She's GOOFY

You'd never guess this is the same hellhound who's After Midnight photo I posted just a few days ago.... would you?

Ouch

Tonight was supposed to be the first meeting of the study/support group I'm starting for actors. I sent out the email invitations a week and a half ago. I invited all of the (12) actors I've met in this city, whose work/work ethic/character I admired. I invited them to each invite an actor friend whom they admired. I asked them all to bring a monologue they'd prepared, to share with the group. I have been looking forward to this for weeks. I had been looking forward to this for weeks before I even invited anyone. I even came up with the perfect name for the group - Actors Study and Support, or, A.S.S. It's perfect, right? Just imagine it. Wouldn't you like to be an A.S.S. member? 

All but four of the actors responded that they'd be in rehearsal or on vacation or otherwise unable to attend, but that they thought it was a great idea and wanted to participate in the future. Four people said they'd definitely be there. I was pretty thrilled. Four people is a pretty good start, I thought. Poompy and I went shopping on Tuesday and bought a beautiful baked brie and some lovely crackers to go with it, a gorgeous bunch of grapes, soybeans in-the-pod, cherries, soda and sparkling water. I raced home from work today and I baked chocolate chip cookies and brownies and made iced tea. Then I set everything out using all my lovely serving ware that I got as wedding gifts. And then I sat and waited. And waited. The meeting was to start at 8:00. I was ready at 7:30 in case anyone showed up early. But no one did. Finally, at about 8:15 I checked my email. Three of the four people emailed me after 2 p.m. today to tell me they couldn't make it. There was one more possible guest. I called her. I got her voice mail. About five minutes later she called back, very apologetic, she'd forgotten that it was tonight, she was at a bar with some friends, but she'll definitely be at the next one!

I feel like the nerdy girl in the movie whose mother throws her the beautiful Sweet 16 party, and then not a single guest shows up. I know, I know. I get my expectations all worked up over things that are beyond my control. But even still. I shouldn't have gone to so much trouble. Without being aware of what I was doing, I tried to turn this into a little party - a celebration of what it is to be an Actor in NYC. But no one else wanted to celebrate.

I guess the thing to remember is that at the end of the movie, the nerdy girl always gets her Dream Guy. So if this were a movie, and I was the nerdy girl, Broadway would be my Dream Guy. So fuck it. A.S.S. doesn't have to be important to you because no matter what, it will always be important to me. I love A.S.S. I can get A.S.S. all by myself. I don't need a group of people to get something important and meaningful out of A.S.S. I can do it alone.

One day, I'm going to be a Broadway Star and when I am winning my 7th Tony, you'll be telling your kids, "I used to know her! She invited me to be a part of her A.S.S. and I never showed up to the meetings......"

So there.

A.S.S. is for winners.

I can't help it.

I just have to take a moment and talk about this thing going on with Lindsey Lohan. I know, I know, I spend too much time reading The Superficial and Perez Hilton. It's a weakness, for sure. That being said...

That poor girl. She's a child, really. She's a child who's family seems to be out for her paycheck, instead of her well being. Her parents seem so eager to be in the spot light that they don't care at all that she is safe or happy or taken care of. Of course, I don't know them. But it's a little fishy that they spend so much time talking to the media about their daughter's private affairs. It just seems a little odd. Shouldn't they be protecting her from the media rather than feeding the media more fodder? I feel terrible for her. I've always liked her. I think she's incredibly talented, despite some bad job choices. I think it's a tragedy, the kind of trouble she's getting into. And I really feel like her parents should be held responsible. I understand that she's over 18 and therefore a legal adult. But still.

That being said.... "it wasn't my cocaine, I was holding it for a friend..." SERIOUSLY? COME ON. Seriously. I mean, seriously. Please don't tell me that that is going to fly in a court of law. Now her mother, the infamous Dina Lohan, is saying that it wasn't just the cocaine that belonged to one of her daughter's friends, it was the pants! Lindsey wasn't even wearing her own pants! She didn't even know there was coke in the pocket! Come on, people. That's like, I mean, it sounds like they're in grade school! "It wasn't my dirty magazine, Principal Skinner! It was Bart's!" Are they for real? And besides, why is she still hanging out with people who are using if she's sober? Isn't that one of the first rules of sobriety? You aren't supposed to be around the substance you're addicted to? Or something?

I am very curious as to what would happen if I were pulled over at 2 a.m., driving (sorry, not driving, speeding - no, wait, chasing another vehicle) on a suspended license, over the legal blood alcohol level, with cocaine in my pocket. I wonder. I'm willing to bet a lot of money that I wouldn't be in spending the next day in Malibu.

Maybe I'll laugh about this one day.

There are good auditions and there are bad ones. There are bad auditions that make for funny stories afterwards and then there is what happened to me today.

Today I auditioned for Broadway's new production of Frankenstein.  The casting call specifically asked for a "brief contemporary song in the style of Frank Wildehorn." So I chose a two minute song written by Frank Wildehorn. And I worked on it every day for five days. And it's a beautiful song that shows off my vocal range and my acting range. It was perfect. I was so excited about this audition. So excited. Especially since they were going to let me sing an entire song instead of just the usual sixteen bars. 

I got up early this morning. I primped. I warmed up. I worked on my song. (Again.) I made myself gorgeous. I went to the audition. I'm thinking to myself, I'm totally gonna nail this. I'm totally going to ROCK THIS! I get into the room and smile and say hello. There's the director, four interns and the accompanist. I walk over to the accompanist, a lovely looking woman, and I hand her my notebook which is already open to my sheet music. I tell her that she can skip most of the intro and just play four bars. 

She looks up at me and says, "Well how much are you going to sing?" 

"The whole song. It's only two minutes." 

"Usually people shorten it. People don't usually sing a whole song." 

BUT THE CASTING NOTICE SAID TO PREPARE A BRIEF SONG! Only I don't say that, I just think it. What I say is, "I'd like to try to sing the whole thing and if they don't want to hear it, they can just cut me off," because the guy before me sang at least two minutes worth of a song, if it wasn't his entire song, I add in my head. 

"Well, fine," she says, "If that's really what you want. But people don't usually do that. It's very unprofessional." By the look on her face you'd think I just told her I plan to squat during the second verse and shit on the linoleum. 

I take a deep breath. And then I completely ignore my instincts and say, "Well.... um... ok..."

"How about I just play the last two verses?" she interrupts.

"All right..." 

And she smiles and nods and says happily, "That's great! That's much better." 

I've made her happy. Yay. That's all I care about, really, making other people fucking happy. I walk to the center of the room and I'm a little frazzled because I know that this tete-a-tete with the accompanist has taken up a few too many moments and I'm sure the director is anxious for me to GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY. The accompanist starts playing. I have no idea where she is in the song. None. No clue. I start singing where I think I'm supposed to start, and not only am I wrong, but the notes come out flat. I don't even know what key I'm singing in. My voice cracks. I take a breath. I focus on my character's inner-monologue. I get on track. I start singing... beautifully. I sound great. I'm totally there. I'm getting ready to sing the bridge -- and the accompanist skips it. She just skips it! She just doesn't play it. But at this point, I don't realize that that is what's happened. All I know is that she is not playing the song that I've been practicing every fucking day for the last five days. I'm sure my face is white. I have no idea what she's playing or what I'm supposed to be singing. In fact, I've stopped singing. 

I force myself to smile and I look at the director and I say, god this is great, I say, "You know what? Never mind. Thank you!" 

I walk over to the accompanist and I smile and, because I'm too full of self-hatred to think she might have been the one who screwed up, I say, "I'm so sorry. I don't think I communicated very well. I'm so sorry. Thank you." 

She smiles, a bit condescendingly I think, and I take my book from her. I turn to the director and his four minions, who are all either inwardly laughing at me or else cringing for me, and I say, "Thank you so much. I'm so sorry." 

And I walk out. I barely got to sing sixteen bars and I have just blown an audition in a way that I don't think I ever have before. I might as well have had frogs jump out of my mouth. 

I walk down the stairs, my eyes burning, my breath caught in my heart, my limbs tingling as if they've fallen asleep and I'm trying to wake them up. I walk out of the building just as a hot tear rolls down my face. I stare at the sidewalk, knowing that if I release the breath that's caught in my chest I'll burst into uncontrollable sobbing. And I walk. I walk as long as I can without breathing and then I breathe and the tears just start streaming down my face. And I start thinking, Five months I've been in this city and I'm still too stupid to get an audition right. Five fucking months I've been here, pounding the pavement, and I haven't even gotten a call-back. I stare at the ground while I walk so that no one on the full New York streets will see my crying. Construction workers whistle as I walk by and my tears fall harder. I walk without knowing where I am going or what I am walking to. I walk without looking at traffic signals, or watching for cars. I just walk.

In case you were wondering...

I realize that I've explained WHY we call the Chiremlin a Chiremlin. I know I've also explained how she earned the nicknames Satan's Lap Dog and Hellhound. But I think it's finally time for me to share photographic proof that our Chiremlin really IS Satan's Lap Dog. You may not be able to bear it. Please, use caution when viewing this image. If you look at it for more than 30 seconds it will most likely haunt your nightmares forever. You were warned.

The General Public is Creepy

This woman comes in to the spa and she wants to buy some make-up. I am very sweet and nice and smiley and I show her where we keep all our testers and I ask her what she's interested in. She sits down in the make-up chair and curtly says, "I tell you what I want and you go get it for me." I smile even though I want slap her. I walk over to the product closet and she spends the next fifteen minutes ordering me around, demanding certain colors, changing her mind, demanding other things, at one point she says, "Just move! Let me look for that!" And pushes me away from the product closet so she can look for something I'VE ALREADY TOLD HER WE DON'T EVEN CARRY.

When she is ready to pay, I ask her for her name so that I can look up her file. She turns her nose up at me and says, "Oh, I've never been here before." Though from the look on her face you'd think I just asked her if she'd ever eaten a bowl of steaming shit. I sweetly ask her to tell me her name so that I may put her into our system. Her eyes widen and she scoffs, "I don't want to be in your little system. No, you cannot have my name." As she handed me cash for the purchase she got this ugly, smug little look on her fat face and said, "See? I am paying in cash so you can't get my name off my credit card!" AND THEN SHE SMILED AT ME.

Then there's the lady that comes in for a treatment that I've tried myself several times, so I know what it feels like and I know that while it is a little uncomfortable, it is in no way painful. And I'm a total chicken. But this lady sits there and moans the entire time. Moans. Like this: "Ooooooohhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh! Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhh! Oooooaaaahhhh my! Oooooohhhhh! Oooooh! Uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh! Hmmmmmmm. Uuuuhhhhh! Aaaah!" For the entire thirty minute treatment. It sounds like someone is shooting a bad porno in the treatment room. Afterwards, she refuses to come out of the room for at least ten minutes. The doctor leaves her in there alone so she can get dressed and then she locks herself in and won't come out for ten minutes. Today she was in there for over fifteen minutes. After she'd been in there for twelve minutes I knocked on the door and asked if everything was alright. She replied, "ah.... uh... yes!" I think she's snooping around in there, trying to find where the doctor keeps pill samples or something. Or maybe she's masturbating. Either way, it's really creepy. This is the same woman who is always asking me to charge her iPod for her, even though she knows that charging her iPod requires me to get on my hands and knees, crawl around under my desk, and move my entire computer. And while I'm crawling around on my hands and knees she stands there watching me. With this weird half-smile on her face. Like she's imagining me naked. 

Earlier today, on the bus, my anklet broke so I was bent over with my foot in my lap trying to fix it. This man getting on the bus taps me on the back and puts his face right in mine, so that I could smell his nasty gingivitis breath and says, "it's broken?". I looked at him with as much horror as I could muster (which was actually pretty easy to do as I was utterly horrified) and turned my back to him. Then I checked to make sure my skirt wasn't hiked up showing too much thigh or something, since apparently, accidentally showing a little skin is an invitation to be harassed by douche bags. My skirt was not hiked up. I was not showing too much skin. I fixed my anklet and picked up my book when the guy behind me starts saying, "Miss? Miss? Hello?" then he starts making little noises, little clicky, kissy, whistley, attention-getting noises. I ignore him, thinking he'll give up, BUT THEN HE TOUCHES ME. HE REACHES ACROSS THE AISLE OF THE BUS, OVER ANOTHER ROW OF SEATS AND TOUCHES MY BACK TO GET MY ATTENTION. When I jump, he says, "You fixed it?" I wheeled around, this time giving him the angriest, evilest, nastiest face I could make and growled, "Yes, it's fixed." He spent the next two blocks (and in Manhattan traffic two blocks is equal to about ten minutes) saying, "Fucking cunt. Fucking cunt-whore. Bitch. Fucking bitch-cunt-whore. I was just trying to be nice. Fucking bitch-whore. Fucker. Fucking being nice you fucking cunt." I managed to sit perfectly still, my face buried in my book as though I couldn't hear a word of the foul, vomitous, filth pouring out of his disgusting, rotted, vile mouth, until he got off the bus. But let me tell you. If I'd had it my way, my elbow would have landed a hard blow in his eye socket. And then I'd have punched him in the throat. And then kicked him in his stomach. And stomped on his balls. And then spit on him. Because that is a perfectly normal reaction to that situation, right?

Sensible Shoes

Poompy has a real thing about sensible shoes. He says this himself.

We're doing this thing now where we spend six hours a week together, writing. He's working on his novels and I'm.... blogging. We're 29 minutes into our first two-hour writing session of the week. I spent the first 26 minutes coming up with a bio for a theatre company I'm a part of in Los Angeles. (I'll write about what that did to my self-confidence in another blog.) In minute 27 I cried aloud, "Damn! My fingernails are making it really hard to type! I feel like I'm crippled!"

For those of you who don't know, I have been biting my fingernails since birth. Literally. I've always been the girl with short, ragged, chewed up fingernails. I always hated that habit and longed to be the girl with long beautiful fingernails. I've tried acrylics and press-on nails and all that, but they're so damaging. About two months ago, I tried to stop biting my nails for about the 8,000th time in my life and actually succeeded succeeded. I managed to grow out these gorgeous, healthy, long, beautiful nails. My hands are so pretty all of a sudden that I can't stop staring at them. On the subway. At work. Walking down the street. I've always got one hand extended so I can casually admire my gorgeous fingernails. But goodness, long nails do get in the way. For example: I will now type tis whole sentence without delting the typo's that er created simply because my fingernails, my beautiful fingernails keep getting caught in the keyboard and preventing me from being able to tyep like a normal person. SEE WHAT I MEAN?

So, in minute 27 I complain to Poompy that I feel crippled by my lovely fingernails. And he looks at me and says, "I've been thinking a lot about how society cripples our women by its demands of beauty."

I'm sorry?

Papa came to Manhattan this weekend to visit. He was in Boston on business and hopped a bus Friday night to come say hi to his baby girl and her hubby. I had rehearsal all day on Saturday, so Poompy took Papa around town. The one thing Papa wanted to do, other than catch his little girl's performance Saturday night, was to pay his respects to Ground Zero. And so that's what they did. And it was powerful and moving and heart breaking. The photographs, the stories, the remnants - it's not something you can put out of your mind once you've put it in. Of course, anyone who lives in Manhattan or has visited since 9/11 and seen Ground Zero understands that. Papa was very moved and bought himself a book to memorialize the experience. On Sunday night, while Poompy was waiting for my performance to begin, he was browsing through Barnes and Noble when he saw a book about 9/11 that he thought Papa might be interested in. He began reading it and came to a section of photographs of the lobby of WTC 1, photographs of all these women floundering in the water that was filling the lobby. Someone had had a camera with him as he made his escape from the building and he took pictures in the stairwell and the lobby as he was leaving. Poompy describes the photographs to me and the circumstances in which they were taken. The women had taken off their high-heeled shoes in the stairwells so they could run down the stairs to escape. Water from the sprinkler systems and the fire departments hoses was streaming down the stairs, adding to the confusion and the already dangerous situation. When the women reached the lobby below, the floor was flooded with dark, dirty water and shattered glass. Debris from the tops of the buildings was hurtling out of the skies, hitting the windows of the buildings, shattering the glass, and the glass was pouring into the lobby and the streets outside. The men, in their sensible flat shoes, were able to run through the lobby and outside. The women, in their bare feet, could not.

Poompy was struck by the photographs. The men pushing through the crowd of frightened women to get to safety. The women, bloody bare feet, floundering to make it through the lobby. And then, once outside, forced to flee on sidewalks strewn with burning debris and broken glass and shards of metal. Bare-footed. As he describes this scene to me, my stomach is turning. My hand covers my mouth. My eyes fill with hot tears. I cannot believe it. I cannot help but imagine myself in that situation. I arrive for work in the morning in my little suit - I want to be professional, I want to be taken seriously, yet I want to feel feminine and sexy. That's not uncommon. Every magazine I read, every movie or television show I watch helps to teach me that as a woman I must be feminine and sexy, even if I am smart and strong. And part of what makes me feminine and sexy is attractive foot-wear. Spike heels.

I don't believe that I am any more easily swayed by advertising than the next person. I pride myself on being a down-to-earth, low-maintenance, guy's girl. But when I was running around the city for job interviews two months ago, I made sure to wear my professional-yet-slinky pin-stripe slacks (they make my ass look terrific) and stiletto heels. Because I know that I will make a better impression if I am smart and hot. Then, in the blink of an eye, unbelievable disaster, horror, nightmare. You think it'll never happen to you. And then it does. And I am running for my life. And I can't run in these fucking heels! I slip them off and with relief I tear down the stairwell, slipping on the wet cement stairs in my stocking feet, but better off than if I'd kept my heels on. I reach the lobby and I think I have a chance at safety. Until I step into the murky water and am blinded by the pain of a thousand shards of glass ripping through my flesh.

I'm sorry. I have a vivid imagination. I am horror-stricken. I know that people actually experienced this. I realize that they were the lucky ones. They were the ones that made it. I know. But I wonder how many women were so badly detained because of their fashionable foot-wear that they didn't make it out. Or suffered injuries far worse than they would have if they had been wearing sensible shoes.

Poompy has a point to make when he is telling me this horrible story. He looks at me, his face earnest, his beautiful green eyes watery, "I couldn't stop thinking about how we've crippled our women by our standards of beauty. Please, please wear sensible shoes. I couldn't help thinking about you and the ridiculous things you wear on your feet that you call shoes. I know they're fashionable or whatever, but I'd rather you be able to run if you need to, then be trapped in some horrible situation because you were wearing flip-flops or some other crap. And cut your nails. You are more beautiful when you aren't crippling yourself."

Truth be told, this is actually something that's been on my mind a lot lately. How women abuse themselves to meet the demands of beauty. The many, many “beauty treatments” that feel more like self-flagellation than self-indulgence. The way women seem to punish themselves for getting older. The way they seem to degrade their worth if they gain a little weight while pregnant or taking care of their family or working long hours to further their career. I think that women, and I include myself in this, put too much pressure on themselves to be able to do everything. This is something worth investigating. But not today. I only have 16 minutes left of my two hours of writing and this exploration into women’s sense of self deserves more than 16 minutes. Besides. I need to go cut off my fingernails.

I'm turning into my mother.

I'm turning into my parents. I'm doing all the things they did when I was growing up that bothered me, that embarrassed me, that annoyed me, that made me roll my eyes and think "Oh My God, my parents are such dorks."

When I was growing up, I was always perplexed and dismayed by my mother's, shall we say, unwillingness to acknowledge acquaintances in public. It's not that she's unfriendly or anything. She's like a cat. She loves to socialize, but only when she feels like it. When she's prepared for it. Whenever my mom is out in public and she happens to see someone she knows, if she thinks they haven't seen her, she hides. She buries her face in a magazine, or hides behind a wall or ducks into a store. It could be a triple-X video store, but she wouldn't even notice because she's in such a hurry to hide. Oh man, I hated that when I was a kid. I could not understand what she was so embarrassed about. As a naturally sociable and friendly child, it tortured me to have to hide whenever we bumped into a friend while out somewhere. If ever I had time before she jerked me into the prophylactic aisle at Rite-Aid, I'd smile and yell out the person's name, "Hi Jenny! Hi Mrs. Robertson! OMG, Jenny, did you hear about…." And my mom would stand, rigid, a tight smile squeezed onto her usually relaxed face, "Hello Janice. Hi Jenny. Well, listen, we're in a huge hurry, but take care and tell Larry we said Hello!" and then she'd drag me off to hide amongst the condoms and lubes.

Then I'd hear it. She doesn't have any make-up on. Her hair is a mess. She wasn't dressed to see people. What was I thinking?? And I'd wonder, why doesn't she just make sure to wear makeup and fix her hair, or whatever, before she runs her errands?

I can't answer that question. Because I'm worse than my mother.

At least, if my mother knows her acquaintance has noticed her, she'll say a stiff hello before running off to hide. I can't even manage that. Oh no. No, no.

It's a Tuesday. In January. A gorgeous Southern California winter day. I decide to run some errands. No matter that I'm sweaty and disheveled from yoga class. No matter that it's 12 p.m. and I haven't showered yet today. No matter that I'm not wearing make-up and I probably smell like a monkey's ass. It's too much trouble to go home and shower up and then get back in the car to run errands. It's not like I'll bump into anyone I know anyway.

I make a stop at my bank to deposit a pay check and pull out some cash. And lo and behold, standing in line when I get to the bank is Jason Goldman, the step-brother of my on-again-off-again-for-six-years high school flame. I haven't seen Jason or his brother in years and I'll be damned if Jason sees me now, looking like sweaty, grease-ball, nasty-stink crap. If I'd bumped into him after getting my hair done, make-up perfect, all fabulous from the salon, I'd be happy to say hello and have a chat. But since that is not the case, I want to get out of there immediately. And then our eyes meet. Shit. Immediately, impulsively, my hand flies up to my ear and I become engrossed in a fictional conversation on my fictional Bluetooth hands-free ear thing. I stare at the ground, hand to my ear, talking up a storm, and in this way, I'm actually able to ignore Jason, who by now is calling out, "Hey! Frosty! OH MY GOD! Frosty!" because I believe that I look like I'm engrossed in conversation. Now it's easy for me to make it to the safety of my car where I can lock the door and drive away and avoid having to acknowledge that I've been seen in the disheveled, sweaty state that I allowed myself to go out in public in. I tell myself that he will think it wasn't really me. He'll think he mistook a stranger for someone he hasn't seen in a while. I think I'm pretty clever. I'm actually quite proud of myself. A few days later I hear from a friend that there is a rumor going around about me. That someone from high school has seen me wandering around Hollywood talking to myself. I hear that there is speculation that I've gone crazy and am homeless in Hollywood. And this I can thank my mother for.

Sweaty Monkey

People keep asking me, "How's the humidity treating you?"

First of all, that question is just mean since I know you're just trying to rub in my face how humid it is in the city.

How's the humidity treating me? I woke up this morning on top of my bed-bug-free vinyl mattress, tangled in wet sheets, sweat rolling off of my sticky swollen body, my hair a tangled soggy mess and sticking to my face and neck. The air in my apartment is thick. We can't run our AC because we blew out four fuses yesterday trying to run it, so we've given up. The fan pathetically spits moist, fetid air across the apartment. The cats are panting. The hellhound, who hails from THE FIERY PITS OF HELL, might be dead. I won't let Poompy hug me because he's even stickier than I am and the thought of our two sticky masses of flesh touching is too much for my little head to bear. How's the humidity treating me? Just now a ribbon of sweat made it's way from my armpit, all the way down my rib cage, criss-crossed my belly and pooled in my bellybutton. I've been taking, at minimum, three showers a day and that isn't enough. And they are always cold showers because nothing else is bearable. I think I might shave my head again. I might shave the dog and the cats too. My feet are so swollen from the heat that none of my shoes fit, not that I want to wear them. It's difficult to get dressed because I'm never fully dry enough to prevent clothing from sticking to my body. How's the humidity? What do you want me to say? Oh! It's lovely! I really enjoy being able to open my mouth and take a sip of rancid water right out of the air! Thanks for asking!

THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IN LOS ANGELES.

My name is Frost and I am a coffeeholic.

You know you're a junkie when you roll out of bed four hours later than usual with a splitting headache, spend the next four hours bleary eyed, confused and unable to finish a coherent sentence. Suddenly you have a five minute break and you pour yourself that first exquisite cup of coffee and *POOF* you're totally normal again.

Um, hi! Why is caffeine legal?

Is there a word for "unreasonable fear of bugs"?

I am having nightmares about bed bugs. I can't fall asleep at night because I feel like bugs are crawling all over me and I'm constantly swatting at invisible pests, jumping out of bed, flipping on the lights and searching the sheets for bugs. There are no bugs. I know there are no bugs. There can't be any bugs because of the amount of poison we poured around the bed and into EVERY crack and crevice in the apartment. Plus, our mattress and box spring are in plastic covers so even if there were bugs, there'd be no where for them to go. But the thought of bugs is keeping me awake at night. And then when I do finally sleep, I dream about bugs. I've scratched my skin raw, scratching at bug bites I don't even have.

Now someone has just told me about scabies. They are mites that burrow under your skin and lay eggs. The eggs hatch and the little baby mites crawl around and make nests in your skin. I think I ought to just commit myself now.