"Facing It, That's The Way To Get Through"

It started last night; I knew the day was approaching but it is not something you can prepare for.  The days are getting longer, the sun is out in full force, cafes are setting up tables outside and old men are playing dominoes and drinking lemonade outside their apartments.  The city is coming alive and so are the mosquitos.  From the banks of the Newtown Creek, they fester and shake off the winter chill, pilot themselves through the Greenpoint Manufacturing Plant and up through the heating vents, window screen gaps, any available crevice leading to my tiny third-floor bedroom, where they dive bomb me at will. I lay awake in the early hours, tired and braced in fear and trepidation, with the steady hum of traffic over the Pulaski bridge pulsing in rhythm outside my window.  I wait with the covers around my nose.  Terrible way to try to sleep, I try to cover up as best I can but when I awake (a term I use lightly here) I have bites on my hands and wrists....sometimes, I will turn on all the lights and have a 3:30am mosquito hunt around the room.  Looking through closets, waiting silent and still until something flickers past my eye and I focus in like a fighter pilot....following its every move. CLAP!  Did I get it? I don't know.  I don't hear anything.  Back to bed, minutes later......that buzzing....that damn buzzing.  I start  to feel like Charlie Sheen in Apocalypse Now -- just barely hanging on to the edge, about to lose all control and resort to random fits of anger and irrational acts.  "Facing it, always facing it, that's the way to get through. Face it." Joseph Conrad famously uttered this once, though I seriously doubt he was talking about mosquitos here.  I'm trying Joe, Jesus, I am trying.  Apparently biting activity increases by 500 times when there is a full moon out, you are also more liable to be bitten if you consume bananas.  I am not making this up folks.  We live in a magical place.  Yeah magical alright.....I am not even going to try to put a positive spin on this one.  Ole Joe Conrad's probably with me on that too.  Let the sentiment speak for itself, right Joe? Joe......are you there? Let me know what you think when you are not too busy being dead.