I’m swamped with work, and I’m living in a swamp. Swamps are the image of the day. I want to paint a swamp court, full of gnarled mangroves and submerged rocks, with elegantly clad newts and possums wearing soggy Elizabethan finery, while tiny winged frogs sing from atop the root-vaulted halls.
I want to do a lot of things, really, but the work-swamp may prevent it, and anyway, if I do get a shred of free time today, there’s already a painting in progress.
The air is like wet vinyl, and the mosquitoes are cruising around with the self-satisfied whine of a job well bitten. I would like to paint mosquitos drinking blood martinis. As it is, I am just slathering campho-phenique on those personal surfaces that were used as a staging ground.
Squirm War 2004 has ended, with a total rout (mine) hundreds of casualties (the bugs) reinforcements (James) and an ultimate triumph of superior technology over numbers (fans and Borax.) We can sleep in the bedroom again. I’m thinking it’ll be at least a week before I don’t wake every thirty seconds thinking “AHHH! Is that a bug?!”
They have things here that I want to call “daddy longlegs” but which have a three inch legspan, in an oval rather than circular pattern, and small mottled spots. And they jump. Daddy longlegs don’t bother me that much, but these things give me the willies.
On the bright side, there is a bumper crop of fireflies this year, and the yard lights up in the evening, looking all magical and Norman Rockwellesque. Then one’ll get into the house and the cat will slap it around. Then it will chase the cat. There is no sight on earth more pathetic than a grounded firefly chasing a panic-stricken cat. “NO! The intermittent glow! It’s coming for meeee!” I would like to paint that, too.
And while I’m wishing, I’d also like a pony.
