"New York, I love you but you're bringing me down..."

I'm not very lucky in the pest department lately.

Last Saturday I woke up with about four bug bites on my left hand. Throughout the week the number doubled, tripled and traveled from my left to right hands as well as my face and arms. I lost sleep because I was scared I was going to get bit. I sat at my cubicle at work scratching for hours and even went and saw the nurse today who gave me calamine lotion. I attended my meeting this morning with pink spots on my hands. People probably think I'm diseased but it is the only thing that works. I feel like I'm going batty. I could not figure out what is biting me. I'm the type of person bugs LOVE and for some reason they can't get enough of me. I was afraid I was getting (dare I say the "b" word) bed bugs as my sublet last year had them and they literally drive you insane. Then I woke up this morning and saw a nice little mosquito buzzing around by my closet and dear God please, that has to be it.

All day I was plotting my revenge against the little bugger and about ten minutes ago when he showed his ugly mug and landed on the wall, I stood up on my bed, took an empty envelope in my hand and eviscerated him. Mosquito guts aren't pretty but I got 'em.

This better be it because if it isn't, New York and I just might have to break up. I told my friend the other day that if I have bed bugs again, I'm moving back to California. I say this with only a tiny bit of seriousness, of course, because at this point if a case of bed bugs and a crashed hard drive during a furious job search (all within the first month of living here) aren't enough to scare me off, I'm fine. If I can carry a 50 lb AC unit up 5 flights of stairs by myself I can do anything, right?

My mom sent me a card in the mail with a great quote on it. Aside from the Joan of Arc quote I love, this might be my new favorite:

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." Anais Nin