Three weeks since my last update? That's sad.

A boy comlimented me on my stunning bag just a few minutes ago. We were standing in line. In McDonald's. A non-gay boy, no less! This is really saying something (gay boys know style). Nevermind the fact that I've received dozens & dozens of compliments on it since purchasing it in New York City last October. People stop me in the streets to ask me where I purchased it, who the designer is. People notice it on elevators. People enviously eye it at the grocer's. But today! I received my first comment from a boy. "Cute purse," he said. He obviously has good taste.

M helped me pick it out. That says something about him, too. I had my choiced narrowed down to two stylish handbags. One was boring black but cute nonetheless. The other was the winner. The adorable cream and red checked 50s retro purse. Maurice preferred the latter, but I was a little disturbed by the red. I'd never had a red purse before. We were probably in that store o' bags for over an hour while I contemplated the dilemma. Lucky for me, I went through with purchasing the red/cream Gucci-inspired bag. I've never been happier! In fact, this is probably the best purchase I've ever made in my life. That's saying something, isn't it?

Now I'm just concerned with time taking its toll on my precious little bag. I don't want it to show signs of wear, ever. My biggest nightmare involves me going back to NYC to get another in a year or so and not being able to find a duplicate. I would be devastated.

New Year's Eve and Christmas, you ask? Oh, I had a grand time! The holidays were marvelous, but over way too quickly. M and I spent Christmas in Sacramento and New Year's weekend in Bodega Bay, Pt. Reyes, and San Francisco. 2001 started off right!

The icing on the cake is that both today and yesterday I was on time to work, which I was quite happy about. Tuesday, however, was a different story. Let me first explain my irrational fear of spiders....

I don't know why I'm afflicted with this phobia. I have a hunch it was exacerbated in my early teens. We moved to "the country" where furry jumping spiders would sometimes take up residence in our house. I found these creatures extremely unGodly. They weren't large, but they could jump pretty far (approx. 5'). This was far from comforting.

The most vivid scare came one evening when I was up late reading. I was just turning off my bedside lamp when I noticed this gargantuan daddy longleg creeping down his web directly over me and dangerously close! Honestly, this was the largest daddy longleg I had ever seen. He was coming to eat me, I was sure of it. I screamed and scrambled off the bed, just in time before it touched down on the bedspread. I grabbed a shoe and started fighting. I couldn't sleep that night. I wondered what other devils had been visiting me once I innocently fell asleep.

Nowadays, whenever I spot a spider, I cannot let it leave my sight or I get extremely disturbed. If I walk into a room and notice a spider anywhere near me, I scream. They don't even have to be very large spiders to get me worked up in a frenzy.

So anyway... on Tuesday I had a run-in with a spider. It was almost like a flashback to that one daddy longleg scene. I was standing in my bathroom, at the sink, getting ready to blow dry my hair when suddenly something must have caught my eye in the mirror. I turned around to see a small brown spider crawling down it's web from the light fixture and nearly on top of me! I screamed and panicked. I picked up the blowdryer and turned it on, full blast, toward the unsuspecting spider. It curled up into a little ball, still attached to it's string-web. The spider rocked to and fro from the hot airstream. After a few moments, I turned off the hair dryer. That's when the spider uncurled and started climbing back up the web toward the fixture! I panicked again and this time held the hot air on the spider for at least 7 minutes. The web was getting longer and longer until it would have touched the floor had I turned off the air. That's when the spider disappeared. Apparently, the web had gotten so long that it touched my cobalt blue bath towel hanging on the rack. What happened after that is beyond me. I turned off the dryer and banged on the towel with my foot. Nothing happened.

I was about 25 minutes late for work that morning.

It's now two days later and I still haven't found the spider. It's extremely unsettling. As far as I know, they can't just up and disappear into thin air like that.

I'm scared. I'm scared to unfold the towel to see if the awful creature is in there. He'll be hopping mad.

Ooops, time to go. I'll write again soon, I promise. Au revoir!

*toenail color of the month: au naturel! Nothing but buffed and shiny. :)