hello again

August 10, 2010 – 8:48 p.m.

rain, thunder, chopin. A recipe for dreamless sleep.

I had my first scorpion experience today. They are far more disgusting than I could have even anticipated. There is one about 10 feet away from me as a type this. I’m in my bed. It’s on the other side of the wall; it could crawl over at any second. I spotted it hours ago. I’m letting it live because I know if it stays in the same room with me while I sleep, I will conquer my fear. I know my mosquito net will not make me impervious to its evil little pinchers and reaper’s scythe – err—I mean stinger. So far, scorpions have been the only “predator” to strike fear into my heart. I’ve tackled spiders the size of my hand, gigantic flying cockroaches (picture cockroaches the size of cassette tapes…FLYING ones…), and poisonous snakes. I don’t know why this bad boy is irking me so much. Needless to say, I have a recipe for scorpion soup. After tonight, I’m going to catch them and freeze them as I see them. In a few weeks, I’m eating all of them. You think I’m joking? I’m documenting the whole ordeal with photos. Be prepared to witness the domination. DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS DOMINATION.

 “Eat the predator and you will become the predator,” – Eugene Trufkin

On an unrelated note: I’m pretty sure our chickens were crossbred with raptors. They move with such agility. They tear at the chicken feed like it’s the flesh of a bleeding carcass. They wail and screech and follow me everywhere. I kind of hate them. To my vegetarian friends; I vehemently apologize for the next statement, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t really crave hot wings every time I am near the chicken coop. Actually, it doesn’t need to be hot wings. Chicken salad, chicken breast, sliced chicken, diced chicken, roasted whole chicken. One of them might go missing. The rooster, Oscar, doesn’t even serve a purpose. He just bosses the lady hens around. He’s pretty big too. Pretty succulent. I could simultaneously liberate the women and satisfy my meat craving. There is so much good in the world to be done! My conclusion: the rooster and hens are polygamist-chicken-raptors. It sounds just like my childhood. Utahraptors and multiple wives. People in Utah are obsessed with dinosaurs. “The chicken coming home to roost.”

I was sure that coming here would make me a vegetarian. I’d become more compassionate and aware of the animal struggle etc etc… now it’s just making me want to kill things and then delight in consuming them. I don’t know how I feel about this. To be fair, our chickens are free range, so they have a pretty decent life. They get fed top notch grain, they get the run of the farm, they have a safe little chicken coop with plenty of room to sleep in at night where they’re protected from predators (e.g., snakes, coyotes, chupacabras,  and yours truly). I can’t believe how trained they are. They wake me up wailing at the crack of dawn every morning until I feed them. The little bastards follow me everywhere after I let them out. By dusk, I’ll go down to the coop and they’ll be all settled in the back of it ready to sleep, the door will be open and I just close it and lock up. They’re kind of cute. Almost. As cute as feathered reptiles can be. So I guess that means they’re hideous. I think I am just resentful that I spent two hours shoveling their shit while they got to play in the rain. Damn chickens.

I just got up to turn my light off before getting snuggled back under my mosquito net (snuggled, under a  mosquito net, possible? Probably not). The worst part of this: since the light is off, all of the bugs are gravitating towards my computer light…they are finding holes in my mosquito net…OH MY GOD…AHHH…I KEEP SWATTING AHHHH DISGUSTING