Oh, Not You, Sir

In an unfortunate coincidence, when my super-conscientious landlord came over to poison my ants and also give me like eight spare air filters (because of my allergies, he wants me to be able to change them whenever I want), I was listening to the Dead Kennedys' Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables. Which happened to be on track 4. Which is "Let's Lynch the Landlord".

Awkward.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Insect Overlords

For no apparent reason (except perhaps that it's ungodly hot outside), ants started coming into my living room this weekend. Now, I've always been kind of fond of ants--even going so far as to follow them around during recess periods in elementary school, and to yell, "How would YOU like it if a giant ant stepped on your house?!?" at the boys who liked to kick anthills on the way home from school (I was a weird kid)--but all bets were off when I was bitten by one while eating popcorn in my living room, blithely unaware of the invasion in progress. Cursory inspection on tiptoe from behind the couch revealed that there was not just one, but easily a dozen ants marching in through a corner of the front door; I vacuumed them up, flapping all the while, put down a cotton ball soaked with a weak detergent solution to block their pheromone trail, and congratulated myself when there were no ants to be seen an hour later.

Cut to Monday morning, when stumbling around barefoot in my robe, I went to open the living room blinds and found a bunch of ants simply detouring around my ingenious cotton ball blockade. As is customary for girls in such situations, I flailed, squeaked, and pranced away into the ant-free kitchen, eating my cereal with my feet up on my chair while looking askance at the far end of the living room. It then took me like three hours to get ready for work, because I was so creeped out that I couldn't just ignore them; I ended up searching on the internet for ways to deter them with stuff I might have around the house already, and then kept leaving off getting dressed in favor of stalking crazily around the living room with vacuum, ground cinnamon, and cleanser with orange oil. I finally got it together and almost left, only to come back in and move the vacuum to the back patio, lest any ants crawl back out. Luckily, my landlord was right outside pruning the cacti, so I told him about the ants but not about the cinnamon in the carpet, and he's going to put some ant granules out to get rid of them.

And, in answer to your question, I would not like it at all if a giant ant imprisoned me in a vacuum bag, nor if he strewed poison around my house, but until I bite them on the ankles in the privacy of their own home, the ants can suck it.

This is my Zen

I fell in love with a new song this week. It's called "I Hear the Bells", from Mike Doughty's solo release Haughty Melodic, and also from the Veronica Mars Soundtrack (Shut up! The show is awesome, OK?), and last night when I was feeling tense and strange and unhappy I lay on the living room floor with the lights off and just listened to it on repeat for probably 45 minutes, watching the shadows on the blinds from the bougainvillea outside my apartment and feeling the floor shiver when freight trains went by. And I felt calm, and my head was clear of all the things that crowd in and keep me from...functioning, sometimes. I don't think I would go as far as the Murder City Devils--"I would've slit my wrists if it wasn't for rock and roll"--but I don't know where I would be without power chords and four-track recordings and songs so heart-stoppingly beautiful that you have to drop everything and just listen, because for that four and a half minutes, nothing else matters.

But Watch Yourself: I've Still Got the Eggs

Well, I haven't posted for awhile, due to my regularly scheduled end-of-semester breakdown (TM Cari), involving the deliberate and violent destruction by the Powers That Be and my own lack of foresight of all my self-confidence, mental and physical faculties, and faith in humanity. To wit:

1. My goldfish up and died right in front of me during an all-nighter. No apparent reason or previous illness, it just started acting sick and then died, presumably because I'd been wondering if I could possibly be more miserable during finals.

2. I ran out of normal, healthy food with no time to go to the grocery store for several days, and thus had to survive on a diet of coffee, Luna Bars and Ramen noodles (mmmm, starchy!). I swear I'm still dehydrated. And I think I may have a vitamin deficiency.

3. I carved out an hour to see my hair stylist about my mullet, only to have her proudly replace it with a bouffant bubble of hair suitable for a Fundamentalist mother of six, leading to a crisis of hipness: Does something about my look tell people I should have middle-aged hair? Obviously, it's not like I lost a leg or something, but I was really not up to dealing with it at the time.

Anyway, things have settled down now--I had a good meeting with my advisor about my draft, I finally bought some real food, and my hair improved quite a bit when I styled it myself. I'm celebrating the end of the semester by ordering Veronica Mars DVDs and going to get some new fish tonight, which I think is a big improvement over being tempted last week to celebrate the end of the semester by mainlining vodka and egging my professors' cars.