The console is addictive
Now the strange thing is that even though I’ve “proved” to myself a couple of times that there’s stuff that just doesn’t work so well in Mutt, and that I’d be a lot better doing them in webmail, I find that I keep on clicking F12 (for Guake) and going back to Mutt. I’m not sure exactly why. I think I’m just tired of the Gmail interface and longing for simplicity. It’s addictive. I seem to be doing more and more in the terminal. Will it last?
My imaginary illness
Since returning from India last time my digestion ain’t what it used to be. Loose stools and itchy bum seems to imply worms. I didn’t actually test for parasites, because I hate taking samples of my shit. But I’ve been reading up on what to do in case they’re there. It seems that there are certain substances that worms despise, so I’m feeding them with these. Between meals drinking wormwood tea (fortunately there are a few plants around the village), sometimes mixed with sage. NB though I haven’t actually read that they hate sage, I figure they should. And at meal times I’ve been adding desiccated coconut or nibbling on raw carrot. And neem capsules, which I still have a supply of from Auroville. Worms also hate garlic. But I do too. One website recommends putting it in your socks, or between 2 layers of socks, in order that the garlic will be absorbed into yer blood. But something tells me that nothing is going to work unless I do something extreme, like eating raw pumpkin seeds followed by a wormwood enema. There’s always vermex.
Real fleas
In dogs, worms follow fleas. I don’t think that’s the case with me, but in one room, The End Room, we have the fleas. In the days when we still let her in the house, MarryDog used to sneak in there to sleep on the rug. Then one day we discovered fleas. Since then, MarryDog has been outdoors, and the door to the End Room has been closed. We’ve vacuumed a couple of times, and gone in with anti-flea spray – which involves rapidfire commando raids while holding the breath then running out for air. And we’ve vacuumed and sprayed other kinds of insecticides. But the sad fact is that every time we go in that room, a flea or two jumps on us. And a bit later in the day we discover a bite somewhere. The latest strategy is a glass oven dish filled with water and detergent under a reading lamp. The fleas jump in and they drown. But not all of them. Adult fleas survive only a couple of weeks, while their pupae are supposed to hatch “only in the presence of a host”, which usually means a dog. Anyway, they’re under siege. We’re waiting them out.
An odd thing about fleas is that, as far as we know, they eat only a single meal in all the four stages of their lives: a meal of blood.