buzzzz, thwack!

I do not like creepy-crawlies. I kill bugs left, right, and center. I don't feel any qualms about it. They freak me out, and I want them gone.

And yet, I have been totally unbothered by the night visitors I get in my new place.

In New York, my apartment had screens on the windows. I had the occasional small spider in the summer (which I would kill. I know they supposedly eat other bugs, but they also eat me. Dead.) but I never had anything flying around.

Here, I have two beautiful, big windows that open into my apartment and give me a view of the courtyard, with its grey roofs and rust-colored chimney pots. These windows, that make my apartment look a lot bigger than it is, have no screens. I can't recall seeing any screens on friends' windows, either. If I had screens, I couldn't water my plants or pluck basil for dinner from my lovely window boxes. And I couldn't shake out my bathmat or kitchen rug into the courtyard below. And I couldn't make my friends lean ALL the way out the window when they smoke at my housewarming party.

But these screenless windows let in lots of winged creatures. I have what looks like miniature mosquitoes that don't seem to bite, flies, big flies, bigger flies, microscopic flying things, ladybuggish things, and even a big-assed moth once. I only notice they're here cause I can hear them beating their gross wings against my ceiling. And it just doesn't bother me.

Okay, the flies bother me. But those are here during the day, not at night. And I have a lot fewer now that I bought a pitcher plant. I wonder if it's because, somewhere in my New Yorker mind, bugs are more acceptable in Europe? Is nature invading your space an "old-country" thing to anyone else?