I'm not sure what ducks eat. Bugs I guess. Or leaf parts. I would have thought it was baby fish, but that feels wrong. It could be baby insects. Yeah, probably baby insects. Although I thought they were only in stagnant water and these ducks are on a river. River ducks must eat something else. I wish they ate mosquito eggs. I have a bite on my forearm that has been there for almost three weeks. It looks like I'm some kind of intravenous user who wasn't given a handbook or an older, more rebellious sibling to guide me through needle insertion. I'll probably have a scar from all the scratching. At night I pray for there to be more ducks. Also to find a job, but mostly for more ducks.

I am not fond of insects. I don't travel because of this. South America? Forget it. Have you seen the size of the bugs there? And hello? Malaria? No way. People always say, "Oh, Africa is so beautiful. " And then you ask them about malaria and they say, "Oh yeah, I collapsed in a marketplace in Ghana and had to be helicoptered to a clinic. Oh, but you get to eat with your hands!"

I won't travel to Texas cause of the fire ants, Florida because of the palmetto bugs, and Nebraska is just a waste of time anyway, bugs or no. I have ruled out most countries south of the equator, though New York makes the list for those cockroaches. Brooklyn also makes the no go zone, due to the preposterous notion that waterbugs are somehow less of a threat than regular cockroaches. Hey Williamsburg, they're like three roaches combined into a super roach. Don't get me started on the upward rise of killer bees. All bees are killer to me.

I rarely open windows if they are absent screening. Not sure who decided that Northern California would be without window screens, but those crusty forty-niners were far braver than I when it comes to winged intruders. I have spent a lot of money on fans for that one month of the year where San Francisco reaches into the low 90s. Also that's the only time I ever see bees in the Bay Area. Here in the mid-west the bees are still buzzing around even as leaves begin to gather in crunching piles along the sidewalk. I know they make flowers grow and all that, but Christ I just want to enjoy a shitty $2 American draft outside with some non organic pizza. I don't need the threat of that burning pinprick, not to mention the landing on the food. This can't be ok. Especially with flies. Flies eat and spend significant portions of their day, landing on and walking through crap. I'm pretty sure some of them are even born there. I don't want a fly to go from crap to pizza. I'm ok the other way, but how do you enforce that?

I should however take note of the sweetest bug of all, the lady bug. One of them crawls along the closed window in this room and I am reminded of their peaceful demeanor and genteel path of life. I would think that if there were no mon-chi-chi-omon or yuki-no or whatever those Japanese cartoons are, that the lady bug costume would be a brisk seller at the Halloween stores. Though one would have to be sure to not tell the children about the mating habits of this slow moving critter. Lady, and one would assume, man-lady bugs, mate in huge, violent clusters of sexual activity. Like Victorians suddenly freed from their corsets, they crawl over each other forming undulating masses around fence posts, rocks, anything that can accommodate their sturdy love making. So lost in the orgiastic delight of this yearly sweat-a-thon, some tumble, still writhing and moaning to the mossy ground below, tiny bug parts erect in the late September wind.

This house I am staying in is infested with tiny moths. They don't do anything, or even move. They just swarm near the pots and pans. They get excited only when I turn on the light to get the laundry. This does make them easy kills for me. I tend to freak out if the bugs can a) fly or b) make noise (especially flying noises). These moths are pretty quiet, for which I am appreciative. I am not appreciative of their disgusting death trail. When I manage to swat one with my shower shoe, they make large staining streaks of moth wing powder and tiny guts all over wall. I guess it's like those chalk outlines in murder scenes, a warning to other moths to stay away. But seriously – give me a break. I have to do a lot of cleaning and could do without the stain juice. At this point I can't tell where the brown stains end and the off white wall begins.

Another good thing about lady bugs is that they are easily wiped away when killed. Not like the moths or those tiny red spiders that can be found on school trips to Washington DC. Filled to the brim with red, smeary liquid, they can be detected by anyone wearing khaki or light colored clothing while sitting on concrete or stone. How can something so small have so much liquid inside? And can we eventually harness this power of retention for good, like drought relief or dry skin?

I try to be more sensitive to spiders, cause I know they eat bugs. I often steer flying insects directly into the web of the spider that lives under my toilet. I have also been known to just drop bits of lint into the web and watch as the spider blindly attacks the lint, slowly realizing the trick. I try to think of this as training for the spider, so that his instincts don't go cold should he encounter a huge nasty flying one. I dream one day of my own spider army, ready to defend me. I know this may mean I have to live in a damp cave or someone's basement, carrying egg sacks on the backs of my legs, and teaching the spiders to recognize my voice. I know in time that like Koko, the world's smartest gorilla, I can train the spiders to ask for bananas or kittens. They will become my family. And I will never be roused from sleep by that high pitched wail of a mosquito's flight. I will be safe, living in the spider's web, someplace north of here, in a friend's basement, with no windows, close to a Walgreens.