It's around the five year anniversary of when my fella and I
met so tonight I planned a fancy dinner and just when I went to greet him at
the door my world twisted into an awful version of Charlotte's Web except the momma spider hatched her babies in my
front door jamb and I opened the door only for hundreds of baby spiders to be
flying around-- eight crawling on my arm, five in the wreath on my door, at
least fifty on the storm door, a dozen in my hair and on my shirt along with
cobwebs. So much for dressing cute and looking pretty and put together while I
greeted my fella at my door… sigh.
While eating, one baby spider even crawled down my fork.
Because they seemed to be everywhere, I was encouraged to
use bug spray. I did and the rest of the evening has been spent crying. I
didn't need to... those little guys weren't doing a thing to hurt anyone and for
heaven’s sake even my last name means “spider” in Polish.
I’m not nocturnal unless you count 4:30 am when the rest of
the world is sleeping. That’s the time I get up and get ready for work. I have
an extreme commute (6 hours daily) but that’s a whole other story. Point being,
I’m usually asleep at this hour but not tonight. I can’t sleep. My eyes are
puffy from crying and honestly I’m still a little itchy from the now ghost-spiders
crawling all over me.
I don’t hate spiders. In fact, I almost wore my pewter
spider earrings for dinner but spiders creep out my fella just a bit so I went
with bat earrings instead. I’m even a vegetarian!
Throughout my life whenever something needs to be done, I do
it. Tonight it was save my fella from the flying baby spiders. I just wish that
I could have taken a moment to think it through. I could have simply opened the
storm door, left it propped open and closed my front door. The spiders would
have blown away in the wind. Of course, they were probably indoor spiders and
would have been a feast for other predators but being killed by bug spray is no
way to die.
I’ve killed “bugs” before so why am I so bothered tonight?
Was it supposed to be a perfect evening with my fella? Probably. But, I also
think it may go deeper into the “not Goth enough” feeling that some of us
discuss from time to time.
At 40, I was pretty certain that I had grown out of this. I
mean, I am who I am; I like what I like. I’m not the 15-year-old dating the super-hot
gothy- goth boyfriend whom I’m quite sure met every possible Goth cliché he could
back in 1989. We met while seeing TheCure. For the next three years, we were in a relationship that pretty
much firmed my image of the perfect male. Not until my recent fella have I even
come close to my 15-year-old’s version of perfection. Back then I had a best
friend whom I equally saw as the perfect Goth girl. She was beautiful with long
naturally dark hair and she was insanely melancholy. Now, I can recognize that
she suffered from a bit of depression but at 15 being melancholy seemed posh. Around
her, I never felt “Goth enough”. I would always have to dye my hair and make a
bit of an effort. Even at funerals, I was pretty perky. I was the kind of Goth
girl who was usually laughing or skipping around pulling pranks. I liked to
have fun then and I still do. In fact, the droning on of some of my favorite
musicians even made me laugh back then… but I still loved them for it. We’re
all different which makes the subculture interesting. Some of us like taxidermy
bats while others (like me) prefer cartoony stuffed animals. But I always
assumed she was what my super-hot gothy- goth boyfriend wanted but instead got
stuck with the subpar version of the perfect Goth girl.
About a decade ago, I reconnected with my early 1990’s super-hot
gothy- goth boyfriend. He had grown up and married a girl just like me! His
wife and I hit it off. We wore the same body lotion, had similar occupations,
read the same books. In fact, he joked that us hitting it off and nearly
leaving him out of the conversation was not how the reunion was supposed to go.
I remember leaving and thinking that at 15, he must not have wanted my
melancholy-perfect-hair-friend but me for me.
Maybe I needed to write out all of this at 2:46 am to
remember that my fella likes me for me—the remorseful vegetarian,
spider-killer. I suppose killing all those spiders really hasn’t put me in
jeopardy of losing my “Goth card”. Perhaps being counter-culture sometimes
means handing one’s glass of wine to your fella so that you can rescue him from
flying baby spiders.
I dont think you lost goth cred at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks (commented still having puffy eyes)
ReplyDeleteYikes! Having baby spiders explode from their egg sack onto you sounds a tad horrific and my skin is crawling at the thought of it, so reaching for the bug spray seems an entirely understandable reaction to me! :)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking a lot about the whole Goth identity thing and I've noticed quite a few posts around Blogland lately that seem to be musing on what it means to be Goth too. For me, a love of the Gothic simply means being true to myself and not worrying about anyone thinking my interests are peculiar. I have never wanted to conform to a set of restrictive subculture rules or ideals. There seems to be a lot of angst (Oh, the irony! ;) ) about this subject and I think it's good for everyone to start talking about how "Goth" is evolving. :)
I am still finding those spiders! And I believe a few have bitten me in retaliation for their siblings!
ReplyDeleteI think I just had an emotional night. I don't worry typically. I don't go to the local goth club because they have a strict set of rules and a dress code. It seems so counter counterculture. While I understand the rationale behind it, my fella isn't goth. He would willingly dress the part but I don't want him to have to do that.
Well, that was quite an event!! I'm pretty much a recovered arachnophobe but that definitely would have startled me! I think I'd have probably run screaming, so don't feel too bad about what you had to do for your guy. I've had to kill many innocent daddy-long-legs at my mom's house, but I always warn them first, and stress it's nothing personal. I doubt they understand, but it helps to have said it, anyway.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, daddy-long-legs may deserve to die (just kidding...sorta). They are especially creepy. I think the guilt comes a bit from learning that my last name means Child of the Land of Spiders. I've tried to take them on as my spirit animals... I guess I'm a work in progress. ha!
ReplyDeleteAren't we all?? :-) Daddy-long-legs were the one type I was not afraid of growing up because I'd been told they "aren't really spiders and aren't poisonous". Wish I could remember who told me that line of bull...
DeleteHow awesome to have a name like that! What language does it come from, if you don't mind my asking? One of my power animals is actually Tarantula, and because of her I went from being a total arachnophobe who would pound on spiders mercilessly with a BOOT to holding a live tarantula and being happy about it! And I've got the pics in a blog post to prove it! (It's got a warning at the top so people won't freak out and die when they suddenly see the pic.)
Pająk is the word for spider in Polish. The slight change in spelling actually occurred when Poland was occupied, not a misunderstanding when my grandparents moved to America. When I traveled to the University of London to present at a Vampire conference a few years ago (this is a good place to note how much I adore my job), I was talking to a Polish inn keeper who basically gave me a history lesson about my identity. He explained that the last names that end in -ski were those who had money. Other Polish last names were usually associated with animals. I remember laughing that my people didn't even get a mammal but an arachnid; but really, that's pretty awesome. I'm from a working class family so his explanation made me even more proud.
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