I wrote about where to dispose of your old electronics in NYC.

You know it’s amazing how much time & toil can go into something like this. The amount of fact-finding research that goes into something so seemingly straightforward is never visible to the eye after it’s published. I’d venture it’s easier to write a long, expansive feature than it is to write a no-full-sentences chart.

The info is quite useful. I just saw an air conditioner on the street outside my apartment yesterday. I’ve become more of pious recycler since researching this. I wonder if I was subliminally influenced to use the word “pious” because I’ve been up since 6am and am on my second round of Morning Edition and they are going nuts over the Pope’s visit. And the airline merger. And taxes.

Dump Your Junk [NY Mag]

This morning, I awoke to find the score had finally been settled: Me: 1, Recent Wee Mousie: 0. As in dead. I caught the dreadful little chump. He’s been tormenting me and avoiding my carefully rigged traps (peanut butter AND cheese!) for weeks. I got him. But something a little disturbing just happened.

Lying in the dark, I swear I just heard something determined and rampaging gallop across my apartment.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a jackrabbit. This was like a crazed herd of buffalo. Or at the very least an angry rodent out for blood. Mine. My blood. Why must I bunk with uninvited guests? Why must the dark be an actually scary place? How is it possible for a mouse to stampede? Was it a horse? Do you think it was a pony? And in the dark, why would it run so fast and loud? I thought they scampered on little mousie feet and made nary a sound! O Wee Mousie, just get the hell out of here already I’m so sick of your crap.

So, for the past month I’ve been afflicted with an extreme case of delusional parasitosis, brought on by the research for this article on vermin I wrote for New York. There are a lot of people in New York City, and there’s some terrifying statistic that I not dare look up, because I’m in recovery, that insists there are like five rats for every human here, but I would like to argue that for every rat, there are at least ten people with a totally nightmare-inducing tale to tell you about bedbugs.

I defy you to listen to a horror story about bedbugs, or even just a fact about them (they can go for over a year without a “blood meal”) without developing hives. I have grown so used to my delusional bedbug bites that I just scratch them idly now, like I have a permanent case of chickenpox. Or monkeypox. Or another really scary pox. The article covers roaches, bedbugs and rodents, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer you some insight into how to get rid of some other common NYC pests that didn’t make it into the package but are probably haunting your adode all the same.

Carpenter Ants
They live in damp wood–their nests have a smooth, sanded-over appearance. Small piles of sawdust are often found near where they’re nesting. They don’t eat wood like termites do; but they’ll eat most any food you leave out.

Get rid of them: Ants forage, then head back to the nest. Apply small dots of MaxForce Ant Bait Gel in crevices and a thin layer of boric acid where you’ve seen activity. Seal off all cracks with silicone caulk, as you would for roaches. Fix leaks and drips, especially around tubs, sinks and windows.

House Centipedes
Hideous and traumatizing, but they feed on cockroaches, bedbugs and other pests. They tend to come inside when it’s damp. Aaaaargh, every time I see one, I lose one of my nine lives.

Get rid of them: Diatomaceous earth or boric acid in cracks and crevices.

Termites
They don’t just eat wood–they’ll eat anything with cellulose in it, like books, carpets and fabrics. They love moisture and need it to survive.

Get rid of them: Call the landlord and bring in the professionals. Detection and eradication of termites often requires special knowledge of building structures .

Clothes Moths
Feed on wool, silk, fur, feathers, leather–they tend to steer clear of synthetics. They stay in dark areas like closets, and clothing and linen storage boxes.

Get rid of them: Vacuum closets and drawers regularly. Wash or dry clean clothes and blankets before storing them–moths are attracted to perspiration. Store clothes in tightly closed bags and boxes with moth balls or crystals. Cedar chests and chips tends to be less effective because the moth-killing cedar oil evaporates too quickly.

PS: I urge you to pick up a hard copy of this issue of New York — the layout of this story can only be described as the ne plus ultra of jolie laide. Gross, but gorgeous.

As you may have guessed, I happen to…HAVE SOME STRONG OPINIONS ABOUT NAIL SALON CLEANLINESS. Namely, they better be hospital sterile, glistening, autoclave clean. We’re talking about feet, lots of people’s feet, their toenails, their foot fungi, some water, some sloughing. I’m getting queasy. It is possible to get a beautiful pedicure in a space that makes you want to notify the board of health.

As I did. Today. With a friend who’d never had a pedicure, so I’d wooed her with promises of feeling reborn, not recognizing her baby soft feet, the spa environment, the pampering, the massage chair, the STERILITY.

Nail salons need to be free of too much crap. Like figurines and knick-knacks and other dust-collecting brick-a-brack rick-rack crap. Because the pedicure experience is a luxurious one. Or should be. I like my lights low, my space uncluttered, my Sounds of the Rainforest didgeridoo/rainstick/tweety-birds music on low. Not fluorescent light, weird framed photographs of hands with painted nails clasping bunches of hundred dollar bills and Ellen blasting on five TVs.

This one defies description. Yes, that says “COLD, HOT & NAILS.”

I get very creeped out by nail art. But I could get over it. If you would make the water in the tub hot enough. If I wasn’t constantly seeing little casual cups of blue water with random tools sticking out of them instead of the Barbi-something situation they have at the hairdresser for the combs that always makes me feel a little more confident I won’t get lice.

My main beef with today’s establishement is they didn’t put flip-flops or some other foot-protecting item on my feet after the pedicure. You know how they always put flip-flops on you, really thin, one-use flip-flops and you pad over to the driers all wonky but at least you’re not walking barefoot where every Lamisil case in town has trod before you? No flip-flops. When I asked for them, the lady pulled them out and told me it was too late and too hard to put the flip-flops on now that she’d polished my toes, I should have told her sooner. I don’t mean to be a prima donna (Or maybe I do? I need to think about this.) but the flip-flops are kind of a big deal.

They are especially a big deal when the floor is soaking wet and everyone keeps slipping and when I point out that it’s gross to walk where everyone else has walked barefoot the lady responds “Don’t worry, we wash the floors once a day.” They are an even bigger deal when the nail dryers are across the room, the room that has wall-to-wall deep-pile carpet that, since everyone’s been padding barefoot on it from the barely-tepid footbaths all day, is damp and swampy. Like marshland carpet full of shaved callous and athlete’s foot. That’s where you’re going to be walking barefoot. That’s the swamp-carpet on which you will rest your feet while under the dryers. Flip-flops. I ask you.

Okay. So my friend is in love with her pedicure, which is a good thing, because it is indeed lovely, and the massage chair was nice and I am still a little sick about the cleanliness thing but I just won’t go back to that place. Can I get a witness?

PS While we’re on the subject, I would like to say that pedicures, in sterile environments, are a very fine treat if you can afford it. There is nothing quite like having your feet scraped and buffed and moisturized. I have very few girly musts, but one is that I not show my mangled jogger’s toenails to the world without a pedicure. I stand by this.

It is with heavy heart that I report that my four-legged roommate who does not pay rent hath returned. Like my prodigal son who’s been off looting and pillaging for a year, he has returned, tail not-quite-between-his-legs, to scurry and to terrify, no doubt expecting a block party in his honor. I’m sorry, Wee Mousie, but the coffres of adoration have run dry. I don’t have time for your wee charade.

I would like to be the person who couldn’t hurt a fly. I would like to never harm a living thing. I don’t think any living thing should suffer, I don’t think hunting for sport is a good idea or even really acceptable. But if a bug or rodent enters my living space, watch out—I’m a killer. In the same way that I unapologetically use Sweet ‘N’ Low even though I know it’s bad for me and Splenda is at least made from real sugar (it’s sweeter than sugar, it dissolves in iced coffee, I like it—okay, maybe I apologize a little)[Note to Self: Come up with new vice for which I am unapologetic. Other Note to Self: Other uses for Splenda], I am a ruthless exterminator. Why? Because I’m scared. Things crawling on me or near me, crapping in the cereal, infesting the cupboard—this terrifies me so deeply that I’ll go to any lengths necessary to rid my life of these invaders. If there is a spider in my apartment, I do not carefully slip a piece of shirt cardboard under its creepy crawly legs and gently release it into the wild. I squash it. I don’t feel bad afterwards—I feel relieved.

I’m sorry Wee Mousie. This is war. You can’t come sauntering back into the apartment after a year of gallivanting about town and expect a ticker tape parade.

How to Catch a Mouse in the House

I’m more afraid of bugs than I am of mice. When my first mouse arrived (oh, those were heady days), I named mine Wee Mousie and pretended I had a little terrifying pet for a week or two, before his habit of darting across the living room at the least opportune moments led me to more drastic measures.

OK, I know you hate me right now, and I hate me a little bit too, but a room-size Have-a-Heart cage trap rigged with a hunk of cheese does not fool even the dumbest mouse. Glue traps are the least humane way to trap them—they don’t kill them immediately, just stop the critter dead in its tracks and holds him captive—screaming all the while—for hours until he finally succumbs. Glue traps also catch other bugs, should you have them, which makes for a very disgusting slab of cardboard. The only way to kill a mouse effectively every time is to use the old standard spring and balsa trap. It’s fast, it kills them instantly and they really work. Lay the trap against the wall (mice truly are almost blind, so they run along the baseboards in order to find their way) near where you’ve seen the mouse. They tend to get active around dusk and and at night, so best to rig up the traps then.

To prevent more mice from entering, fill any holes (even the tiniest crack) with steel wool. Keep in mind that this may result in your trapping Wee Mousie inside your apartment, but it should keep his brethren from entering.

Now stop hating me. I am really a peaceful person. I just want you to live free of pests and pestilence.

NB: If your problem is bugs and not meese, check out my book, where uninvited guests of every stripe are addressed.

Maira Kalman brings more wonder to TimesSelect and I have my secret TimesSelect membership supplier to thank for my access. Thank you, Secret TimesSelect ferryman. More Maira, it will be a good day. Have a good day.

Previously:

Remember This (Bougainvillea)
Hopelessly Devoted to Maira Kalman

Thank god for Brocade Home, for tapping into my "feminine energy" and creating a line of home furnishings just for young women. What is feminine energy, you ask? Why, "crystal chandeliers, satin coverlets, pink crushed-velvet pillows and sexy boudoir tables to channel Carrie Bradshaw" of course! The founder of the line plans to "jump-start ‘the feminine home for the 21st century,’" according to the Washington Post. The main inspiration for Brocade seems to have been Anthropologie, aka "Suburban Outfitters." What does it say about me that I secretly like this rococo frippery? What does it say about me that I also covet a modern, austere, "macho" look? Why did Maureen Dowd use the expression "kindle to" twice in yesterday’s column about Bush reading Camus? And what of homes where women and men live together? This look is definitely "feminine" but I can’t imagine it gracing the home of anyone  besides the trillion women nursing Amelie fantasies.  Isn’t it stretching it a bit to call West Elm and Crate & Barrel "masculine"? Is there such a thing as feminist decorating?

If I go to sleep before 11pm, no matter how exhausted I am, I will wake up in the middle of the night. My circadian rhythms are so solid that any sleep before 11 and my body thinks it’s a nap. I must not get into bed at 9:30pm with one of my million books as I did tonight and expect to be awake for more than thirty minutes. I could not keep my eyes open at 10 but boy have I been wide awake since 1:15 (it’s now 3:48am).

Here’s what’s happening:
I’m awake, awake, awake and sing!-awake.

I am starting to feel the aches and soreness of having pumped iron today. I rather like that soreness and am enjoying the fact that I am experiencing its onset instead of waking up tomorrow all creaky and stiff and possibly unable to move my neck.

I am drinking ginger ale and it’s really delightful.

Especially when one got a hankering for salami for dinner and so picked some up at Trader Joe’s and now needs something to settle one’s stomach. Every time I go to the fridge for more ‘ale, I smell the salami in there and rather than being grossed out as I am normally by any smell coming from the fridge, I am reminded that I do love salami very much and despite my stomachache, it is still delicious (if totally gross and marbled and dehydrating and politically depraved).

I did Tuesday’s crossword already and feel at once ahead of the game and a little triste, as I now have no puzzle to do with my coffee. But since I will be rushing around manically in the morning, certain to oversleep since I”m taking a sleep-break in the middle of the night, perhaps this is for the best as there will be no time for dilly-dallying in the morning. I hope there is time for coffee, though. I am excited about Trader Joe’s(’s) Bay Blend. I know this is the house brand that everyone drinks but I have been trying some crazy varieties there, like VOLCANO, which was so strong I was spending every day on the verge of a coronary.

That’s the news from Awakeland. Now to thrash fitfully in clean sheets. (BREAKING: Laundry done this past weekend.)