‘Sun-powered orgasms are fantastic’: why I went to live in a desert cave

October 2, 2021 6:02 PM

Armed with only a solar charger, a vibrator and some marijuana gummy bears, I rode out the pandemic – and my fear of spiders – in a California commune.
posted by Ahmad Khani (12 comments total)

It struck me that fear of spiders was weird. Why aren’t we afraid of, say, rabbits?

Outside of Monty Python, very few people are harmed by rabbit bites.
posted by zamboni at 6:51 PM on October 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it."

-Joan Didion.
posted by clavdivs at 7:50 PM on October 2, 2021 [41 favorites]

It struck me that fear of spiders was weird. Why aren’t we afraid of, say, rabbits?

Outside of Monty Python, very few people are harmed by rabbit bites.

Rabbit scratches (especially while trying to clip their nails) are another thing altogether...
posted by gtrwolf at 8:52 PM on October 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Flecks of black in the white sand are actually rat crap; there is one side that has dark crevasses...

Personally I'd be more worried about hantavirus in that situation, though the risk would still be low.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:12 AM on October 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

It turned out to be boiled and pureed flank steak (a former Mormon, Garth doesn’t like anything too fancy)

Hahahaha! What?!
posted by erattacorrige at 7:19 AM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Why aren’t we afraid of, say, rabbits?

Clearly you've never met a southern rabbit.
posted by BWA at 7:32 AM on October 3, 2021

I'm having a very strange time trying to read this—it's like the article version of the "name one thing in this photo" tweet.
posted by babelfish at 10:12 AM on October 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

Sun-powered orgasms - wasn't that in a Farscape episode?
posted by doctornemo at 1:04 PM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Curiously, Pxl (who shows up variously in the article) was once a neighbor of mine, in Davis. I lived at the Domes, and he was living in one of the other bog co-op houses; I think I still have a collage-painting of his. It's a small weird-side-of-California after all.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:30 PM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

I like this lady. She know what she wants to do, and she's doing it. Not my preferred life but then I'm not her. Good on her.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:27 PM on October 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

@zamboni,
Hardly anybody gets injured by spider bites either. It would not surprise me in the least to find that rabbit-caused injuries are a much bigger public health problem than spider-caused injuries.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 9:03 AM on October 4, 2021 [2 favorites]

That's as may be, Cheeselog, but I doubt it. However, per CDC Wonder (1999-2019) for contemporary mortality statistics, spiders kill about 6 or 7 people a year. The rabbit situation isn't easily determined- since rabbits aren't rats, dogs, marine life, or reptiles, they fall into 'other mammals' along with bears, horses, and cattle.

W55 (Bitten or struck by other mammals) 1,562
X21 (Contact with venomous spiders) 138

About the same ratio as this paper from a couple of years ago, about 10:1. Then again, spider bites may be over-reported due to misidentification. Really, we should be looking out for bees and dogs.
posted by zamboni at 6:50 PM on October 10, 2021