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Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   tick burn
Thursday, November 15 2007
I woke up this morning and had what felt like a burn high on the front of my left thigh, a couple inches below where the leg joins the body. In all but the skimpiest of swimwear, this spot would be concealed. I didn't get around to looking at it until I'd been up and about for a few minutes.
What I saw was horrifying. It wasn't a burn but a tick bite, and the tick was still there, but when I plucked it off it was clearly dead. It had died on the vine, if you will, killed off either by natural causes or my immune system of tick kryptonite. It was a Wood Tick (not a Lyme-bearing Deer Tick) and hadn't drunk enough blood to swell up at all. More horrifying than the tick itself was the injury it had caused me. It had created a circular black leision about 4 millimeters in diameter, and around this the skin was pink and inflamed. It didn't itch like a normal tick bite but instead felt exactly like a burn. Since this spot on my leg is can be load-bearing when I'm sleeping on my belly, it's possible the tick died because it had been crushed. Ticks aren't normally easy to crush, but perhaps after hours of pressure they eventually die. I'm guessing that the burn-like symptoms were the result of the interaction between the dead tick and its various juices and my immune system.

The day was so rainy that I never managed to take the dogs for a proper walk. I did eventually take them for a drive when I ventured out to 9W put some checks into the bank and get supplies. These included two boxes of generic Hannaford-brand raisin bran, two boxes of Hannaford-brand baking soda (69 cents each), a variety of vegetarian Progresso soups, broccoli, cauliflower, Silk-brand unsweetened soy milk, mushrooms, four 3/4 inch by 3/32 inch by 48 inch steel bars, four six foot one by two boards, and some sandpaper, a half gallon of gin and a litre of Evan Williams bourbon. I also ate a slice of pizza at that place near the Burlington Coat Factory.
I've been in that pizza place and in that liquor store dozens of times but I've never once been in the Chinese restaurant that lies between them. I've never been in Burlington Coat Factory either, but I've been in that 99 cent store on the other end of that strip two or three times. I've also been in that Staples many times, and I've gassed up on occasion at the Citgo in that same lot.
Citgo is a petroleum company wholly-owned by the nationalized Venezuelan oil industry. It's about the best cause towards which my oil-buying dollar can go. (I suspect, by the way, that the mailman on the Dug Hill Road delivery route is a hardcore pinko, because at one point I'd noticed that he'd placed a Citgo sticker over the "US" part of the temporary magnet sign that reads "US Mail" on the side of his jeep.)


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