The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl

Current Theme Song (aka what's playing on my ipod right now): You Drop Manna by Jocelyn Pook [The Merchant of Venice soundtrack].




I hate killing things. I really do.

When I was little I was UBER spider killer extraordinaire! As a toddling, rambunctious four-year-old my mom had to physically pluck me off the ground when we were in the garden because I would see an eight-legged foe and shout "SPIDER!" and strike before my mom had a chance to blink, let alone turn around to try and stop me. Ninja skills, I tell you.

But then, somewhere around seven or eight, I stopped. I learned that spiders could be scary. They had tiny fangs I couldn't see, some of them laced with poison. That was a new concept for me. A seven-year-old doesn't think that there could be a smaller world than theirs.

But in a new and gradual turn, I am starting to like spiders again. Slowly. It has happened because of two reasons.

Case Study #1. Howl's Moving Castle. As you know from my post to honor Diana Wynne Jones, I have loved Howl's Moving Castle for a long time, especially the main character Howl. One of his unique and admiring qualities is that he loves spiders. At first I thought it was just different, but then the idea started to grow on me…

Case Study #2 Beth Revis. This girl LOVES spiders. Don't ask me why. I'm still trying to understand it (and trust me, she has tried to explain it multiple times). And I figured if there was an actual living, live, SANE person who loved spiders, they couldn't be all the spawn of evil. It was time to get back in touch with my inner child (minus the mass-murdering part).

Don't get me wrong. I still kill spiders. Far more often than I save them. But I am getting better at the whole putting-them-under-a--jar-and-releasing-them-into-the-wild-to-live-better-lives part. It's a work in progress. It's hovering around 80/20 right now.

But I still hate killing them. It makes me sad, ESPECIALLY if they are on a soft surface like carpet and I can't give them an instant ticket into arachnid heaven. But ants are worse. Even if they are Carpenter Ants and are eating my house from the inside out so that it will collapse on me someday with me inside and they don't have an ounce of mercy in their chomping jaws. Because they have exoskeletons and they crunch so much more. I hate it. I wince and want to cry every time.


There is no real point to this story. But you can guess what I've been doing lately.