AAAAAAAACK!!!

OK, that's it. Between them, he and the mosqitoes made for a very uncomfortable night. If I were being completely honest with myself, I would probably add an "and me" to that list...but frankly, I'm out of patience with honesty at the moment. It doesn't seem to have done me a huge amount of good this summer. You're wondering what the connection between him and mosquitoes is, yes? (Yeah, me too.) Here it is, kind of.

Up to now (up to last night at about midnight,more accurately), I have apparently been the "good guy" in our house. But sometimes I am tired and cranky too, and I don't really want to talk about things with which I have Issues. You know? So when I shut down a discussion of P's abs (don't even ask) --> body type --> body building --> whatever it was, I wasn't really expecting the ensuing diatribe about how I "get on my intellectual high horse" about everything else and shouldn't he be allowed to talk about "his stuff" sometimes and I'm obsessed with my resume and basically I'm just a sneering elitist bitch. Nevertheless, that was what I got. And yes, I got angry, and no, I'm not about to cravenly admit to wrongdoing when I don't think I've done any. Like anyone and everyone else, I get to talk about the things that are exciting and important to me. Many of which are, yes, related to things I have done. Isn't that true of everyone? (Am I losing my mind?) I challenged him to have a discussion of physical cababilities without referring to appearance, and he...lost it. Apparently there's no way to do that, since the two are inseparable (oh REALLY?!?), and anyway, I can't have an intellectual conversation without "showing off" and/or "lording it over" him, so why should he respect my issues?

All of which, of course, really hits me where it hurts. I went to my room and closed the door. I really didn't have anything else to say at that point. I tossed and turned a bit, wondering exactly how self-disclosing I have to be for him to understand when I don't want to talk about something or other? I just don't understand why he willfully turns all intellectual issues into class issues. Does he just like being the underdog? Does he not understand that he has a pretty noticeable "intellectual high horse" as well (not to mention an apparently inexhaustible supply of money)? I know my feelings about the purposes of going to an elite (dare I say it...) liberal arts college are somehow different than many people's (remind me to write a post about that at some point), but I don't think that makes me better than someone who couldn't afford to go or has skills other than intellectual or...whatever. Honestly. (After all, I can't really afford to go either, which is why I think it's so amazing.) But I'm not going to apologize for thinking that intellectual matters (however you wanna define that) are engaging and important.

Anyway...that sucked. I'm not a big fan of conflict. Then the mosquitoes: I woke up at 5:17 am because my left middle finger was being cooked over an open flame. Well, that was kind of how it felt, at least. It was all swollen and shiny and bright red and it itched...soooooooo...intensely. And then I noticed that my right shoulder, back and front, both feet, my right index finger, and my legs were also being cooked over a (possibly somewhat smaller) open flame. Maybe a Bic lighter at close range instead of an acetylene torch. I scratched for a while, tried to get comfortable, then got up to inspect the damage. Bleary-eyed in the bathroom I noticed some mosquito bites and more hives (hives? I guess.) and wondered what the hell to do. Go back to bed is usually the correct answer in such situations, but I couldn't sleep. [Although I did manage to find and squash two of my tormentors. Satisfying little splotches of mosquito guts and blood on my white walls...mmmm.] In fact, I was finally starting to drift off again just as he got out of the shower around 7.00. At which point, I stuck my head out the door and announced that I was going to take Benadryl and get more sleep. Took the Benadryl, hopped back into bed for an hour, called my supervisor at 8, waited another three quarters of an hour for the itching to die down, and was at my desk at Census at 9.30.

And I've had a productive morning. The question now becomes, how am I going to deal with the roommate hell? I HATE this kind of shit...I'm just no good at it. Like him (the other him), I'll probably end up feeling compelled to beat myself up about it so as to arrange some peace. There's really nothing at all appealing about three weeks of open warfare. Sigh.