Just to show how far I am from achieving Nirvana, I am going to talk about ticks some more.

Last night before we went to bed, Wes was rolling around on the comforter while Aidan and I tried to settle under the covers for a book. Suddenly I spotted, very small on our dark blue comforter cover, a tick. It was small, unfed, hungry for a meal - it must have fallen off the rolling around dog. Fortunately, I was able to snatch it up and drop it into the mason jar of alchohol that I keep by the bed for that purpose. I am so glad that Wes didn't roll back on it and obscure it somehow. That would have driven me crazy.

Not that I wasn't driven crazy anyway. Steve spent last night on Long Island, which made me feel slightly more vulnerable. I was itching all night with a bad case of the creepy-crawlies. And I had some of those dreams again - but this time the bugs were in my hair. And they weren't even ticks, they were lice, but they didn't look like lice, they looked like little green worms. So in my dream I cut my dreadlocks off and I woke up so very very sad about it. Because I can see it coming - I'm going to have to cut them off for my sanity. But I'm going to put it off as long as possible - and after I do, I'm dying my hair purple - so don't get too excited about me not looking like a freak.

And that's not even the end of the story.

Today, when Aidan woke up from his nap, I was hiding under the cover playing with him, hoping to distract him from his ritual of nursing upon waking. It didn't work and as I was nursing him I noticed on his scalp (music swells) a tick. It was still really small and came out really easily so I think that it had just attatched itself - so there is very little danger of Lyme disease - but hell, they're fucking with my son now so I am going to have to take some decisive action.

So here's what I'm going to do:
The dog is banned from the bed. I've been wanting to make him a dog bed out of an old futon of ours but I may just break down and buy him one.
I am getting all light colored bed linens for the bed so that if there is a tick we can see it easily.
We are all getting ritual tick checks every night.
I am going to mentally prepare myself for cutting off my locks. This one makes me terribly sad - maybe I won't feel like this is necessary if I can keep the dog off of the bed.

I really really really hope that I can think of something better than ticks to talk about tomorrow.

While Aidan was napping and getting attacked by the tick, I came across an inspiring website called Dollar Short. I spent some time coloring in the picture from Mena's Christmas coloring contest. It was a great exercise (until my computer crashed and I lost all of my work) because it got me experimenting with Photoshop and learning new tricks and effects. She also has content management software (for things like blogs) at movable type. It all looks really interesting and if I were a tech goddess like Christiane, I would check it out.

Some of the really impressive sites that I am seeing lately are abandoning Netscape 4x and designing completely with stylesheets. I hope the day is coming soon when that is acceptable with business sites. I'd love to start working like that.