Let me tell you ‘bout the birds and the bees

Ahh, the birds and the bees.  They conjure up so many images: spring, that embarrassing talk with your parents.  A recent run was all about the “birds and bees”, albeit in a most surprising way.  

The city is flooded with clouds of little black bugs.  The trails are particularly overrun. My attempt to run as fast as possible through the swarm in hopes that my lightening speed would help me evade the little creatures proved unsuccessful.  I inadvertently ingested my body weight in little black bugs.  Not to mention the ones that flew straight up my nose and into my brain.  Several others became lodged in my eye, swishing around in the liquidy membrane.  I’ve spent hours gagging up and blowing out bug guts.  Every sneeze is an adventure.  Those that I didn’t inhale became stuck to my body, drowning in pools of sweat and leaving me speckled with their little black corpses.  According to the Toronto Star, these troublesome insects are chironomids (midges, for short) and those swarms are actually giant insect orgies, more scientifically known as “reproductive swarms”.  This brings to mind those ridiculously awesome “Green Porno” short films about insect mating rituals and starring Isabella Rossellini, dressed in various bug costumes.  It’s educational magic.  With a mere four week life span the midges need to maximize their species survival and that means lots and lots of sex with lots and lots of partners (interesting fact: the lady midges can store sperm from multiple partners, creating a genetic sperm shake for enhanced variability).  Think about that overflowing sperm sack next time you swallow one of those little black bugs. 

Love is in the air, literally.

As I swatted my way down the trail, dodging the x-rated bug clusters, I stumbled upon my first (human) sex sighting.  I’ve always thought that my trail running would lead to an early morning dead body discovery.  That I would be the one on the local news with a big-haired reporter saying “a jogger [why do they always call us joggers] finds a possible murder victim in the park.  More on the news at noon.”.  But this time it wasn’t one body, but two, and they were decidedly lively.  You know that experience when you are staring at something because your brain isn’t quite sure what you looking at and when you finally realize what you are looking at it suddenly seems so very obvious and then it occurs to you that you spent so much time looking while trying to figure out what it was you were looking at that you probably looked like some sort of creepy peeper?  Yeah, that.  For those who care about such details, this was not some sort of spontaneous moment in which the couple, overcome with lust, could not wait a second longer.  Oh no.  This was a premeditated act, complete with air mattress, blanket, wicker picnic basket, and wine.  Someone had a plan.  I’ll spare you the more graphic details, except to say that tucked in by the tree line they weren’t really making much effort to remain hidden.  Granted I was in a low-traffic area, frequented most often by pot-smoking teens, but still only minimal efforts at discretion had been made (they were not, for example, making use of the aforementioned blanket). 

Love, it seems, is all around me.  

Title Reference:  Jewel Akins – The Birds and the Bees.  Single released 1965.