A person named Elise has compiled a spreadsheet of responses from neurodivergent people about their jobs and careers. I learned something from browsing through it. Most of the respondents seen to favor jobs that don’t require extensive interactions with people, but there was on grade school teacher there — they liked the strict schedule. There was a PhD researcher in the mix, but they seem to have lucked into a position with no teaching, just field and lab work. One paramedic says, “Dopamine dump in intense situations feels normal to people with ADHD.”

It seems neurodivergent people are diverse. Who knew?

I have been enlightened. I know exactly what my role on this Earth is.

Yesterday, my wife found a dead rabbit in the shrubbery in our yard. You couldn’t miss it — the odor was horrific. So of course she sent me out to dispose of it.

It had been disemboweled and left to rot for several days. I found spoor nearby, and I suspect the killer was a dog, since cats tend to be more fastidious and don’t leave large lumps of poop nearby. I scraped it into a garbage bag, and noticed that the entire body cavity was a writhing mass of maggots.

I did not take pictures of that, even if I was impressed. You can thank me for that.

I put the body in our garbage can. Fortunately, garbage pick up was the next day, that is, this morning. I figured I was done.

My wife interrupted me again this morning. She’d gone to bring the trash can into the garage this morning, only it wasn’t empty. She told me it was “insect related,” so it was my job.

The trash can was covered in maggots. They were in masses on the bottom, had crawled up the sides, were covering the lid, and were dripping off the container into the grass.

I will share a photo of the lid.

The rabbit was gone, and we’re talking tens of thousands of homeless maggots crawling everywhere. Everything was covered with maggots, which I guess explains why Mary hadn’t brought the garbage can in.

I used a garden hose to clean it up. There is now a patch of our yard that has been enriched with a wiggly mass of protein, I hope the birds appreciate it.

It’s been raining non-stop for the last few days, just an ongoing drizzle, cool and wet.

No spiders. Spiders are not fans of the excessive water falling out of the sky. I’m missing my little friends.

The good news is that the vegetation is going mad, and I expect once it all dries out a bit and the sun warms up the place, we’re going to be swarming with insects, and the spiders will be joyous again.

My granddaughter has graduated from kindergarten!

She looks so eager to get out in the real world and get a job.

For over a decade now, I’ve been accustomed to screwing myself up every summer. I spend the school year focused on teaching stuff (and being snowbound much of the time), and then when I’m released in May, I leap into action and overdo it, and then every summer I can guarantee I’ll spend a month or two laid up with a knee or ankle or both wrecked. I’ve got crutches and braces set aside just in case. You don’t see most of it because you’re seeing me through the teeny-tiny porthole of the internet.

But not this year, so far (knock on wood). I’ve changed my behavior. I started out with a leisurely walk for 40 minutes to an hour every single day — every day is the key, I think. Easing into my summer routine is helping, and now I’m ramping up into a brisk walk. No pain yet! Actually, I’m feeling pretty good. Maybe I’m doing something right.

Another factor: I’m not teaching this fall, which has removed an amazing amount of stress from my life. I can’t actually separate the physical from the psychological.

Anyway, that means that right now I am compelled to get out of the house and go for a walk. Bye!

Over two weeks ago, I spotted a pair of boots abandoned in a parking lot. I’ve been keeping an eye on them — they’ve been there all this time, but I’ve seen them moved around every once in a while.

Their saga is almost over, I’m sad to report.

Farewell on your journey to the landfill!

You know most of Minnesota is totally on your side. We like Canada. So why are you trying to smoke us out?

I’m out on my daily walk, and can see the haze everywhere. We had a short, weird thunderstorm yesterday — about an hour of dark clouds, heavy rainfall, high winds, and thunder & lightning that disappeared as quickly as it appeared — but it didn’t help clear the air. Winnipeg must be even worse off.

I think I’ll just have to hold my breath while I walk home.

I was home over lunch, and I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a shipment of spiders, so I decided to indulge myself in a legendary movie from 1964: Spider Baby. It’s delightfully bizarre and macabre, and yes, it does include lots of spiders.

If that isn’t sufficiently enticing, check out this still:

It stars Lon Chaney jr., and look: a young Sid Haig! The plot — don’t watch it for the plot — centers on a twisted sort of Addams Family group afflicted with an imaginary genetic illness called Merrye Disease. The afflicted go mad and steadily regress to a savage state in which they become voracious cannibals. Along the way, they just develop weird obsessions. One girl likes to play spider, a game that culminates in the spider girl stinging her partner with a pair of butcher knives.

It makes no sense, but everyone seems to be having a ghastly good time playing up the grisly psychos. Recommended!

I am sad to report that my package of spiders hasn’t yet arrived. It may not get here until tomorrow.