How to remove a tick safely

when i was young (7-9ish), my mother made fun of me a lot for being overweight. and though we didn't live in the woods, and i didn't do much outdoors, there were many instances that i found ticks on my body. ma doesn't know this (and she's computer illiterate so will probably never find out), but whenever i found a tick on my stomach, thigh or any other body part that wasn't typically visible, i would be much too ashamed of my fat to show her and ask for help removing the parasite. i would sit in the bathroom and try to remember how she removed ticks back when i would let her see my skin. i knew she used tweezers, but i couldn't just go get the tweezers and return to the bathroom - she would know something was up. so i would pull the tick as slowly as possible away from my flesh. and every single time, the body would detach from the head, and i would be left with a tick head embedded inside. and then i would remember. vaseline! she always used vaseline to smother the tick out. so i would open the medicine cabinet and slather vaseline all over whatever area was puffing up and reddening. of course it was too late - with no body, the head could never escape the petroleum jelly.

and this happened more than once. i'd say i've probably had 8-10 tick heads float around my body in the course of my life. and i'm sure (i truly hope) that my body has killed them all.

but today i found this tidbit of information and thought i would share it, in case there's any 6-9 year old reading this who is wondering how to go about removing a tick properly without ever having to show flesh to parent:

"To remove a tick, apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball for a few seconds (15-20), after which the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away."

Or better yet, just get over your ridiclous fears of your mother's judgement. She's going to badger you about weight whether you show her your bare stomach or not, so grow a pair. Or get lyme disease.

smash's best week ever part one

Because Rachel is awesome and inspiring, i myself am starting a best week ever thread.

so last week was probably the most wonderful one i've had in quite a while. though it started out a little slow, by the end of the week i was happily surprised with the turnout.

so monday, tuesday and wednesday were average in terms of fun. monday i watched the most horrifying movie ever and it made me never want to have sex. ever.

tuesday and wednesday i got to hang out with my favorites, sharon and chris.

but the week really picked up on thursday, when i got to see Salman Rushdie deliver a powerful, inspiring reading at the philly free library.


there was a decent turonout for the man, but not as many fans as i would have expected were there. usually when the reader is popular, they sell tickets for the auditorium and they simulcast in the lobby, but he didn't sell enough tickets for all that, only enough for the auditorium. this is not to say that he wasn't hugely appreciated. he came out to a round of applause that was genuine, and long enough that he had to tell us to stop.

he began with a reading from his new book, The Enchantress of Florence, and i simply loved the section he chose. the title character was witty and endearing, and i was in love with her almost immediately. the excerpt had many of my favorite things: love, tattoos, toilet humor, a garden, and Dracula.

that's right. i did say Dracula. i knew from some of the elements in the reading (Wallachia, Janissaries) that his story probably took place during the time that Vlad Tepes III was in power, and i wondered if Rushdie would tie him into the novel somehow. and he did. in fact, one of my favorite parts of the night was during question and answer section, when someone asked what it was like to research history for this book. Rushdie responded that he knew a lot about the time, but that he still had to research the characters, who actually lived. he then quite excitedly added that when he realized that he was writing in the same period that Dracula lived, he was ecstatic that he could include him in his book. and that, my friends, is one of the many reasons that i love rushdie.

during question and answer segement, i was quite pleased with his responses. they were all humorous, especially his tale about writing a song for U2.

humor aside, i think my favorite part of the night was when Rushdie warned us to not forget that stories are fictitious. he reminded us that there are no such things as flying carpets and genies that grant wishes, and that we too often as readers forget this. he told us something that i never knew, and that i will try to remind myself as often as possible - that the introduction we use to fairy tales, "Once upon a time, in a land far far away," is a rough translation of the sanscrit, "It was so, it was not so, in a time long forgotten." much more fitting, if you ask me.

oh, and another highlight of the night? when i found out that Rushdie was a mud angel after the 1966 flood of the River Arno in Florence. since one of my favorite books ever is The Sixteen Pleasures, this tidbit made me a little melty inside.

for more of the best moments of the night , hop over to lines that rock.

rachel may be regretting the post she made for me

i just got a new pet!

his name is foofer.

you think i photoshopped this, don't you?

bwahaha photoshop is for the affluent.

i use paint.

smASHosophy

tell me why some people pronounce a male gender pronoun so strangely.

as in "let go of eem."

or "i gave eem a laxative."

i'm all for dialects and pronunciations different from my own, but this one really irks me.

end scene.

let's has a moments

if my life were a comic

there would be a joke about my addiction to least i could do.


i think the author loves joss whedon almost as much as i do.

happy weekend everyone

thanks, andy, for bringing this wonderful little chauvanist strip into my life. i'm definitely gonna grind it.

connectedness

June 17th, 2007 was my first day at sea. i was getting to know my roommate and about 200 other people rapid-fire. i was unpacking my clothes and preparing for my first day of classes. i was nervous and excited about our first day in the port of Acapulco. i knew that i could live at sea forever.

June 17th, 2008 i got a new bike. a candy apple red one with room on the back for a basket. i took a bike ride with chris moore, and then later he and andy and i took a walk down to the beach to check out the bright full moon. we were only slightly intoxicated from free red wine (which always tastes sweeter to me).

as we were walking home from the beach, someone passing yelled out to me, "What's SAS?" he had seen the letters embroidered on my blue sweatshirt. assuming he was some drunk, obnoxious tourist, i ignored him. he persisted, "no, seriously, what's SAS stand for?"

"Semester at Sea," i told him as politely as i could, expecting him to keep walking past with the rest of his stumbling friends.

but he stopped and talked to me. he had done Semester at Sea in 2006. and there we were: two people who didn't have much in common except for that we were on the Ocean City Boardwalk, slightly buzzed, with ripe memories of an experience we were lucky to have had.

i've been missing sea a lot. and of course i sometimes fear that i'll never see the friends i made there again. in fact, just the other day i saw through facebook that a bunch of my "friends" had a reunion in Atlantic City. sigh. i guess no one in that particular group remembered me.

but i am glad that i ran into that guy on the boardwalk. he helped me channel my bitterness about the reunion into gratitude. he reminded me that i will always be a part of a community that has contacts all over the states and abroad.

i think that's pretty damn awesome.

why i love my roommates

i
rachel, donna, andy and i had a board walk a couple weeks ago and i had the urge to ask andy a question. and this question was so important that it could not wait until i finished chewing the giant piece of funnel cake that was chilling in my mouth. so, through a mass of powdered sugar and deep-fried batter, i managed to produce a sound that i could not recreate if i wanted to. and maybe the reason i can't remember the question now is that in my memory of this i can only hear that noise - and it was far from English. but the point is that andy answered without needing a translation.

ii
me: my favorite bug was always the roley-poley-olie.
mike: ah, Armadillidium.

iii
at sushi, after popping the biggest roll i've ever attempted into my mouth, a bit of soy sauce dribbled down my chin, and i was sans napkin. so, in an attempt to not embarass myself again by speaking with a mouth full, i tapped my hand on the table. and lisa longo and mike looked at me like i was a gecko (i was going to say a chimp but then i thought they may have understood a chimp) and they had no idea what i wanted. but luckily, before the sauce found its way to my white shirt, chris moore handed me a napkin and all was right with the world. or at least in Ginza II.

so what's the point of this long-ish entry? i'm just celebrating the idea that i live with three guys who can understand me in ways that not many other people can.

♥

all i gotta say is

mmmm.

Tell me with the rapture and the reverent in the right - right?

you vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.




i was behind a car this morning that had this bumper sticker right next to the one that, not surprisingly, exclaimed the driver's love for his or her church.

and since i don't really know much about any religions, though i would like to, i was very very confused.

conversation with myself:

-is that some sort of jurassic park reference where raptor is misspelled?
-no, that doesn't make any sense.

-well, what does rapture actually mean?
-this is so embarassing. i am a litt nerd. i should know this.

-i think i've only heard it used to describe pure bliss and ecstasy.
-so in case of really amazing sex, this car will be unmanned?
-that makes sense.
-coming from someone who loves church?
-no i guess that's not right.

so as soon as i got to work i googled. and i found.

wow.

promise

i finished Ondaatje's newest book almost a week ago, and i promise i will put up the most awesome quotations from it as soon as i get home today. look for them on "lines that rock."

yesterday was scary

I
when i drove to work, i had no idea that the sky had made plans to rain. so when i saw the solitary bolt of lightning in the open field behind the employee parking lot, i pretty much wanted to wet my pants.see, lightning doesn't usually scare me. but this time it did because i had no idea why it happened. it was still warm outside and there were barely any clouds in the sky, and it hadn't started raining yet. so the lightning took me by surprise. luckily, i got into work before it started to downpour. and oh, did it rain. it was darker outside at 3:30 in the afternoon than it was when i left at 8 pm.

i've been hating storms recently. because let's face it: your favorite thing in the world to do when a storm happens is to lay (i hope that's right - i could never get the diff between lay and lie without my hacker, and i don't feel like looking) in bed with someone special. and since i don't have that option these days, thunder, lightning, rain, clouds - basically anything that is reminiscent of a storm - makes me feel incredibly lonely.

realizations:

1. i was going to get soaked when i left because i forgot my umbrella in the car
2. i wasn't going to get soaked when i left because the rain had stopped by 8
3. i left my passenger side window open, and now my car is going to smell like ass-rain for three weeks.


II
I also was terrified last night because first, a balloon fell off my wall and made a noise and i thought it was a monster or a ghost, and then someone came into the house at 3 am when everyone was already home and asleep and i convinced myself that it was a robber and if i went to check he was going to shoot me with a gun. but it was just meg.

III
despite all of these fears, one really great thing happened yesterday. i had great conversation with a boy who likes me. and we are going on a date.

so all in all, yesterday was awesome.