Blood & Rhetoric

and it’s back to reality

Writing by Jana on Monday, 14 of July , 2008 at 5:39 pm

I knew it had to end.

And truth be told, it was getting a bit monotonous. The cottage is a great place; but there’s only so much sitting in one place I can do before I start pining for a sleek, sexy computer in front me bursting with information and multitudes of blindingly-shiny other things.

(Yes I do get the irony of that statement, thanks.)

Not that I’m complaining or anything. Not really. I read a few books; got some writing done; got a great tan and etc. Good times. But now I’m ready for a longer and more adventurous vacation somewhere else in the world, and perhaps in the cruel Canadian winter time when the entire population is contemplating the sweet release of suicide. Maybe Chile? Argentina? China? Hmm? We’ll see.

One thing I certainly won’t miss is the massive hordes of blood thirsty mosquitoes covering every exposed inch of flesh at dusk.

(And no, DEET is not the answer. That stuff is dangerous and I will not give birth to mutant children sometime in the future when children actually become a desire and not just a cute pet-type thing other people have.)

But the bugs got to me to thinking about all those novels I’ve read where the hapless hero and/or heroine are wandering through the woods. And y’know what? I really can’t recall (at present) a single mention of insect harassment. Nothing that sticks out anyways. I distinctly remember in this tedious piece of navel-gazing garbage I couldn’t finish the doomed lovers running to their fates (gasp!) through a thick forest and having crazy sex in a forest and sleeping naked… in a fucking forest! In the fucking summer!

And it never even consciously occurred to me that there was anything wrong with any of those scenarios until this last week brought back the harsh realities of the natural world. And I’m talking harsh as in a million dollar cottage on a private lake harsh with barely a neighbour within shouting distance. So imagine a forest with no shelter in the oppressive heat of summer when the mosquitoes and flies and other critters are out at full force?

Egads.

Just something to think about. Oh and the whole insect-borne diseases like malaria thing…

Category: life, writing

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