Are spiders morons?!?

I've been more cognoscente of spiders lately. Since I live in a basement, I have a dark stairwell that leads from the real world down to my cave. This might seem like a good place to build your web if you were a spider but that means you would just have to do your research. Everyone checks out the neighborhood before they move in right? Well apparently these spiders don't. Either that or they're moronic spiders who rebuild their webs each night as soon as dark descends on the world.

I can just see them watching us all day--four girls going in and out of the house numerous times a day, inviting friends over, hauling bikes in and out, and etc--waiting for just the right time to build the web across our stairwell. I'm not sure how long they wait for all activity to cease before they're convinced it is indeed a safe endeavor but I have often been assaulted by webs early in the morning and sometimes even late at night. What are they even thinking?!? Stupid spiders. I'll bet it's hard enough to jump the 4 feet from one side of the stair-well to the other but when they're trailing a web behind them and it's going to be broken in just a few hours anyway, the whole effort seems ridiculously fruitless.

My spiders aren't the only stupid ones out there though. Oh no. I've started riding my bike to school from time to time (it's actually faster than driving--imagine that) and the other day I saw an intricate web embroidered around a bike's handlebars. I just so happened to be locking mine up nearby and as I fiddled with the combination lock to make sure it was secure I inspected the spider's handiwork. It was pretty good. Rather lovely. I wondered to myself how long the spider had spent on it. Surely this was one of those bikes that is abandoned for days at a time. There is no other way a spider could spin a web like that on a bike currently in use. When I returned a few hours later, the bike was gone. That either means that the spider was surprised by a latent bike suddenly getting up and going or it is a thrill-seeking spider who likes to make his home on things that go much faster than he ever thought possible. Are all spiders like this?

Still Reading The People Code

Wow, I feel like that book is a map to my life. It's amazing how much better I'm understanding myself and my interactions with other people as I read The People Code. I think that I'm a lot more easy on myself as I go through the book. In the past I have labeled any behavior that caused me discomfort as bad and wanted to change it (yes, even to an obsessive degree). But the book is helping me realize that a lot of these behaviors are natural to me, are not bad, and can be coped with in a way more positive than trying to change myself.

That brings up another interesting topic that I've considered before. Can people change? I think to a great extent there are many things we can change but I think that there are a lot of things we cannot change. And as I'm reading through this book I'm starting to connect with a lot more of my innate needs and desires.

One great example is my desire for secure adventure. I like my life to be unpredictable in a very predictable way (it's a hard balance to strike as you might imagine). I'm excited to try new things but because I want security, I want to have them well mapped out before I get into them. This has caused me to be an excessive planner in the past even to the point of obsession and immobility. I used to think that I had to plan everything out completely or something terrible would happen or I would be unsuccessful or something like that. But as I become more familiar with who I am, I can just laugh at myself and realize that things don't actually have to be completely planned out, that is just a manifestation of my desire for security.

Another personality quark along those same lines is the desire to be among other people (interacting with groups of people is a pretty thrilling adventure to me) but at the same time I need to feel secure while being in those environments. If I feel threatened in those environments at all, then I shut down completely. Or if I don't feel like I have anything solid underneath me to depend on (or a solid person that I can emotionally and intellectually depend on standing by me) then I'll become very overwhelmed and unable to function.

One thing that the book points out and that I've never noticed before (but is still very true) is that I can be rather boring. Many people wouldn't catch this part of the personality because they're entertaining enough by themselves but when someone (or a group of people) expect me to be a source of entertainment, they'll quickly find themselves bored. I don't do well as a source for entertainment. When the book pointed this out, I resisted but as I've been hanging out with friends lately and thought back on my relationships in the past I've realized that, yes, I can be very boring. He he, who'd have thought or admitted it?

I think I've got a stalker

Do you see the little bird in this picture:



Let's try getting a tad bit closer:



And even closer . . .















Isn't he a mangy little bird? Well he's stalking me. Last night I came home from our ward family home evening activity and found this little guy sleeping on my bike right by the front door. No kidding! And he didn't move a bit as I moved closer for better pictures. He didn't flinch when the flash went off. It almost seemed like he thought I couldn't see him if he sat still enough.

Then this morning, as I opened my window to get some morning sunlight he came flying into my window well. Doesn't he look grouchy?

He's currently still in my window well. He just went to sleep so now he's a little puffball in the middle of my window well. I hope he's okay. I guess we don't have any local cats or else there's no way he would have survived the night on my bike. One of my roommates (Hannah) suggested that he might be sick. He's definitely young, his down is still easy to see. Every now and then he wakes up to call to his buddies. I wonder what he's saying "Hey, I found her! Come quickly!"