 Ladybug Graveyard.