Writing, Threesomes, Screaming Children, Gardening, Picnics

It's gonna be a long post. Read at your discretion.

( Writing accomplished. )

( Threesomes )

( Screaming Children )

( Gardening and Pinics )

Grief. A Lemming.

I don't believe it either.



what decade does your personality live in?

quiz brought to you by lady interference, ltd

Of course you realize, this means war.

I found an ant on the kitchen counter. The war has begun.

It has been like this the past two years. Winter ends. The colonies living deep under our foundation begin their slow, merciless crawl up the sides of the building. They seek out cracks and crevices, willfully sacrificing their bodies in a search pattern honed by millions of years of evolution into some sort of platonic ideal, until they find the weak spot in our armor, the chink, the fissure where, somehow, someway, a sliver of insulation has given way, a nail has loosened from the cycle of winter cold and inner heat, a slat in the door frame has warped under the relentless rain that is the true soul of Seattle and its environs.

And then one of these little black biological robots with its precision sugar and fat detectors waving zig-zags through my kitchen around midnight. It finds something-- maybe the chocolate chips, maybe the cat's dish, maybe a hole in one of the plastic bags where we store the bread-- and it's gone, finding its zig-zagging way back, following the trail its left. An hour passes, and then an army follows that trail the other way. As the army progresses, some ants take shortcuts. Corners soften. The trail straightens. By the time the sun rises it is an efficient fire brigade, thousands of them trekking a few yards-- the ant equivalent of miles-- to carry back to the hive morsels for the queen. Each one as completely expendable as a blood cell. An ant is not an organism-- it is merely a component. The hive is the organism. The hive is what eats, what breaths, what reproduces. Each ant is merely a tiny body part to that end, and ultimately, the hive's only waste product.

The slaughter begins. It starts with a vacuum cleaner, sucking up the hapless creatures on their blind quest. They cannot know the great time is coming when their exoskeletons shall be shattered like so many cryogenic roses. It happens so fast the chemical warning-- SCATTER!-- cannot propagate down the line. And then, the poison at the point of entry, followed by a line of caulk or injection insulation to keep them away.

And then we wait for the next sign. The next travail. Where will it come? Under the insulation where house meets foundation and into the pantry? Up the stairs completely and into the kitchen? Through the glass doors by the dining room, or through the window in the kitchen? They have even come in through the fireplace and across the carpeted living room floor.

And we seek the scouts. Every one. And squash them flat without remorse. Because the consequences of not doing so are annoying.

( In other news. )

( But this will piss you off. )