alexei

one of the great things about being on antidepressants for 11 years has been the fact that many of my phobias have lessened. gone away, no, but lessened, yes. these are things like my fear of heights, bridges over water, insects of most sorts, and especially SPIDERS. so, better living through chemistry i say. and this is good, for now i have to deal with alexei.

despite drugs, spiders can freak me out a bit, especially if they are anywhere near my hair or my face. meg tells the tale of the time i was driving the car and a spider dropped down next to my head and hand by the drivers side. my instinct was to get away from it...so i steered the car over 2 lanes to do so. silly me...

i went to clean the cat pan the other day and almost walked right into alexei...a giant black and gold writing spider. alexei (and don't ask why i named it that) was sitting squat in the middle of a huge web that covered the entire side door by the garbage can. i don't generally see spiders during the day, so to be faced with alexei, literally almost eye to eye, was a shock. the next shock was the size of the web and the fact that i now had a dilemma...how to get out of the door.

alexei did not move much, even when i moved the door back and forth to chase him out. his web was going to hell in a hand basket due to my vigorous efforts, but the spider was not giving up the neighborhood. big problem. the shortest route to cat litter and the trash can was right through that door, and now i was being blocked by an extremely large, determined daytime spider.

the obvious thing to have done would to have just killed it. however, despite my initial horror, some part of me thought this was cool. alexei had already written in the web, a long north to south white zigzag. i had only had one writing spider before, and hadn't been much on enjoying it because of was so scared of it getting in my hair. i got to thinking about it, and decided to let the spider be. i would just have to make some adjustments to the situation.

the cat litter and oooper scoopers have been moved right up to the base of that door. i can open the door and drag what i need in and then push it back out. the spider is somewhat displaced with the door opening, but isn't the life of a spider spent taking up the web and putting it back? in this case, that is not true. alexei's web stays up all the time, and he has caught a couple of juicy somethings in there that he has proceeded to consume. do insects leave skeletons? he had one captured critter in there for a day and then it was gone. maybe alexei carried the carcass somewhere and disposed of the evidence. in any case, he must be full because his web has been a tangled mess since yesterday when i opened the door to do the cat pans. he has not seemed to terribly interested in rebuilding or writing. right now he has yet another treat (i think) tangled up in what is left of the web. i am thinking maybe this is a retarded spider. either that, or it is stoned on some sort of insect brownie...

austin is mortified of spiders and won't even sit on the front porch because he is afraid of the WEBS. i can understand why he would retreat from that porch at night...you know it is time to go in the house when about 50 of them descend, almost on cue, straight down from their daytime cubbyholes in the roof. almost like an arachnid army of repellers, they silently drop down to begin the evening events. i have yet to have one go too far and land in my hair (still phobic about that), but even i don't want to take the risk, so i too will retreat when i see them.

i took austin to the side door and showed him alexei and he was a bit taken aback. i told him that i didn't plan to kill the spider and had made temporary arrangements concerning the cat litter and do do patrol. i am sure that now i will be taking over that chore, or at least i will have to be the one to duck down and drag the stuff inside the house by going under alexei and his web...

again, i could kill it, but i am finding myself wandering to the door to just look at what he has done with the web itself. it is sort of arachnid art, and i have found myself checking it a couple of times a day, sort like spider email...

at some point i suspect i will actually take the new camera out of the box and post a picture of alexei. hopefully, he will get sober and do a good art piece for me to preserve on film...