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last night i was sitting at my desk trying to finish a story when i was startled by the sound of eight small legs landing on pianola wallpaper. a large wolf spider had decided to pop out of my wall and crawl into the room to see what it could see. i kindly captured the creature, took its picture, released it into the wild shed, sat back down, found my place, and was startled by the sound of eight small legs landing on pianola wallpaper. either it was one very fast spider or mr and mrs spider have been living in the space between the chipboard and the corrugated iron for some time. i repeated the removal process (a little further away this time) and sat down to think about dinosaurs.



of course i couldn't concentrate so i went and looked up pictures of wolf spiders on the internet. i found an article about the guy who absolved white-tails of their responsibility for flesh-eating sores. he said that he was tired of spiders being blamed for crimes for which they are perfectly innocent. in the middle ages, the effect of being bitten by a wolf spider was called tarantism. it involved a lot of sweating and fits, and the cure for it was to dance constantly for three or four days (i think i had that disease in my youth). and that's how the tarantula got its name, taran-tara.

now i'm on the porch and a large mantis just ran onto the doormat and started swaying along to ninetynine (the slinky record, though their new one is also very good). it has huge red eyes like the devil, and i understand why bugs are blamed for things.

i was a bug kid. always turning rocks over and following ants along their trails, or trying to keep those little curl-into-a-ball slaters as (incredibly boring) pets in an ice-cream container. i loved that my cat juggled live funnelwebs for sport. there was a little girl at the shelter last week who reminded me of me. she ran round finding all the redbacks and asking if she could pick them up. i wonder how long she'll live.

ivor cutler also believes in bugs.

the bugs know stuff we don't, see. they are moving to higher ground. our porch geckos are getting fat on hydrophobic insects.

when i rode to work this morning there was a river again. it made me smile, but in a wry, jaded sort of way. the miracles are becoming familiar. perhaps that's what the saying means about three rivers and you're stuck here. perhaps i was just feeling jaded cause i'm working nine to five.

either way, i am going to leave for a while soon, out of spite. curiosity might be dangerous sometimes, but the lack of it is deadly poison.