quelquefois

in New York City has got me rethinking whether I really love it here enough to deal with these insects if I come back next year (I’m considering spending another year in NYC after my year in China). I thought living here in a clean neighborhood in Queens would be an escape from them, but somehow they still manage to find their way in. 

Tonight I was peacefully sitting in my room, working on something menial or reading McSweeney’s and listening to music when I see a big brown object scuttle across the carpet. I turn to see that a waterbug/cockroach* was lunging towards me. What the fuck? Do these things just follow me wherever I go? 

Granted, I’m not as scared as when I faced Juicy Wingy McJuicerroach back when I lived in the Lower East Side, but that doesn’t detract an ounce of hatred I have for them. Die, die, DIE….but not around me. It ran back and forth and back and forth in the corner of my room for a really long time. I didn’t want to kill it on the carpet so I was hoping it would eventually make its way back out the room to the tiled floor.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t come out yet. In fact, I don’t even know where it is anymore. It’s not in the corner anymore, not on the walls, nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it ran under my bed? Under my sheets? I’m hoping that my roommate comes home any minute to help me, help me, HELP ME!

* I’d love to make the distinction for you but there’s no way I’m about to stare at photos of these creatures to find their anatomical differences and compare them to what I saw in my room.