shoot first

Spring is my favourite season. Fall vies closely for that spot due to the advantage of being able to wear scarves for the entirety of it. But spring is especially awesome in that I don't have to mistake the crunch of leaves under my boot for a pile of dead beetles.

The weather's lovely enough to wear a sweater outside, and it's not so wam as to dare me to run in the nude. Also, if I'm murdered and dumped in a ditch, I don't have to worry about my body having to be discovered months after winter's snow melts. Just that the relative moisture may decay my body beyond quick identification.

But I seriously hate my on/off allergies to the dust and flying seed things being picked up by the wind and my face. I might just seriously be sick with something—my chest and throat have been sore for a week now. I'm betting on allergies though. My eyes have been watering the moment I stepped outside to grab the mail, and my mucous shares the viscosity of water. Standing up to get a bowl of cereal, only to have a sudden and unexpected torrent of tears and nose fluids fall into my humble meal is not a great way to start my day. The sneezing fits would be fun if I didn't risk accidentally assaulting someone per spasm.

I'm going to investigate those meds they sell for this kind of thing. Some sedatives would also be nice to calm my growing irritation.

Also, happy St. Patrick's Day. I only just realized it's today, but I'm already wearing a green shirt. Mysterious. I'd claim I'm a tenth Irish or something because my great grandma was a red head, but that's just dumb. Happy drinking, snake smashing, or whatever it is people do today.

I just spent a fun week making a hermit of myself both online and offline. For the former, I simply chose to not log in to anything anywhere, post as an anonymous when possible, and ignore my RSS feeds; refreshing, but nervewracking as some of these things were overwhelming to catch up on. Maybe more on this later.

The latter? Blankets, food, a book, and two boxes of tissues. My sudden lack of academic responsibilities is both a catharsis and a collapse. Also maybe more on this later. Good thing my conscience finally kicked in and kicked me out of the house. These past couple days are just fabulous ♥ I can walk outside, stand by my lethal snow mound of a backyard and sit on it. It's at the stage where it's no longer soft, but hard and icy. It tries to melt, but fails spectacularly thanks to the -8(ish)C temperatures. As soon as a bit manages to melt, it freezes to ice! Hooray for inadvertent ice thrones!

Another item I've been avoiding in that general area of "outside" is the school building. Specifically my locker. I figure I should at least take out the textbooks, but I'm a little wary of running into a classmate and having to explain my absence. It wouldn't be too hard, but I'm a little tired of having to pretend to be a verbose and calm person. Plus, without the recent contact with the world (always a bad idea to put off dealing with it) I might slip up and give off the impression I'm a slurring idiot. Curses. I will get those books out by Thursday and, following my counsellor's advice, attempt to "accidentally" run into my peers and justify myself with a little harmless small talk.

The only negative to wandering about aimlessly in this city is that I've broken down and bought a pack of cigarettes.

"Ah, but they're the good kind," I sighed. "You can't get these at the random convenience stores, and the pharmacies don't sell any tobacco items anymore, much less my favourite brand!

"I might not be able to buy them later," I reasoned to no one in the area, addiction winning out in the end.

But, the cravings for death sticks give me a reason to get out; I won't smoke them in the house. It's a terrible excuse, but it's one I need for now.

Turned on my computer for my usual ritual of catching up on news feeds. Also per usual, I began posting comments on some forum, but found I couldn't properly hit the spacebar with the thumb of my right hand. Thinking it was just a silly sticky key, I hit it a couple times with extra force.

But.

Since when did my keyboard make crunching noises? With my trusty can of air I attempt to identify what important piece of a keyboard key I may have destroyed. A false alarm. No vitals are damaged. And then I had a heart attack.

Another internet search later and I was assured that it was not a cockroach. A cockroach probably would have made my spacebar permanently sticky, and I would never know why. As it turns out, it's just a sow bug. Which actually aren't bugs. They're more like land shrimp. Hence the cracking and lack of squishing.

Granted, I've seen a few of these running around the basement. Apparently they help gardeners by pooping good things in the dirt. But... it's December. And we've just started having some actual good ol' chilly weather. And I can't grow a chunk of grass to save the earth anyways.

Also, sow bugs don't ruin your homes or kill you.

...

So they don't even have the decency to be real pests.