Chawing on one's neck...

Yesterday, before heading into the backyard to weed everything that had the sheer mendacity to raise its head beyond the mulch, I sprayed my entire body with citronella.  Every inch.  And then, as a mosquito sexually assaulted me - sticking its nasty proboscis INTO my jaw - I realized - FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY!  I DIDN'T DO MY FACE!!!!  My hair, my neck, arms, torso, ass, thighs, calves and ankles - especially the ankles.  Wouldn't you figure that the fog from that amount of citronella would dissuade those frickin' vampires?

And how is it possible that the same word used to describe the feeding mechanism for ethereal butterflies...

is the same word used for the stabbing, blood-sucking noses of these scourge of the outdoors - mosquitoes. 

How about this?  WE KILL THEM ALL!   And yes, I am aware that mosquitoes feed bats and spiders and any other number of animals up the food chain.  But now, as I must use every ounce of will within me NOT to scratch deep to the very bone of my jaw,  I DON'T care.  KILL THEM ALL!  Yes, I am ready to willfully cause an eco-disaster of epic proportions - that will have ramifications for our entire planet - perhaps our very solar system, but you know what, right now, I DON'T care.  By the time that happens, I'll probably be dead, Rissa and maybe my grandchildren will be dead, so it'll be someone else's problem.  The food chain adapts all the time.  I'm going to start carrying a placard: "MURDER MOSQUITOES - PROTECT PEOPLE"

I can't scratch it.  If I scratch it I will end up looking like a scabby small pox survivor.   Maybe if I just scratch around it...

It's possible I might be tired. Up early so that I could braid Rissa's hair for her track meet.   I staggered into the bathroom to help her and then crashed back into my bed, but had six notes of a song in my head.   And you know why?  Because in the bathroom, while braiding her hair, this happened:

Rissa; I really didn't like the bit they did for the Tony Awards from Jesus Christ Superstar (yes our daughter is a huge musical theatre geek- just like her parents)

Me: No?

Rissa:  The Judas guy was all wrong.  I needed to get the right song in my head.  So I went to You Tube looking for the Original Cast Album of the song, but couldn't find it.  It just kept giving me clips from the movie and that Judas was wrong too.

Me: That's because Carl Anderson is good, but he's not Murray Head.

Rissa:   No!  Not that guy either.  The guy from the Australian recording.

Me:  You and I will have to agree to disagree on that one Riss.

Rissa:  I know!! I know!!  But I went to our music collection and listened to Superstar on the computer and then because I was there I had to listen to the key change at the beginning of Chess - you know the one?  "Ba ba bum bum, ba ba bum... ba ba bum bum bum... SRO...  S...R...O...!"

She then goes blithely off, and I'm lying in bed with "SRO... S...R...O....!!!" careening through my head.  ARGH!!!  You might wonder what SRO even means.  It means Standing Room Only.  I only knew that's what they were singing, having listened to the original album of Chess for 2 decades, after seeing the recent concert version with Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal and that dude... oh God - I hate when I have those moments of early-onset Alzheimer's.  You know the guy...  curly hair, bit of a...   HAH!  Josh Grobin!  HAH!  And DOUBLE HAH!  I didn't have to Google it.

That's why!  It's freakin' Google that is giving me early onset Alzheimer's.  No one has to remember ANYHING because you can just Google it.  I used to be able to remember all sorts of useless trivia.  Names, lyrics, dates when things were published.  I don't have to anymore because of Google.  Google is encouraging generations upon generations to lose the trivial parts of their brain.  Fight the power people!  Work through the pain and remember shit on your own!