MeghanIsMe

I bought two CD-binders at the thrift store too. I've been keeping an eye out for those for a while to put movies and games in and make shelf room.

At home, I looked carefully through one and found one small, oval bug exoskeleton. Is it a bedbug? Don't care. It looks like there might be some chance of it possibly being a bedbug, and that's enough for me. Both binders when directly in the trash and down the garbage chute.

I am *not* dealing with that again if I can possibly help it.

And now I'm starting at every little itch, wondering if it's a bedbug biting me. That was a traumatizing experience.

I've chickened out on biking this winter. I'm too big to fit into my nice ski jacket right now. My long underwear and other thermal baselayers are in boxes or bags until the bed bugs are absolutely gone. Riding in my jacket and jeans is not going to cut it below 30F or so. Being a year-round bike commuter is a significant part of my identity and I feel disappointed in myself for taking transit. Next winter, I hope to be prepared again. For now, I appreciate the option of the CTA so I don't have to get in a car.

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Danae and I visited my parents again on New Years Eve. My brother J had finally moved most of his stuff out of the spare room upstairs between my brother T and their other housemate/border, so there was a clean bed for Danae and I to stay in. We played board games and had food with family and friends on the 31st, then came down for a tasty breakfast my dad cooked on the 1st and played more games.

Danae and I gave my parents the expansions for Alchemists as a holiday gift; I really liked some of what it added to the game and enjoyed playing it. I won that one by a single point, with a score of 31 to Danae's 30 and I feel like I have a better sense of end game strategy. My mother won a game of Power Grid which ended, as so many plays of that game do, a turn earlier than most of us expected. There were a number of games of Dominion as well, using the Nocturne expansion that J had given my parents as a gift to the household; I liked it a great deal more than the last new expansion I tried with adventurers and things.

I'm so glad to have spent time with people I don't see enough and care about. Evil Bob and Dwarf and G were in attendance; my parents have known them longer than I've been alive (Evil Bob's son is my parents' boarder/housemate). They're good people and I miss seeing them regularly.

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I rented a Rug Doctor from the local Jewel and cleaned the carpets in the bedroom and living room. Not only do they look a lot better, but hopefully any possible remaining bugs or eggs are gone. I unbolted the various pieces of our Ikea couch from each other and washed and dried all of the fabric covers. I Rug Doctored the upholstered furniture without removable covers and looked everywhere I could think of for bug evidence. If this doesn't do it, I'm going to go with a company that does heat treatment. They heat the entire space up to around 150F for long enough to kill bugs. That will suck a lot as we take heat-sensitive things out of the apartment in preparation and make sure those things don't have bugs, but we'll burn that bridge if we get to it.

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Danae is presenting at a conference in Hawaii this coming weekend. I've never been to Hawaii and am a little envious, though she really won't be seeing much of anything outside the conference hotel. While she's gone, I may end up visiting Posi or my parents for more games or something. There's also the cuddle party I'm nervously excited about going to. I'm worried about my consent-related problems, but it's about the safest way I can think of to engage in consensual physical contact with other people and I really hope it goes well and I don't feel trapped in a situation where I'm unable to say no. My pajamas have arrived for the event and I'm looking forward to wearing them there and, hopefully, meeting some nice people and being social.





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I spent Christmas Day with my partner, family, and family friends in Kenosha. I've been feeling a bit isolated in general, and that's made the fact that we (Danae and I) don't really do anything for Christmas feel more like a disconnection from something familiar. (She doesn't celebrate Christmas because she is Jewish, and me because who would I do something with or for?)

There was lots of tasty food, socializing, and board games. I wore one of my new tops with bell sleeves. In the evening, Danae and I watched the second two Die Hard movies with my dad before driving home. It was a good day and I am grateful to have such good people in my life.

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Last week, I turned up a Sony 300-disc carousel CD changer at one of the slightly grungier thrift stores in northern Chicago. Testing with a random CD, I found that the disc was bumping into something as it spun on the carousel, but it was too dark to see what. The door wasn't clear enough to let light from my phone through while operating. Thinking about it, I got a bright white screen up on my phone, then set it on the carousel with a loaded disc and started it up. By the phonelight, I could see the disc I'd loaded was bumping into another disc stuck where it shouldn't be. I thought I could see a few more in various places too.

I ended up pulling about 15 discs out of the changer. I think someone probably tried to move it when it was loaded and stuff fell all over. With all the discs out, it seemed to work just fine, so I bought it as a replacement for my 100-disc changer. The bigger one even has a keyboard port to plug in a standard PS/2 keyboard and enter disc titles. As I carried it to the front of the store, though, it was making a noise like stuff was still stuck in it, sliding around. I thought I'd taken everything out so I was worried that something had broken. But I figured I'd check it over again at home.

I drove to where I was going to pick Danae up and tried to text her, but I couldn't find my phone. You probably see where this is going. After getting really anxious about having possibly lost my phone out of my coat pocket while I was lying down on the thrift store floor in front of the CD changer, I remembered how I'd managed to see inside of it. I went to the back of the car and opened the machine's door and there was my phone.

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We thought we were out of the woods with the bed bugs after the last treatment, but a few days ago Danae found more bites. The news was difficult to take, but we will deal with it and have people out for another round. I really hate these things.

We have confirmed, via a photo sent to the exterminator, that a bug we found on the couch is a Bed Bug. There have been reports of them on mass transit here and there, and changing weather has made things better for them. (Climate change? What climate change?) They are pernicious little things, as I've seen second-hand via the travails of a couple friends who've dealt with them.

I kept hoping it wasn't what Danae and I thought it was. I couldn't find evidence of any more anywhere. But Danae has been getting nibbled (though I haven't) and we don't want to take any chances.

We have an exterminator coming today for the first treatment, but it takes two to be rid of them and that will be in a couple weeks. In the meantime, I'm going to not visit anybody nor have people over to the house to avoid spreading the nasty little things.
My work clothes are clean, and will get washed, dryed on high, and put in a sealed bag until use, which will keep bugs from hitchhiking to work with me. All our bedroom and living room furniture is now squished into the middle of the room, a foot from the wall, to make room for treatment. I took the cover plates for our wall outlets off for the pest people to get to. All of our unnecessary clothing is in sealed bags, to be individually and gradually run through the dryer or dry-cleaned as appropriate before being hung up or taken out again.

Fun times. At least the bedroom is as clean and uncluttered as it's been in a long time.
Maybe in a few weeks we'll try and start board gaming on Sundays again, and have some cake for people in a joint puppy-cabbit belated birthday recelebration!