There are so many things to be scared of

like ending sentences with the wrong parts of speech and spiders. illustrated above and below. but that doesn’t stop me. because there are things I’m more scared of.



the last person I fell in love with once called me ‘a great listed of things.’ here’s a list of things that frighten me:

spiders, especially when they have skinny legs. and its amazing to me that something like a spider scares me. just have a rational look at relative mass. or a rational look at potential for physical harm. even with the most poisonous or gigantic spiders, I can still fuck up their day more than they can mine. not that this stopped me from being totally freaked out when I visited Meiji shrine this weekend. they had these gigantic webs above the road and their body was striped and creased and the size of a nickel. their legs were stripped and extend a few inches. my heart started racing but I tried to hide my irrational paranoia because I didn’t want my friend Jon to mistake it for flirting. and while the thought of these striped monsters falling from above freaked me out, I’ll return to Meiji shrine in maybe a month, when the leave start to turn color.

because being stuck in a city with out a quiet—albeit spider filled—place of leaves and beauty, scares me more

the dark, I got home at 6 on monday, after visiting Harajuku, Meiji Shrine, and Shibuya. It was raining and very dark. I walk home, scared less of the rumors that it is dark and this part of Tokyo is controlled my Korean mafia than that it is only the beginning of October and it will get darker for months.

and I’m scared of being talentless

of being plain or boring or imposing upon others

of loosing my balance—this is of course the 5 katrillion dollar question, THE dilemma

of sleep and sleeplessness

of going on vacation by myself and getting food poisoning

of not being a good enough teacher

of students suffering through my classes only because they are nice.

of being condemned to tell half truths and pour out innocuous smiles that don’t mean anything. Today I taught my class what a ‘little white lie’ was. It was supposed to be just a vocab booster but turned into a 30 minute discussion. The example my student gave was complimenting a friend’s baby. We laughed for half an hour because it is so easy to fill the day with words that mean nothing.

and I’m afraid of loosing my edge

of being content and mediocre

of being homeless and of being tied down. I’ve been reading travel journals online at night recently and over and over the quote, “Traveling is the saddest of pleasures” (Paul Theroux) finds its way into my sight and rattles around in my head. the urge to move, the urge to settle, the urge to be challenged, the urge to touch people lives, the desire to feel safe, the desire to seek excitement all swirl around in my head. and I’m trying to sort it out but can’t find anyone good to talk to. I’m doing interviews of a sort… but no luck yet.

and of course I’m scared of being so lost that I don’t have anyone to say, “uh, hey… little over my head here. a little help please?”

of thinking too much but doing too little

of never growing out of this feeling like I need to ‘come of age’ over and over again

or arriving on the other side and realizing that I have no one to talk to

and I fear that I have ruined the possibility of graduate school
not because I ‘put a black mark on my CV,’ as Bea said, but because I’m afraid I’ll never be able to relate to all the people who go to grad school.

I fear that I can’t go back, even if I’m not sure if I ever want to.

…. all that to add to a fear of spiders.