Bed Bugs

Also known as the worst creatures on this planet.

Actual hell on earth. 

I'm about to use all the four letter words. And delve too far into my personal life. Immaturity at it's finest. You've been warned.  

Last Monday night I was chilling in my bed reading a book for a few hours before bed. Noticed that I had an unusual number of little red bug bites on my one leg. Thought, "huh, that's weird, maybe you should check your sheets to see if there's a spider or something." Found a bed bug. Didn't realize it was a bed bug till I googled in the next morning and found a picture of that little fucker. World collapsed promptly. 

In case you don't know much about bedbugs, allow me to scare the piss out of you. They are everywhere all the time. You're exposed to them everyday, especially if you live in a city. Then sometimes you just happen to track in a baby or an egg somewhere on your clothes. It feeds on you for a while then burrows into your mattress, bed frame, pillows, wood floors, and carpet to spawn and ruin your life. They are nocturnal, so you're safe during the day. But once the sun goes down, they smell your body sleeping, find you, and eat you. 

Oh, and most people don't even know they have um, cause they're nocturnal. 

To get rid of them, you have to call an exterminator. To prep for said exterminator, you wash every piece of fabric in your house (clothes, sheets, pillows, coats, curtains, bags, etc), double bag um in garbage bags, and finally pile all your shit into the middle of your living room to clear the perimeter of every room.

Quite seriously a living nightmare. And Sam and I were in tech for Yonkers that week. Fan-fucking-tastic timing. 

However, there is a silver lining to everything. In retrospect, I recount Highlights of The Great Bedbug "Infestation" of 2013. 

1. When I first called my building supervisor to tell him I had bedbugs, he asked who slept over to give them to me. Upon telling him that no one has been over, he asked where I've been sleeping. Answer: In my own bed. So thanks Dwayne for reminding me that I'm not getting laid, I'm in tech, AND I HAVE BEDBUGS. Ew, sorry that was too personal for the internet. But it's too good a saying to not share. You're welcome. 

2. Emily and I not realizing that we had to bag our laundry so we hung it all over the infested house. Aaaaaand repeat. 

3. Emily and I sharing the futon for two nights. She's an excellent bed buddy. 

4. Our family picture of our infested stuffed animals. They got hell'a fluffy in the dryer. It was adorable. 

5. Sam and I tag teamed our laundry together at a laundromat six blocks away from our apartment. We carried it there in like 4 trips total. We looked like homeless vagabonds wandering through the allies of Chicago. 

6. On said laundry trip, I wore basketball shorts, a sports T, and sandals. I named my outfit: "Gay Aunt Barbra goes to the beach." 

7. Sam stress drank half a gallon of lemon aid. Jack was added later. 

8. My neurotic tendencies flourished. I was convinced I had thousands of them in my hair, on ALL my clothes, in my shoes, probably burrowed into my skin ready to attack and spread to everyone at any moment. This made it kind of hard to do laundry and actually believe that I'd cleaned it. I would compare this to my high school logic of why huffing Lysol (never happened, no worries) to prevent getting a cold would probably work really well and be totally healthy. 

9. Getting an average of 3 hours of sleep a night for a week. I was so tired today that my eyes couldn't focus enough to spot a pirouette. But the one night I got 7 hours of sleep I was literally euphoric. 

10. My outfits for the past few days have involved only 2 shirts that I just keep washing. And my gayest sandals. Hot. 

Which brings us to today. 3 Days bug free. I unpacked my laundry and am keeping it in the living room for a few days. But at least I know where my clothes are. Literally the best feeling in the world.

Also HUGE THANK YOU to Gillian McGhee for being our bedbug point woman/expert/moral support. I sent her countless frantic texts (some in the middle of the night) which she promptly responded to and cried to her on the phone for like half an hour. Life saver. 

Hope you were able to get some enjoyment from the week of hell my roommates and I just went through. Before I sign off I have to at least mention Lost in Yonkers. Cause that's happening this weekend. It's hysterical. Everyone go see it. That's all. 

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. 

Kaitlyn 

Quick Life Update.

Hey there.

It's been a while.

I have little quality thought to add to the internet tonight, but I did want to post SOMETHING, so here's a quick little update about what I've been up to the past month or so.

1. Lost in Yonkers! I'm the oldest female student in the cast and I'm playing the youngest boy in the show. Loving the show. It's a marathon, but in a good way. Plus the cast is just swell and I love them all. After this closes, my blog will get more interesting. But that's not for a few weeks.

2. Genderception all the time. I don't know if it's Artie or a lack of women's/gender studies class in my schedule this semester, but I've spent a whole lot of time thinking about gender without the limits (read: guidance) of someone who has a degree. Naturally I took off sprinting down the path that leads to conspiracy theories to develop a theory that gender doesn't exist. Don't get up in arms. I definitely am not claiming to have the all knowing, absolute answer. But I have thoughts. Clever thoughts. So I'm gonna tell ya'll about them soon. Post Yonkers.

3. On my (now only) bi-weekly trot to Evanston (fitness) in the rain, fall happened. In celebration, I lit a fall smelling candle. But the Newhart is so facking cold, it has given me what I can only assume is a temporary cold. But for all intensive purposes, fall is here. Even if it hits 90 again this week. There's no going back.

4.  On my way into Munduleixqujkn (my backup for when I can't spell complex building names and don't feel like googling them), I passed like 10 kids smoking cigarettes and thought to myself, "shit, I would be a great smoker. I love putting stuff in my mouth, it makes you look bad ass, and it's relaxing. I need this in my life." Then I was like, "You are a singer and a runner and a dancer. And you're really poor. Don't be dumb." Later this evening my roommate and I had literally the same discussion. Worth noting.

5. I found out at 11:30 that today (now yesterday?) is (...was) Tegan and Sara Quin's birthday. Really this was just an excuse to look at gifs of them. Not ashamed.

6. I have this familiar urge to cut my hair really really really short. It's already really really short, so I don't know how much further I can go.

7. I'm now absolutely out of worthy things to blog about. I was about to start complaining about acne, so I'm going to spare you and cap it here. Just know that I am alive and will continue to update this post tech week.

The end.

Enjoy the fall happenings.

Kaitlyn

WOOF. Summer's over. Sub: Jew stuff.

I have so many things I want to write about but haven't had time until this moment. And now that I have time, none of the well organized, thoughtful entries want to be written. And I've already started personifying my writing, so it can really only go downhill from here.

But ok. I can do this. I'm gonna write a catch up blog that might end up being three half ass versions of the full length entries I've been planning in my head. Or inspiration will strike (preferably in the form of lighting) and I will end up writing a fucking novel tonight. Then maybe I'll break that into separate blogs. Jesus.

Jesus is actually the perfect segue.

So I worked as an office intern this summer at a small Orthodox Jewish school juuuuust west of my neighborhood in Chicago. Best summer job ever.

I was skeptical of this at first. I wore the wrong clothes to the interview and had to buy a long skirt. I don't wear skirts often much less long ones. Especially while doing manual labor. It was a treat let me tell you. Also, I only bought one skirt and wore it every single day. No one commented until the end of the summer when I pointed it out to them. I appreciate them for holding off till then.

More significantly, I was worried because I know NOTHING about Orthodox Judaism. So I turned to my autonomic schemas  and determined that as a gay, Catholish intern, it would probably be best of keep a low profile. Rest assured, I did not go into this expecting homophobia and religious intolerance, but the irony of my situation was too good to not raise a few red flags.

In retrospect, I am ashamed that I went in with that mindset. Obviously I had zero problems. Plus it gave me a chance to meet so many new friends! I never realized how close knit the Jewish community is. Growing up Catholish and attending a Jesuit university, I have always been surrounded by people who shared my religious views. But I have never seen a group of people meld their religious and personal lives so seamlessly. I'm trying so hard not to sound like a cultural bigot but I learned so much this summer! Growing up in a suburb of Cleveland, the only cultural group that I can think of is Ukrainian. And I never went to a Ukrainian event. So this is new to me. I asked an obnoxious amount of questions about Jewish things. I hope I didn't make anyone uncomfortable, because I so appreciate everyone bearing with me and filling me in.

Given that this was a work environment, my sexuality never came up. But I did keep a rainbow pin that read "Girl on Girl Radio" on my bag. The button is actually an advertisement for a feminist radio show wishing everyone a happy pride, but I could see where it could get easily misconstrued for something not so school appropriate. No one commented. And I wore enough "political" t-shirts that I'm sure someone figured it out. But the people I worked with talked openly about their gay friends, relatives, coworkers, etc. Safe zone.

Lesson learned: I'm going to work really hard in the future to not pass judgement about groups of people before actually getting to know them. Also, it was just great to socialize with some people outside of the Loyola bubble. A lot of my coworkers had families and were out of school. Thank goodness life keeps happening after college.

Also, I can do just about any task in a calf length skirt now. That's one for the resume.

Kaitlyn