It’s been a month and more since I’ve written. I have been to France and back and I survived. It was a highly disturbing visit for reasons that I cannot explain but that are both compelling and ongoing. About a week ago I began enjoying my job again. The vibe is nice and the days are more fun. All this to say, I’m interested in writing again. Sometimes I just like to hide.

In short, everything is fine!

We do have a little neighbor conundrum (and I have ants in my office and am going to have to solve that shit soon. Oh my god I have ants and they’re living in the room and that is why I keep finding ants on my legs. Oh, god! I have ants! Tthis revelation just zaps my desire to write. Do I have ants in my hair? I have so much to say about lice and insects that needs to be shared with the world.

But the reality that I have an ant problem and may indeed have ants in my pants and I need to dance. God I want to get out of this chair and go smoke some weed and watch TikTok).

But yet I keep on, like a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into my pants with the ants.

We have guests coming so I am cleaning, trying to look good

This morning I washed the Ruggable rug, the one nearest the litter box, and hung it on the world-famous laundry line.

Today has been a beautiful summer day, and I guess breeze. The rug blew off our line and landed on our carport roof, which is just a hard plastic. You cannot walk on it. The rug is nearest to Maggie’s side, but we would need to go onto her property to get it.

We could use a fishing line, and I believe we bought fishing lines during the pandemic. We went fishing during the pandemic. So that is one idea.

The most direct solution would be to go on Maggie’s side in the back, climb her wall, and pull the rug off. I thought about just bolting and doing it, but then I got scared she might see me and be mad and go crazy again. I don’t want Maggie pulling stunts tomorrow night. We’re having company!

I have already made a rocking Puttanesca pasta and bean salad. I want to have fun!

So that is our conundrum. Also I’m hosting ALONE tomorrow night for 10 because Calvin is shooting late and so it’s all on me. He’s the chef usually and I’m the talker, so now I have to do both, unless I can rope a person into barbecuing. So far I’ve asked two of the men and their wives have been like, NO. They don’t get to bbq. City people. They don’t grill. I love that the wives are so quick to be ‘do not let him touch a set of tongs.’

The one remaining man is from Texas so he must grill. They have to.

So clearly the pressure is on! It’s a high wire act, that I do with ants in my pants. I think they have been nipping at my toes too. My toes have been itchy. Everything has been itchy and I have been talking about lice almost spasmodically for the past week.

See, the body tells the story

It’s so true. It’s profound, to be honest. But here you go—I become obsessed with my one insect infestation (besides roaches in August 1991, which did drive me to Brooklyn¹), only to finally realize that I have ants. Perhaps in my pants. My body pushed the information into my conscious mind through my small talk.

I need to pay more attention to my body, but it often gives me such bullshit stories of utter crap. Seriously I tell my body to stop its complaining for just one gosh darn day!

I must really have it in for my body! I’ll have to think on that later.

So here’s how I’m going to solve the rug problem. I’m going to leave the rug there overnight and then have the party-goers figure out how to safely get the rug off the roof without “bothering” the neighbor. Whoever gets it right wins something I haven’t thought of yet.

1. My first infestation didn’t really belong to me the way lice belongs to you. You know why I moved out of this apartment on the way Upper West Side in August 1991? No, it wasn’t the elevated 1/9 train or my roommate with whom I was locked in a psychological game of chicken (that I didn’t understand and still don’t understand but cling to the friendship) or the slightly iffy neighborhood which, in retrospect, was totally safe. No, it was the cockroach that crawled into my beer and then washed into my mouth, where I felt its scrabbling legs on my tongue. That’s why I fled to Brooklyn to live with insane roommates and repeatedly lose my mind. ↩︎