All Spiders and Mermaids Welcome

A very tiny new spider set up its web between my mermaid and my toothbrush a few days ago.

I let it be and it had moved on a few days later. I hope it grows big and strong and gets rid of all the gnats and fruit flies I occasionally get around here.

Yes, I have a mermaid. What I really need is a scullery maid. I guess that sounds sexist. I wouldn't mind a scullery man or lad, either. But I think I'd still prefer a scullery maid. It took me eight minutes just now to clean my breakfast and lunch dishes. I'm tired of doing dishes all the time. Then there's the heat, of course, that makes me even more tired. I received a letter yesterday reminding me my lease is up on October 31 and I need to deliver a written notice thirty days in advance if I don't renew. And my rent goes up to $1,075 (from $975) if I do renew. This miserably hot little studio apartment with the management that puts obnoxious tourists across from me during the summer. It occurred to me, what am I doing in San Diego? I could get a miserably hot little apartment like this in Yuma, Arizona for half the price, and no-one in his right mind vacations in Yuma. I might be getting a two bedroom place in San Diego with my friend and in any case I'd want to finish at least this semester of school. But I started dreaming about going some place cheap, some place I could work on my comic without distractions like heat and people for three, maybe even five years. I was looking at places in Europe and the UK. I saw there are studio apartments in Manchester for the equivalent of 100 dollars. I told my German friend this morning who then asked if Manchester isn't rather like Detroit. I said maybe--but with a vastly lower crime rate, no guns, and better healthcare. The same German friend told me about studio apartments in Hamburg for the equivalent of 500 dollars. More and more, I think . . . I'm in the wrong city. With climate change, the heat's only going to get worse and with Republicans the rent is only going to get higher.

Anyway, I guess I have a couple months to think about it and investigate. If anyone has advice or suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

While eating lunch to-day, I read the new Sirenia Digest which contained the first two parts of Caitlin R. Kiernan's upcoming story Agents of Dreamland. The first part is a bit pulpy as Caitlin indulges in fun, spy movie character types. The second part is much better, indulging in the kind of scattered, obsessive, connect-the-dots thinking that makes The Drowning Girl so good.