It's 10PM and I am completely exhausted.

I finished The Dive from Clausen's Pier, which was a good kind of exhausting. Living with Carrie Bell for the last three days helped me to grow exponentially, if it's possible to grow up with a fictional character. I can't remember identifying with a character or book so closely.

And then tonight, there was an apartment scare. I was speaking with my roommate from my room and her in her room when she screamed a terrifying scream. I haven't heard a scream like that in a long time, it reminded me of the day NYC was attacked. I went into her room and saw the root of her terror. There was some type of monsterous insect on her wall that was the size of 2/3 of my index finger. I screamed also.

My roommate was already on her bed, which left me to deal. I went back into my room and grabbed a weapon: my running shoe. I came back and tried to strategize the attack, but I was so scared, I turned to her and said "I can't do this. I'm too scared, I can't do it." I thought she was going to faint at that news, so I quickly offered another solution, the Kiwi neighbor. He's a guy and he's from the outback or whatever they call that down there, he can kill it. I ran next door and summoned the back up.

He had already heard the screams and feared the worse, so he came right over and assisted. His two cats came over for additional support. You've never seen two people less interested in animals embracing the kitties. I was petting them like my life depended on it.

He missed the bug. He did. He missed the bug and my roommate leapt into the air screaming and I ran out into the hallway shrieking as if Satan himself was on my back. In the hallway, I started jumping around convinced that it had landed on my back, my hair, down my shirt, everywhere, although I had been stationed on the opposite side of the room from the insect. One cat ran with me, the other one hid in the doorway of his apartment.

We spent a good 10 minutes searching for that bastard and couldn't find it, so the neighbor left and my roommate and I retreated to my room - the panic room - for the evening. Clearly there is safety in numbers and we were going into lockdown together for the evening.

In my room, I saw something fly past me and land my bookcase. Now that I recognized it as a flying creature, I was better equipped to deal. My roommate stood on my bed, screaming at me, like I had invited it in for dinner.

I picked up a shoe and aimed. I got it, but it was still alive. It fell to the floor and moved, I thought it fluttered under my weekend bag, still open and unpacked from last weekend. I froze in fear and told my roommate to remain calm while I thought about my secondary attack. It was at close range and I needed to smoke it out and kill it. More importantly, I really needed a smoke myself at this point and there was no way that was going to happen until this was taken care of.

Using one of my paintbrushes, I carefully shifted the bag to look underneath. It wasn't there. I prodded my denim clutch handbag on the floor, but it wasn't there either.

I started to sweat. My entire face covered in a hot bead and my intestines started to churn at the thought of this angry and maimed creature hiding out in my room.

My roommate moved over to stand on the chair by my computer and I stood perfectly still, thinking and waiting. It couldn't have gone far, it was too injured. She insisted it had limped out of the room. "How could it have limped out of the room?" I argued. "I would have noticed little Napoleon's last march out the door, past me!"

The truth was that there wasn't going to be sleep for anyone in this apartment until this thing was captured, dead or alive, and I was too tired at this point to think about making arrangements to sleep at a friend's.

I continued to move things around with the paintbrush, the same items over and over: the bag, the clutch, the rug used as a covering for my trunk in the center of my room. Nothing. And then, I saw it. It blended into the colors on the underside of the rug covering my trunk, clutching to the fabric like Peter Parker.

I knew I had only one chance left to kill this thing and it would have to be done with bare hands. Mano y mano. I went back across the hall for back up. Thank GOD for the kindness of the Kiwi people. The neighbor came back and using the paintbrush, I stealthily lifted the rug so that he could see the enemy. He got it.

We had him dispose of the creature in his apartment, just to be sure it was gone. My roommate posed a bigger question: what will we do when the kiwi no longer lives across the hall? Her implication was that we need to learn to provide for ourselves, to step up to challenges, or we need to committ to men and settle into secure relationships.

My response was typical for me, in the vein of me being who I am and not defined BY my actions, but ME defining my actions, I replied, we'll find another guy on another floor.

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