Amy C Collins

from the archives: Tick Envy

Today I've delved into the archives and fished out a story I wrote in April three years ago. Most of you have read this, or perhaps not. Either way, I trust it's still as funny today as it was then. I'm not even going to read over it until it's re-published, to ensure I don't tinker with the original work (it is so tempting to change the past, to make it reflect who we are in the present, though alas, we can not).  

Having spent the week in the garden, I'm surprised to have found only one tiny tick attached to my forearm, which I removed without hesitation, without panic. With a warm winter behind us - the average temperature 50.4 degrees, including nights - everything is blooming three weeks early, at least. The insects are early, too. On Wednesday a swarm of 5,000 honey bees moved into the garage wall by way of a pipe that used to connect to the hot water heater that has since been replaced with a tankless. Ricky Coates, bee expert extraordinaire, removed them, took them somewhere they could have their own private hive. He said the bees are early this year, and he's expecting a busy bee removal season (no pun intended). 

So in anticipation of a buggy, though they are predicting a mild summer, I share with you, again, Tick Envy. 

p.s. I just changed one little thing at the end of the story just now, right quick, because I remembered I got one teeny tiny fact wrong the first time around. You won't even notice, it was so small.

 

Tick Envy

 

            I was on my way out the door to pick up my sister, thought I’d pee and primp first. Pulling my pants up I noticed something that wasn’t there before. A tick, small and grey, had buried its head in my crotch, along the crook where the leg bone is connected to the hipbone.

            I’d been warned the previous afternoon by my neighbor, Carol, that the ticks were back, that she had found two already. I was thinking of the dogs then, examining a red place on the Dachshund’s chest.

            “Oh, that’s just where the collar rubbed her skin. Or else it’s a hickey from the Papillion.”

 

I had forgotten the strides in personal growth and mental strength achieved last summer. I had come full circle with the tick issue. At first I was terrified, disgusted and helpless by the thought of a tick, much less a live one on my person. My eyes caught glimpses of them in the mirror, saw phantom ticks, moles playing tricks, moving across my body. I learned from my mother that ticks aren’t so bad, just little spiders that happen to suck blood. She works in the ER, and assured me our area has a very low occurrence of Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Fever.

“All you do,” she said, “is swab the little bastards with rubbing alcohol until they get sleepy with suffocation, then twist them off.” By late August I was picking them off like a girl in a field of Dandelions. Grab, twist, drown in alcohol, move on. I conducted thorough tick checks every time I came in the house. Was brave about it. Guess I lost that learned bravado. This first tick of the season really freaked me out.

 

            “Mom,” I called down the stairs. “How do you get a tick out? I mean he’s already got his head in there!” I’d forgotten the procedure.

            “Just swab it with alcohol and it’ll let go,” she called up.

            I stumbled across the bathroom to the closet, fumbled for the alcohol, a cotton ball, and dabbed the fucker, isopropyl dripping down my inside thigh.

            “Damn it.” I said out loud. “Let go fucker.”

            “MOM! He’s not letting go! How much alcohol am I supposed to use?”

            No answer.

            “MOM!”

            “I don’t know. Enough until it lets go.”

            “How the hell did he get here? This is so bizarre!”

            “They like warm, hairy places,” she called up.

            “But it’s not like I was running around with my pants off. Ahhh, he won’t fucking let go!”

            I dabbed and dabbed and pinched with my fingertips and pulled, but he wouldn’t let go. I was terrified of pinching off the body, leaving the head inside, sucking away to no end.

            “Mom?”

            “When I get the energy I’ll come up there and pull it out,” she called up. I held back tears. “This has to be menstural,” I thought. I soaked another cotton ball, wrung it out over the tick like a mini waterfall, or Armageddon flood.

 

A text message from my sister came through:

 

            “wat r u doing”

            “waiting for mom to get the energy to remove this tick from my crotch”

            “wow”

 

            Mom came upstairs, passed the open bathroom door without speaking or glancing my way. She’d been home from a ten-hour shift maybe five minutes when I first discovered the beast. I tried a different approach. I cooed to the tick. “Please let go little guy. My blood isn’t even that tasty. Wouldn’t you like a nice swim in this intoxicant I poured for you?”

When she came back I had my leg stretched over the counter, sprawled, head down. I was whispering to my groin.

“Show me,” she said.

“He’s right in my crotch.”

“I can see that.”

She had a long pair of stainless steel tweezers in her hand, leaned in, flipped it around a bit.

            “It’s not moving,” she said.

            “Not much. But I didn’t want to twist the head off.”

            She clamped the tweezers down, pulled it out, studied it.

            “Did you get the head? Are all eight legs there?”

            “I can’t see.”

            I bent over her shoulder.

            “I think I can see all the parts. I guess if I get a fever, then I can worry.”

            “I’ll tell you when to worry,” she said.

 

            I pulled my pants on, first swabbing thoroughly the place where he’d settled in, just to be sure, just incase a foot was left behind. Two deep breaths and I headed down the stairs to get my sister. “I’ll go,” mom said. “You start dinner.” We were in the kitchen now. She stood in the door, keys in hand. “My day started with a young black man with a tick in his arm, wanted me to pull it out.” I stood still, recovering, empathizing. Without irony she finished, “his tick was much bigger than yours.”

 

and the weeds suffered gladly

On Saturday, I went to the garden. The weeds have never been this bad, this prolific, this early. They're grouped and layered, thick as thieves, between the beds and around the shrubs and flowers (blooming already, too soon), leeching nutrients from the soil, stealing food from wanted plants and generally trashing up the place. The task seemed daunting, totally overwhelming, but with a fierce desire to keep my home looking beautiful, and a bit of inspiration from my friend Carmen who has been crazily working her plots, I pulled on my boots & gloves and went to work. To my surprise, it was exactly what we both needed.

We're heading into our fifth summer together, the garden and I. We've been through thick and thin - snow, deep freezes, successive days of near 100 degree heat, successive days of winter rain, successive days of drought, irrigation issues, japanese beetles and tomato horn worms, fungus, deer, squirrels and chipmunks, design and redesign, praise, ridicule, and a lawsuit. We'll take on anything!

The beginning of garden season means no more leisurely Sunday mornings sipping coffee in pajamas and reading a book. It means one quick cup of coffee and heading out the door before the day gets too hot. It means insect control and pollen. It means sore back and legs. It means commitment to a hobby that started so innocently, so temporarily, because I just wanted to see if I could, grow, I mean. I'm proud to have learned I can - and not just weeds, though nine garbage bags lining the street might suggest otherwise. It's an interest that promises more to come.

There are countless blooms open already, irises, flowering almond, red sage, a few ground covers I don't know the name of in purple and yellow, and lots of bright green new growth. I took the weekend to clear out leaves from last Fall - I like to leave them over the winter (no pun intended) to act as a warming mulch for tender perennials - and pull stubborn weeds and roots from the pathways. I expect to spend the week out there. Needless to say, my schedule has taken a severe shift in priority. And as I settled into yard work the other day, I realized the shift was a much needed break from my obsessive dedication to Mable and our new venture, such as promotion and new cartoons and products, not to mention other current pursuits - writing another great piece of fiction to send to the magazine that sent me a hand-noted rejection letter (which I wrote about last week) and those graphic design projects knocking around my head and my freelance career as both a copywriter and designer. Suddenly my gardening interest was not a bane but a relief. I love gardening! I love being outdoors, even pulling weeds has a zen about it, a refreshing opportunity to let the mind sail, a justified excuse to sit on the ground and play in the dirt. I love the anticipation of a colorful, edible landscape. I love seeing that I CAN balance all my interests.

Having so many interests often feels, well, crazy. How to pursue them each in a successful manner is a challenge - and of course, part of the draw. It's a wee bit unconvential as well, and certainly against the educational grain, which teaches us we can only be successful if we specialize. I can't choose Just ONE Thing. I can't ignore all the other possiblities. And as it turns out, I am part of a growing group of folks that lead similar lives.

I found Puttylike* and Emilie Wapnick last week through a guest post she wrote for Jonathan Fields that Daniellexo sent out in her Etsy newsletter for sellers.

Emilie's a multipotentialite - or multipod - just like me. She is and has been a blogger and writer (two books out, one an awesome free download called "The 'Undeclared for Life' Manifesto"), musician, website designer, filmmaker and law student. What Emilie understands is that we with many interests are not satisfied - not happy - with choosing just one path. Our paths are many and intersecting and inter-twined. One feeds off another. I love this post about how being kinda good in many fields is ideal for entrepreneurs & start-ups. If you feel you are one of our tribe, please check out what she has to say. It's empowering and inspiring and helps you get back to work, which is what multipods are all about; working to make our varied interests fruitful. 

Back in the garden, I've got a few more winter crops

colorful and invasive harlequin bugs (a type of stink bug) mating on some vegetable I can no longer identify

to pull up - bolting is rampant and the bugs are sneaking in. I learned this weekend that harlequin bugs, beautiful as they may be, are intrusive and probematic, and really easy to pick off by hand and drop into soapy water. They don't dig into your skin and make you feel creepy like the japanese beetles do. Also, I knew this already but in case you didn't, the bolted but not yet blooming collard tops can be sauteed in garlic and olive oil and enjoyed like broccoli rabe, as last night's dinner illustrates. Yes, cooking is also an interest.

 

 

sauteed collard tops, roasted carrots, sliced rare venison roast, goat cheese, over whole wheat spaghetti

Being outside, away from the computer and drawing table and homemade table top photo studio allowed my mind to wander freely into other corners, deadlines aside. I had some great creative thoughts, and though my body aches from using muscles in unpracticed positions, I feel rejuvenated. The weekend left me feeling ebullient and ethereal, unburdened, unworried, and beautifully abstract. Sort of like this:

 

 

 

The weeds may have suffered this busy fool gladly, and good riddance to them. But I embrace their existence for the opportunity they've given me to think while digging, to knock around a few new exciting ideas, to soak up the joy of doing something I enjoy, of pursuing and maintaining a curiosity, and for the chance to celebrate who I am and what I can accomplish.

 

from collards to Costa Rica: an essay on writing fiction and searching for the perfect beach

The collards needed immediate attention. They were bolting from every leaf, wee tender florets sprouting like tiny broccoli heads, and I did not want to lose my patch like last year. Thus my Sunday afternoon reeked of urban homesteading and pungent brassica. 

I spread the collard stalks out on the dinning room table, maybe 8 stalks in all (a serious a mess of greens), turned on some music and settled in to prep my produce for freezing, the dogs silently begging at my feet. I'd decided on Gorillaz - Demon Days album, with the band's nod to Hip Hop and upbeat melodies, the music reminds me of tropical surroundings. As I cut the leaves one by one from the stalk with a kitchen knife, then stacked a few leaves at a time, slicing out the thick stem, stacking again and making clean, wide ribbons, my mind began to wander. The thick, broad collard leaves became tobacco leaves I was preparing for Cuban cigars, a thin layer of sweat glistening on my skin, a fan overhead, a palm tree outside the open window where Ibrahim Ferrer and friends played on the stoop. The daydream slipped into personal history and I fell into a memory of Costa Rica and a secluded beach I'd spent two days looking for.

A few years ago, after returning from Argentina without aim and having been offered room and board to stay on in Alabama, to write, I'd zipped down the following winter to visit a friend in San Jose. We'd planned a trip to the coast but he was unable to get away from work, so I went alone. I picked a beach on the Pacific, found a hotel I could afford, bought a plane ticket and went. My friend had been to this town before and suggested a private nude beach that could be found only by a winding path through the woods, or over a cluster of black rocks exposed only at low tide.

With vague directions as to where the road to la playa privido off the main road sat, I set out my first morning to find it. Asking a few locals turned up nothing more substantial than what I knew already (not much) and riding the bus until a stopping point 'felt right' took me to the end of the downhill, switchback road and the main beach, wide and busy with tourists and restaurants and local vendors selling fresh fruit, coconut water, beach clothing and cooked food. I embarrassed myself at an outdoor cafe. When offered a table I wanted to say, "just one," as we do in the states, but uttered "estoy solo", which means "I'm single". The waiter responded sweetly, made a joke and we laughed together. 

On my second day in town I took again the bus, jumping off by a cafe with incredibly delicious, fresh fruit smoothies, across from a gravel road that looked like what had been described to me, though no one in the cafe could confirm my hunch. I hiked until the gravel path became desolate, no hotels, no homes and the brush grew up on both sides, then turned around, hiked back uphill and took the main thoroughfare toward the tourist beach again, mistaking the distance I'd traveled by bus for being much shorter than it was. The two lane road was narrow with a narrower shoulder. Buses passed each other on sharp curves, leaning outward with gravity, giving a precarious air to those on-board and a diminutive importance to small me balancing the line of dusty bank between road and mountainside. So when a couple in a jeep offered me a ride, I took it. I mentioned the private beach to them but they didn't know what I was talking about. Nor did they speak much english. We passed the popular beach with all the restaurants and drove through a wooded area, beyond rough hewn gates and into the parking lot of a national park I'd read about in my Costa Rica guide book. I spent the afternoon wandering the park, walking alongside monkeys swinging in low trees, stepping over a fallen log covered by Army ants, the kind that take over homes and eat everything in sight, furniture especially, and dipping into beach coves that flashed between the woods, the clear turquoise ocean like a mirage. 

On the third day I tried again the gravelly road, certain my secret beach was somewhere at the end. Passing the overgrown, abandoned seeming stretch of curving road, I discovered a building site for a string of luxury condominiums, the structure nearly finished. I asked the guard standing nearby about the beach. He didn't know but asked two of the construction workers who did. Finally, someone knew what I was looking for.

One of them led me a few feet away and pointed to a hole in the trees, trash scattered around and the end unseen because what looked like a trail twisted and looped into shady darkness. But my danger meter was still off balance from being hit in the face and robbed in Argentina over a year before and I got too scared to pursue it. Instead I turned around, glancing over my shoulder, the adrenalin pumping too strongly as I marched back up the road. Halfway up were two white men traveling down, obvious tourists, and as it turned out, one American, one Australian. They were headed for the private nude beach, though no longer nude, they said. A hotel had been built above it and now used it as it's own private beach, but we could still get there and in fact they went often and yes I could follow them. They'd been going to that beach for over ten years. We took the wooded path the construction worker had pointed out, hiking a steep decline, navigating brush and tree roots, until the most glorious piece of private cove I had ever imagined finally revealed itself to me.

The temperature was perfect, the waves wonderfully picturesque, and a local man selling cold beer and his wife's homemade ceviche, both cheap and delicious, kept me in euphoric supply. On my iPod I listened to Gorillaz, songs like "All Alone" and "Demon Days" speaking to me about sunshine in my heart, new starts and changing paths. When the tide settled and the beach broadened I climbed the rocky enclave separating the private stretch from a longer stretch that eventually became the primary tourist beach where buses stopped before returning back to town. 

I've traveled alone many times in many foreign countries. The emotions are always the same - intense excitement for the new, the never before seen, with a promise of inspiration, and the awkward loneliness inherent in taking solitary public meals, of seeking shelter and navigating maps, uncompromised, unaided. I feel trapped between exaltation and exhaustion, with just me and my head, the chance I'll learn something about myself is rich and likely. It's an opportunity to discover how strong I am, how resourceful, how independent, how willing to confront myself when there are no others to distract.

It's is a little like writing fiction.

The desire to go, to start, is insistent, like an itchy mosquito bite. The process is both exhilarting - new sentences, syntax and word play, plot twists and the subtext of meaning, the possibilty of learning something more about me - and terrifying, for much of the same reasons. Will I make it home? Will I be robbed or cheated? Will this story shake out and come together, a complete, seemless, intoxicating piece? Will it be effective? Who will I be when it's all over?

On Saturday I recieved a rejection letter from a well established magazine, one of my favorite magazines, and the one where I'd most like to published. At the bottom of the typed, standard format rejection was a hand written note. 

Amy, please try us again. Thanks!

This means something. It means keep writing. It means write another story immediately, because my skills are bolting and if I don't harvest them I'll lose them. It means I have to cultivate my literary garden, get out the hoe, put aside the fear and learn something about myself. A simple note from a stranger feels like encouragement, like a ride, like directions toward my destination and that perfect beach.

And it poses a question.

How tough am I?

 

 

 

how to write a blog post (or meet other creative deadlines) when you're blocked

Every once in a while Monday morning rolls around and I have nothing to say. Seriously. Nothing. And while I'm tempted to vilify the deadline, or blame the faint headache still around from yesterday, or doubt the purpose and value of keeping this blog in the first place, it suddenly occurs to me that I am simply experiencing a lull in creativity. Totally normal! One can not be inspired all the time.

What to do when the inspiration is nil, when all previously scrawled ideas sound as interesting as cleaning out the cat box, and the time ticking away invites heavy guilt for a morning wasted?

Here are a few ideas I've tried that usually work:

1. Do something creative but totally different than what you're supposed to be doing. Like, draw. Pick up a pen and sketch out what you'd rather be doing. For me, there's a good chance I'll doodle a stack of books (to represent reading) or a figure on its side, covers pulled to the neck (sleeping, duh), or my default doodles: boxes, one window houses with sloping roof and single tree, bicycles, cartoon faces with hats. If I'm lucky I'll find my way into a new idea for a cartoon. (That's what we call a game changer.)

2. Go for a walk. This can involve dogs, who love to go on walks, but not necessarily. If I'm feeling particularly grumpy and thin on patience, a languid stroll when my dogs have to sniff every freaking inch of grass between the front door and the street can feel insurmountably unproductive, stilted, and further the frustration of not working. In these cases, a brief hike to the creek can do wonders, the delightful trickle of water gives off alpha waves, inspiration, and calm.

3. It's almost one o'clock and I got nuthin' for my Noon deadline. Go to lunch! Leave the house, the environment, talk to someone, ask about their day. And listen. Sometimes I find a thread of an idea, or a positive boost by simply remembering I do not inhabit this planet alone. 

4. Eat some chocolate. Scientific studies prove a little bite of chocolate helps stimulate brain activity and therefore ideas, motivation and a desire to get back to work. I don't have hard facts on this one. You're just going to have to trust me. Do you really need to justify that delicious cacao anyway? Life is short. Make it sweet.

5. Take a 1 minute dance break. Pick a song that always makes you feel like shaking your ass, no matter when and where you are when you hear it. Play it as loud as you can get away with (or use earphones) and move every limb. Toss your hips, wiggle your toes. Just get that energy flowing. 

6. And finally, once I've tried one or all of the above, I sit down in front of the blank page and just start typing. Anything will do, though I often revert to an old memory, something from childhood. Or if it's the visual deadline I'm after, I move the pencil around. Inspiration finds the busy hand. 

 

Something usually shakes out in the end. Often it's an article I get more positive feedback on than usual, even though I think it's awful (or felt that it was awful while writing it). Of course not every piece can be a winner. Some posts just get posted, god bless us.

If none of the above works, or sounds appealing to you in anyway, I recommend at the very least, avoid the following.

 

1. Going back to bed. Unless you are truly ill, this will only make you feel worse about yourself, for which you will later have to spend quality creativity time forgiving yourself so you can move on with your life.

2. No whining. It creates an environment of negative reinforcement. And it annoys those around you, especially readers if the whine finds it's way into your blog post. And then you have to spend valuable creativity time berating yourself for being a drag, and then more valuable creativity time forgiving yourself so you can move on and create more and live a happy, productive life.

3. No television. It rots your brain.

4. No Fox News. Ever. It rots your brain and cripples you with the inability to think for yourself or develop original content; a mental sterilization.

5. No reading really old, really bad work from your past, because this can backfire and instead of making you feel that "you've come a long way, baby," you might doubt you've progressed at all, or think that your present state is one to be judged harshly in the future. This can lead back to doubting your purpose altogether, all over again.

6. No drinking. Drinking before 5 p.m. feels too much like vacation and can result in a complete dismissal of deadlines and any remote sense of responsibility. 

 

Well, I hope that's helpful. I know I feel better. And free to go to lunch, one more column under the belt.