Making a contribution

 I've come to believe that my purpose in life is transporting ants and spiders from one place to another. The ants prefer to travel by shirt. The elites like the view from my neck. The spiders, adventurous risk-takers, prefer traveling by automobile. They cling to both my side mirrors on tiny strands of broken webs. If I could read their tiny lips, I'm sure they are shouting "woo-hoo" into the wind. 

I'm glad to be of service. After all, the future belongs to whatever tiny critters can survive global climate change. I'm doing my part to keep life alive. Ants, spiders, and cockroaches should do well in rising heat. And don't forget the bacteria and viruses, rapidly ascending the food chain. Being human isn't looking like the privilege it seemed to be a few short months ago. It's great to be a Covid virus right now. Seven billion or so lungs, yum, what should I eat first?

Speaking of downers, there are few things more anxiety producing than turning on your parental baby monitor and hearing your maternal parental unit (Mom) yelling "Help. Somebody help me." 

I always turn on the baby monitor before I get to her window so the device has time to link to the monitor in her room. I never know what I will hear when I turn on the monitor. Sometimes she's not back from dinner yet, so I pace and mill around on the sidewalk, staring at my decrepit reflection in her window. Sometimes she's already prone on the couch. Sometimes she wakes, sometimes she doesn't. 

Hearing her yell for help really gets the heart rate up. Mine, I mean. I'm programmed to jump when my mother yells but there's nowhere to jump when I'm on the outside of the window looking in. 

I pressed the button on the monitor and yelled back, "Someone will be here in just a minute!" Then I set the monitor on the clattering air conditioning unit and frantically texted the Med-Aide Mom needs help. 

"Help! Somebody!" Mom kept shouting. She forgets she has a button on a necklace around her neck. She doesn't realize that catching the attention of an aide passing along her open door at just the right moment is a long shot akin to winning a $1,000 lottery scratcher. Leaning into the window screen, I could make out Mom's blurry figure sitting on the toilet in the dark. I'm pretty sure what I would have seen if the light had been on: Mom staring at a big mess wondering what to do next.

This all happened a couple weeks ago. Tonight the problem was her hearing aids. 

"These things are falling out," she complained, pointing to her ears. I wanted her to get up and come to the window so I could see if they were in wrong, but what would I do then? She probably wouldn't be able to figure it out. Luckily an aide was passing along the hallway. A tall blonde woman in flowered scrubs and a face mask came into Mom's room.

"Will you see if her hearing aids are in right?" I asked through the baby monitor. 

"I'll get someone who knows how they work," she said and went out the door.

"Go get someone who knows what they are doing," Mom said, smoothing her blue and white plaid wool blanket.

We waited.

In a minute, another aide, Anne, came in. She peered at Mom's ears.

"The red goes on the right and the blue goes on the left," I said helpfully. 

Anne took them both out of Mom's ears and studied them in the lamplight. She switched them and put them into the proper ears.

"Can you hear me now?" I said into the monitor.

"Can you hear me now?" Mom echoed. I gave Anne a thumbs up. She went out the door. I assumed she was smiling but who knows. My mask certainly hides a multitude of smirks and thinned lips.

"Mom, do you want to move to a smaller place?" I asked Mom. 

"Should we move to a smaller place?" she said.

"Better food, more outdoors?"

"Are we going to move me tomorrow?"

"No, not that fast. We'll let you know. We'll take care of everything, don't worry," I said, thinking I'll do enough worrying for both of us.

"I won't worry," she said. She looked down at her blanket and pulled it across her lap. "It's time to put this thing into orbit."

"Yes," I agreed. "Put that thing into orbit."

She laid down on the couch and pulled the blanket across her stomach. She gave me a peace sign. I gave it back and sang Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow. When I have the button pressed, I can't hear her but I saw her lips moving so I knew she was singing along. 

The chronic malcontent is starting to drool

This evening I was sitting in a meeting, reading out loud to a small group from a list on a piece of paper, and I found myself slurring some words. As I was reading, my mind was galloping along a well-worn path: Am I having a stroke? Are my teeth falling out? Is my hind-brain dragging? Have I gotten so lazy I can't be bothered to enunciate anymore?

My mouth suddenly felt uncommonly soupy. My dental hygienist, Debbie, often praises me on the amount of saliva I manage to generate, so it could be I was feeling overly energetic in the saliva department. Should I surreptitiously attempt to wipe the spit off my lip with my mittened hand? No, that would be gross. Like anyone is watching... is anyone watching?

In a split second, my brain had split in three: one part was reading, one part was observing me reading, and the third part was wondering if I was going to burst into hysterical laughter at any moment. I managed to make it through the reading with a semblance of a Mona Lisa smile. Finally, it was someone else's turn to read. I settled back in my chair and bent my head to my notebook. I started sketching furiously. A face, a drooping mouth...What the heck was going on?

Sometimes I stammer when I get self-conscious. It sometimes occurs when I listen to myself reading out loud. My level of self-awareness rises to such a pitch, I begin to pay excruciatingly close attention to my voice. The usual ticker tape of self-judgment begins to roll through the screen at the bottom of my mind: Do I sound like an idiot? I hate my voice. Am I mumbling? My lips are falling off! I can't breathe! Invariably, when I get to that point, I fumble the reading because I'm turning blue from lack of oxygen.

This rant reminds me of the time I entered a Toastmaster's contest during finals week in college. In front of 100 people, I bungled my speech. It was without a doubt the most humiliating moment of my life, still guaranteed to break me out in a cold sweat if I think too deeply about it.

I'm beginning to see a common thread here. It's my old enemy, self. Not the good guy self, as in self-care and self-realization, but the bad guy self, as in self-obsession, self-recrimination, and self-centeredness. Oh, those pesky selves. Wherever you go, there they are. There's no escaping them! I picture them as fleabitten little monkeys, wearing ratty red vests and fezzes, bashing cymbals in my eardrums at all hours. Hey, maybe that's where this vertigo is coming from. (I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of the first time I felt the vertigo, in case you are tracking. Which I'm not.)

Speaking of things there is no escaping: The ants are back. After a relatively ant-free winter, the hordes have returned. Luckily, I am not unprepared, thanks to the advice of my good friend, Carlita. I laid down my defenses some weeks ago (anti-ant spray). The desiccated carcasses of dead ant soldiers litter the counter under the window. Ha ha. But the scouts are somehow finding a way through my defenses and onto my shirt, where they make a run for the top of the hill (my head). They rarely get further than the back of my neck. Although last night one spent a few minutes speeding round the rim of my eyeglasses before I caught him and flung him in the brig.

Hey, I wonder if there is a spray to eliminate the overwhelming sense of self I'm sometimes feeling? Some kind of anti-self spray. Guaranteed to relieve you of the bondage of self. Wow, if I could bottle that, I bet I could make a fortune. Hey, you heard it here first!

The perils of cleaning

Our scrawny maternal parental unit is preparing to move into a retirement place. More on that another time. Earlier today I was sitting in a stuffed armchair in my mother's spare bedroom, riffling through a shoe box of used postcards my mother had saved over the years. Some were from me to my parents, written years ago, sent, and forgotten. It now appears my mother kept everything her children ever gave her, from kindergarten to adulthood. I read the postcards while attempting to keep my head motionless, trying not to rile the evil calcium carbonate crystals roaming like marauders through my inner ear. No easy feat. Suddenly, I heard my sister scream from the kitchen.

“What?” my mother called from the other bedroom. Spider, probably, I thought. I waited. My sister shouted again. Curious now, I got up to check out the ruckus. I found my sister in the living room, pointing at the pantry cupboard in the corner of the kitchen and doing a funny little dance.

“A mouse! A huge mouse!” she gasped. Ah. That explained the dance.

My mother was digging around in a big plastic bag that my sister had dropped on the kitchen floor. Apparently the mouse came out of the bag. I looked gingerly into the pantry cupboard. The dark, dusty floor at the back of the pantry looked like a place a scared mouse might be hiding. My mother kept digging in the plastic bag.

“Do you have a broom and a paper sack?” I asked, shouldering my mother aside. I began unloading a dozen cartons of rice milk from the bottom of the pantry cupboard, keeping an eye out for a large mouse.

My sister handed me a broom and dustpan with surgical precision.

“Can you block the doorway with something?” I asked. My sister quickly assembled a stack of boxes and lids. Wow, I thought. She's good.

It took a minute to move all the rice milk cartons onto the counter. My plan was to offer the mouse a nice cozy place to hide in the paper sack, hopefully with minimal coaxing from the broom. Then I could take the mouse outside and set it free near someone else's condo. I poked behind the old wooden box that had held the rice milk and saw something scuttle into a corner.

“Oh for crying out loud. It's tiny!” I said. Hovering anxiously in the hallway behind her barricade, my sister looked slightly chagrined. While I was standing there chuckling and feeling superior I noticed a stream of ants marching along the edge of one pantry shelf. What the—? Oh no!

Mouse first, then ants. I moved the box out of the way and raised the broom. The mouse ran past my shoe, around the corner of the pantry, and disappeared under the dishwasher. I straightened up.

“He's gone,” I said.

“Back to his family in the crawl space,” my mother muttered darkly.

“Did you know you have an ant problem?” I asked her.

“What?” She didn't sound particularly outraged. About either the ants or the mouse, now that I think about it. What's up with that?

From out of nowhere, Mom produced a spray bottle of insect poison and started spraying it randomly on the various boxes of crackers, cans of soup, and open cookie bags that were stuffed on the pantry shelves.

“What the hell!” I shouted and grabbed her arm. “Are you crazy? Good god, woman, that's your food!”

My mother retreated in a hurry, and I got down to the self-righteous business of clearing everything out of the pantry cupboard. My sister appeared from time to time with cardboard boxes to corral the stuff I pulled from the shelves. Among the items: half-used bags of brown sugar, two bags of loose generic puffed rice cereal, a bag of dusty granola, beat up box of stale graham crackers, half a can of baking powder, unopened jar of Tang (the astronaut's breakfast), and three bottles of corn syrup of various flavors and vintages. Three cans of chunky soup, four cans of tuna, a can of pears in syrup, and a can of water chestnuts. Unopened bag of white flour, unopened box of white sugar. Plus one can of pickled beets.

My sister loaded the boxes of stuff out to the patio, where she and Mom sorted, saved, and tossed. Meanwhile I washed down the shelves with some kind of cleaner, standing on a chair to reach the topmost shelf. I dried the shelves with a paper towel, and then I sprayed all the surfaces with the ant killer and shut the pantry door to let it steep.

We adjourned to the patio for a few minutes to regroup. Mom praised us. I apologized. My sister laughed. Some time later, when the pantry was dry, I laid down newspaper liners and loaded back the stuff they deemed worth saving, which took up about half the space it did before. Mom retired for a nap. My sister and I went out for coffee.

We didn't see the mouse again.

All hail the limited nuclear option

I've had a problem with ants at the Love Shack since I moved here over ten years ago, but with these warmer winters, the little beggars have been relentlessly staking out territory in every room. The kitchen, of course, would be an ant's first target: That's where the cat and I consume and spill the most food. In the living room, trails of ants congregate around the couch (where I spill food) and around the occasional pile of cat barf that blends into the rug so I don't see it.

In the bedroom, as I believe I have previously mentioned, the ants found an art project I did some years ago, which consisted of large jellybeans glued to a frame. I forget what the frame was framing; it was the colorful jellybeans that I liked, especially when sprayed with clear lacquer so they were bright and shiny. Like brand new jellybeans! Apparently, the lacquer on one of the beans finally disintegrated, thus opening the door to a swarm of ants, who marched out of the crack between the ceiling and the wall to raid the sugar in the jellybeans. This plundering of my art must have been going on for years, judging by the trail the ants left behind. I never knew; it was all happening up near the ceiling, and really, who checks for ants up near the ceiling?

And then, the bathroom, which you would think would be uninteresting to an ant, but I've bemoaned the sad fact that ants have congregated on my toothbrush before. Lately, a few scouts can be found wandering in the empty tub, for what reason I do not know. Lousy beggars.

Anyway, all that was to say, I've had a few problems with ants. I've been using bait traps, and that worked for a time, but after a while, I think the ant nests developed an immunity, like Portlanders develop an immunity to rain. One day a few months ago after feeling particularly dejected at ants biting the back of my neck, in my typical malcontented fashion, I happened to mention the situation to my friend Carlita. She recommended a product to spray inside and outside the Love Shack. I got some of that product. I sprayed. Carlita, I can't thank you enough. All hail the limited nuclear option!

For a day or two after I sprayed the window by the cat food, the ants were wobbling around like the walking dead. Then they all keeled over, like they had been mowed down with an unseen fist. With glee I swept up their tiny desiccated carcasses into little piles. The next day I swept up more! Ants fell out of the sky into the cat's water and floated there in little clumps, stiff and lifeless. A few desperate ants crawled up my shirt to lodge a complaint on my head, to no avail, of course. Once you've killed, it gets easier to kill again, I've heard. (Did you know ants smell rather pungent when you shmush them?)

Hallelujah, is all I can say. Yeah, it's a bit toxic, especially if you spray into the wind, but it's worth giving up some brain cells to finally beat back the relentless hordes. I'm thinking of taking up a foreign language to offset the loss of neurons, hoping to stave off Alzheimer's a little longer. Russian, maybe, or Spanish. (And if that ploy doesn't work, at least it will be easier to communicate with the CNAs in the nursing home. Although, who will be left standing to send me to a nursing home, I wonder? I live alone, so odds are nobody will know if I descend into dementia. But while I sit around wondering what day it is, at least the Love Shack will be ant free!)

Shmushed

I just finished editing and uploading some hapless doctoral student's wretched massive tome. Now I have a few minutes before The Walking Dead comes on the local re-run channel to reflect on ants, editing, and stupid people.

I'm feeling a little disgruntled. I counted up the hours I spent on the editing project and calculated I earned just over $16.00 per hour. You might think that is a pretty good wage. If you think that, you would be wrong. Don't forget that at least 40% must be set aside for taxes.

While I was in the bathroom staring at the whiskers hanging out of my nose, I reflected on the possibility of writing a little program that would edit a dissertation for me according to a frivolously random algorithm, replacing commas with semi-colons and periods with exclamation marks. My edited product might defy the rules of grammar; but it would certainly read more energetically! Grammar-shmammar, that's what I always say. To my cat when he's licking his butt in the chair next to me.

The most recent editing project, and the source of my disgruntlement, consisted of the first three chapters of the client's dissertation and her proposal. It's rare to edit the dissertation before approval has been granted to field the study. I get the feeling that this client's brain is not firing on all cylinders. No doubt she is exhausted from smacking her children, placating her husband, and making empty promises to her committee. Or maybe she's just not ready for prime time.

I edited the proposal first, so I would know what the study was about. That took an entire day. On day 2, after I was part way through the dissertation itself, I happened to see an email from the agency guy in my inbox: Hope you haven't started the proposal: the client has an updated version. Enjoy! My yowl of horror and dismay inspired my cat to leave the room for a while. I did a quick document-compare and found very little had changed. No harm, no foul. Thank you, editing gods.

Speaking of editing gods, where were they last week, I wonder, when I won and lost my first (and probably last) dissertation coaching client? All gods are fickle—driving gods, dieting gods, ant-killing gods are just a few of the wingnuts that rule my world...but few gods are more unpredictable or capricious than the editing gods. This is the story.

I got a call on my cell phone from someone I didn't know. That happens occasionally. I rarely hear the thing buzz. My business number rolls over to a Google Voice number, and Google Voice sends me a transcript of the message. I always chuckle when I read Google's attempt to convert someone's quickly spoken words into text, especially if the person has an accent. Which was the case with the message that prompted the ensuing fiasco/learning opportunity.

I deciphered the message by listening to it and heard a man's voice say, “My professor recommended I get a coach.” After some back and forth by email and phone, I met Alphonse last Saturday at a local college campus (not the one he was enrolled with), where we sat at a picnic table in the sun and tried to understand each other. He told he he was enrolled in an online doctoral program in Education at someplace based in Colorado. He needed a coach and some help with APA formatting, he said.

“Do you have a copy of the APA book?” I asked. I held up my tattered and annotated copy. He looked perplexed.

Alphonse is from Kenya and retains a strong accent even after two decades in the U.S. It takes me a while to get familiar with a new accent. Meanwhile, I read lips. His lips were thin, and his teeth were perfectly white. His gums glowed pink, like there was a light on inside his mouth. He laughed a lot. Too much, and way too loudly. I hadn't been out of the house much lately, so I felt a little shrunken at his exuberance.

“Here are two of my assignments that need editing,” he said, holding out two bent pieces of white paper crammed with lines of single-spaced text in a variety of barely readable fonts. I could feel my eyes crossing (which in retrospect was an important clue, if I ever decide I want to do this again). He told me he was in a doctoral program, which led me to assume that he actually qualified to be in a doctoral program. I mean, I assumed he could write at least at a college level; he had to have a master's degree from somewhere, right? So I didn't do more than glance at the assignments he showed me.

Caught in my assumption, I failed to see red flag #1 (poor writing skills) and forged bravely into the muck, agreeing to edit his school assignments, which two days later got me into a frothy brouhaha with his professor, a faceless academic working at a two-bit for-profit university (not unlike the one from which I matriculated), who thought I had written Alphonse's assignments for him. More on that in a moment.

My second error was assuming that because Alphonse could use a cell phone, he could use a computer. Specifically, that he could send and receive emails with attachments. That assumption led me to refuse to receive the flashdrive he tried to give me, stating instead, oh, just email me the files. I'll edit them and send them back to you! Tra la la. Thus, red flag #2: poor computer skills. It's difficult to instruct someone how to download a file over the phone.

Red flag #3 involved his concern about how much my services were going to cost him. Duh. If a person has to ask, obviously they can't afford me. But at that point, I was more interested in the process of acquiring a real coaching client than I was in making money editing. Curiosity won out over chasing the cash. I have yet to be paid, but it's only $67.00, so I'm not too concerned.

As you can imagine, the fact that Alphonse couldn't send and receive email attachments meant he had to physically drive to my apartment and deliver a flashdrive to me. The first time, I met him in the street. He handed off the little gizmo and departed in his Toyota Prius. The second (and third times), in utter frustration, I invited him into my sacred space (red flag #4! Luckily he wasn't allergic to cats) and attempted to teach him how to do some things on my computer: send and receive an attachment, do some online research at the county library, and log into his university course room and upload a file. Alphonse sweated, mopped his brow, and laughed and laughed.

Without a doubt, Alphonse has the worst writing skills I have ever encountered. I do not lie when I say the editing I did for him was essentially a translation from a bizarrely poetic foreign language consisting almost entirely of... well, see for yourself.

This passage, by the way, was formatted entirely in bold. This was one of four paragraphs, all similar. After weeping a little, I began to pick my way through this verbal minefield and eventually produced a concise, neat translation that more or less represented the ideas I was able to glean from the essay. I felt I'd done a stellar job editing difficult material, and allowed myself a smidge of prideful satisfaction, which quickly dissipated when I got a call from Alphonse telling me his professor wanted to talk to me about the editing I'd done for him.

After some phone tag (on a holiday!), I connected with Dr. Bob, who calmly and with arrogant complacency commenced to regal me with his professional pedigree: program director, wrote the curriculum, president of a college, founded a college... yada, yada. By this time, I had looked him up on the Web and I knew exactly who he was: an academic wannabe stuck in the for-profit higher education world. And a bully, too, I found out.

I don't bully easily; I bend, I don't fight back. I didn't argue with Dr. Bob. I couldn't have gotten a word in, even if I had wanted to. I knew I had done nothing wrong: Alphonse hired me to edit his essays, and I had done my job as an editor; however, from an educator's point of view, I had made it possible for Alphonse to cheat. Once I saw that editing his papers was not going to help Alphonse toward his goal of earning a Ph.D., it was clear I had to release my new coaching client.

Meanwhile, Alphonse decided he didn't like his online university and the bossy Dr. Bob and began taking steps to transfer to a local university in his neighborhood. He emailed me yesterday that wanted me to edit his admissions essay. I declined. Alphonse has called my cell phone three times today. My cell phone was dead; forgot to charge it up. Ha. Maybe there is an editing god.

This is way too long, so I'll tell you about the ants another day. Hint: The word of the day: shmushed.

Two ants shuffle into a bar

The balmy temperature has invited relentless droves of ants to once again infiltrate my kitchen. My puny barricades of diatomaceous earth and half-hearted moats around the cat food dishes are not working. Scouts wander the walls and ceiling over my kitchen table. Lone soldiers reconnoiter the table cloth, despite my efforts to thwart their access. Every hour I pluck and squash a hapless forager from the back of my neck. Why do ants feel compelled to go up?

Last week I expressed my frustration to my friend Carlita. “Get some of that spray stuff!” she recommended and told me the brand name. I got some at the store. It's a gallon jug with an attached sprayer device, a very clever delivery system. I kept it in my car for a few days (along with the gallon of anti-freeze, which my mechanic recommends I mix with water and put into my radiator reservoir when it falls below min). A couple days ago, I brought the ant killer spray into the house and set it on the floor by the kitchen door. I took time to read some of the instructions on the label. This weekend, as I reapplied diatomaceous earth and cleaned up scouts, I occasionally glanced at the jug of death juice.

Finally, tonight, I had enough. Start small, I thought. I'll do the cupboards under the sink and next to the sink.

I got onto my knees and started pulling junk out of the cupboards: four rolls of cheap paper towels; a jug of bleach; a jug of ammonia (do not mix!); a gallon of distilled water (for the neti pot); alcohol in a spray bottle (for killing ants, moths, and fruit flies); about twenty sponges of various types and a scrub brush thing that doesn't work (not enough bristles); a near-empty bag of diatomaceous earth; a few vacuum cleaner bags in a box (hepa filters); an old toothbrush; a very old and rusty SOS soap pad saved in a clear teacup; two thermoses and a thermos jug with two compartments for keeping food separate and hot (never worked); an empty tray with sections for serving fresh fruits or veggies, with clear lid (why?); four white plastic bowls with green lids in graduated sizes; one stainless steel mixing bowl; two measuring cups, one plastic, one glass; two ice cube trays; a cat food dispenser; a cheap Osterizer blender base and clear plastic container (lots of protein shakes have been made in that blender); a stainless steel sieve; and a big white plastic bowl (the fifth one of the set) holding a big white plastic colander of roughly equal size, which I use for washing broccoli and collards.

After I pulled all the stuff out onto the floor and counter, I saw a gruesome sight: splotches of mold and about a billion dead ant bodies, resting in small drifts around the edges of the cupboard. Hmm. I swept out the dusty carcasses and set about my task of creating a perimeter barrier with poison.

I detached the sprayer nozzle from its holder on the side of the gallon of pesticide. I pulled out the curly hose and attached it to the cap of the jug. I flipped up the switch and started pulling the trigger, aiming around the edges of the space under the sink. The juice flowed freely up the tube and sprayed neatly where I pointed the nozzle. I held my breath, but couldn't smell anything much.

I moved to the rest of the empty cupboards. Pretty soon, my throat started to feel just a teeny bit scratchy. I felt a righteous urge to keep on spraying. When I felt my mission was complete, I closed up the cupboard doors to keep the cat from investigating and backed away. Then I opened the kitchen windows wide, just in case.

I let the juice dry for a good hour before I opened the cupboard doors. While I waited, I cleaned all the junk that had been stored in there. A few things I chucked in the garbage (SOS soap pad). Some I put into the thrift store bin (the disappointing thermos). I found some plastic baskets and organized what was left.

I took time out to heat up my dinner: ground turkey and wild rice leftovers. While I ate, I read a book my mother had checked out from the library. The title of the book is What to do with your Old Decrepit Mother. Well, not that, precisely. The book is a guide for people who need to care for aging parents. The author outlined what to expect, where to put them, how much it will cost, what questions to ask the care facility... She also told the sad tale of her own aging father. By the time I finished eating, I was completely ruined.

I put my dish on the stack of unwashed dishes in the sink and peeked into the sprayed cupboards. Everything looked okay. Still moldy, but nothing shocking, like no dead squirrels. I started loading the junk back into the cupboards. It didn't take long. While I worked, I wondered why the author of that book didn't suggest the ancient resolution for old parents: taking them up the mountain and throwing them off a cliff. Maybe I haven't got to that part yet.

Knowing my luck, the ants that used to travel through those cupboards on the way to some other kitchen location will simply detour around the toxic barrier. There are more cupboards to do before my perimeter defense is complete. Plus the other side of the kitchen, around the table and the cat food area. Maybe I'll feel up for tackling that job tomorrow. Or not.

Isn't a lovely day? Too bad I can't let myself enjoy it.

It's spring for another day in Portland, and then we are back to the norm (rain). Rain is our year-round season. The only thing that varies is the temperature and how much wind there might be. We have jokes in Oregon about the rain: Oregonians don't tan; they rust. It's close to the truth. Besides some rust, I have a fine layer of moss on my formerly black Ford Focus. I'm sure if I sat outside for a week, I too would be coated with a patina of green fuzz.

With my windows open, I can hear the season unfolding. Loudly. The intermittent buses might as well be driving through my living room; their roaring drowns out my music, my television, the birds twittering, the cat yowling. On top of that, something new: The modern buses are equipped with an external loudspeaker. From it, a mechanical female voice echoes all day and late into the night: The bus is turning. The bus is turning. I assume this announcement is to warn pedestrians, cyclists, and stray dogs that the driver is blindly turning left, so if you are in the crosswalk, you'd better scoot. Bus drivers are known for running down peds in crosswalks here, so this loud proclamation is probably a good thing. But I think it is influencing my dreams. Run! The bus is turning! 

My sister has been pestering me for a year to turn the Hellish Handbasket blog into an ebook. Now that the dissertation adventure is over, it seems like it might be time. Plus, I don't have any work coming in, my marketing efforts have ground to a standstill, and no potential employers are leaping to snap me up, so what else is there to do? When all else fails, write a book. When I was twelve, that was what I did to feel better. I wrote stories in pencil on notebook paper and bound the pages with yarn. Fun! But I didn't have to earn a living when I was twelve. Just so you know, this ebook will not be bound with yarn or anything else. E means electronic, but hopefully not invisible. Stay tuned.

Also, while I watch for the universe to nudge me in some direction, it's a good time to vacuum my rugs, dust my shelves, and clear the clutter. There's really never a wrong time to clean, is there? I could vacuum daily and never eliminate the dust, detritus, and cat hair. If you have allergy problems, visiting the Love Shack should not be on your bucket list.

Before I close this post, I should update you on the ant situation. I had a chat with my little brother (a grown man of 50-something), who owns a house with occasional ant challenges. When I told him I often find ants on the back of my neck, he was appalled. You know that funny moment where you suddenly realize that the so-called normal life you take for granted is actually completely unacceptable to a so-called normal person? I had one of those moments. All it takes is an outside perspective to shift one from “Sure, I taped my students' mouths shut with duct tape. Can't think why I didn't do it sooner.” to “What, you mean that was wrong? Ohhhhhhh, yeahhh, I guess I see that now.”

So, maybe I've been too lenient on these effing ants, is what I'm saying. I'd already attempted to take the offensive. However, the ant poison I made myself from Borax and honey did not do the trick. Maybe it was the container, maybe it was the concoction, I don't know. Last week, I caved and bought real ant traps at the grocery store. I deployed these fancy store-bought ant traps in various kitchen places and waited to see what would happen. I monitored them closely, hour by hour. At first, I saw nothing, not even a few curious scouts. Then one night last week, I entered the kitchen to refill my water bottle before retiring for the night, and I saw a swarm of ants mobbing one of the ant traps.

Was I gleeful? Actually... not so much. I should have been jumping up and down in a victory dance. But I wasn't. Instead, I felt guilt and sadness. What a reprehensible thing to do, tricking ants into thinking they'd found a viable food source for the queens and babies back in the nest. Instead, they will die a horrible death. And it's all my fault. I don't want to kill anything, not even ants. I feel terrible. But I am leaving the ant traps where they are. I can live with my guilt. But I'm done living with ants.

The ants in the Love Shack are taking no prisoners

I decided to take the day off. From what, you ask? I know, it's not like I'm working. But I spend a lot of time working toward getting work. In fact, it's all I think about, especially this time of the month. Rent time, I mean. Usually I try to fit the various non-work parts of my life in and around my marketing activities. I feel guilty when I take work time to replenish my larder, or wash my clothes, or construct poisonous ant traps and deploy them in strategic locations. A person can't work all the time. That would qualify me for yet another Twelve Step program, and I'm maxed out on recovery programs, thank you.

So, today's Monday, and I spent the day getting stuff done. I have a list. Every day, I try to see how much I can do. Today I checked the PO box (empty), and stopped by the credit union to get quarters for laundry. I hunted and gathered (at Fred Meyers). In addition to a slab of wild salmon and heads of organic broccoli and cauliflower, I bought some 20-Mule Team Borax (bwa-ha-ha-ha), as well as some sticky black tape to repair the leaking pipe under my bathroom sink. Lots of projects going on at the Love Shack.

Before I started the indoor projects, I put on my grubby shoes and carried my clippers, garden knife, and broom out to the front garden to do a little weeding. A little weeding turned into a lot. (And I use the term garden very loosely.) Luckily, the ground is loose and lush, damp from yesterday's rain, so the stray grass and dandelions were easily uprooted with a little prodding from my garden knife (which is really a small, serrated tree saw). In an hour I had created a dozen piles of weeds and dirt. My back was aching, the sun was getting warm, and I had had enough. I dragged the big green rolling compost bin out to the front sidewalk. I filled the whole thing up, swept up the dregs with my decrepit straw broom, and wheeled the bin to its home on the gravel road, not far from the three metal pylons which are positioned to block drunk drivers from missing the turn and driving their cars onto the front porch of the duplex next door. (Long story.)

Then I took a bath, fixed the sink, and started brewing the poisonous concoction that I hope will rain destruction on the ant nests in the vicinity of my kitchen.

I know I said I wouldn't talk about the ants anymore. But I must tell you that I'm re-reading the few books I have from David Gerrold's the Chtorran series, and it's giving me serious pause. The Chtorrans are alien invaders, shaped like very large and voracious pink worms, who are not friendly neighbors. In fact, they are taking over Earth. Humans are hard pressed to survive. All their attempts to control the infestation are failing, and things are looking bad for the human race. Are you seeing any parallels here? Substitute small ants for large pink worms, and you get my drift.

A few days ago, I really thought I had the ant problem licked. I sprayed the kitchen counters with white vinegar (as suggested on someone's blog), and after an initial spurt of interest by roaming marauders, within a few hours, the counters were clear of ants. Amazing! I was feeling optimistic. Maybe I don't need the Borax bomb option.

Then I opened a cupboard, spotted a marching trail of ants, and followed them to their destination—the plastic bottle of honey that has stood quite innocuously in my cupboard for at least two years, probably longer because I rarely use honey. For some reason—and it's probably the same reason that prompted this years' crop of ants to seek out my old bottle of mouthwash and my stale menthol cough drops—the honey was suddenly a desirable target. Then I realized, these ants are way smarter than me. They had me fooled, they lulled me! False sense of security! Trojan horse! They disappeared from the countertops to fool me into dropping my guard. Then the pesky little guerrilla soldiers found a hidden path to their objective, weaving above my tea cups, out of sight. Argh!

After I nuked them and dusted their trail, I cleaned off the honey and put it in the fridge, vowing to turn their love of honey against them. All I needed was a tablespoon of Borax...

And then, suddenly, the counters were clear again. For two days, the kitchen was miraculously free of armies. A few scouts, easily sniped with my dusty paintbrush... once again, I was sure I had somehow gained the upper hand. Had they finally given up? Had the rain driven them away? Or the dust? Or the fact that there is nothing left for them to eat except well barricaded cat food and composting scraps in my bucket? (And my neck, of course.)

I actually bought the Borax today as insurance, thinking I probably wouldn't need it, that the ants had moved on, they were once again just doing their thing, scouting the premises and reporting back to their generals, no, nothing here, sir. All clear.

And then today...

I was lounging on my green shag carpet with my cat, competing for the little bit of sunlight that came through the window in the front door. Suddenly I spotted movement over by the wall. Oh, no! I ran for the dusting bucket, brandishing my paintbrush like an AK-47. My cat sat some distance away and watched curiously as I daubed the ant brigade with diatomaceous earth powder. Then I lifted up the edge of the carpet. A trail! Where are they going? What the—? and then I found the neat pile of cat barf, just under my dusty exercise bike, where the cat had left it, probably sometime during the night, judging by its color and condition. The ants were loving it, an indoor picnic on a green shag carpet.

I heated up the honey in a pan with a tablespoon of Borax and some water (and yes, I washed the pan well afterward). I poured the mixture into plastic tubs, poked holes in the lids, and taped the lids on tight. I used a marker to draw a little skull and crossbones on each container. Poison! Danger! Then I deployed one under the sink. The other two I placed outside in the dirt under my kitchen windows. Just in time to be diluted by a huge rainstorm, now that I think about it. Oh, well. I have more of the poison, in a jar in the fridge. Chemical warfare has commenced at the Love Shack. Enter at your own risk.

Tomorrow I'll get back to work. Right now the war is on. When I started this post, I found an ant on my monitor. Just now I found one on my keyboard. They are after my passwords, I imagine. It's only a matter of time before they drain my bank account. Leave me. Save yourselves. These ants are taking no prisoners.

Win a battle, lose a war

Are you sick of ants yet? One last post, and then I'm done with the ants, I promise.

After finding ants in every room, in places I've never seen ants before in the ten years I've lived in the Love Shack, I realized that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. What do you do when you are faced with possible extinction? I don't know about you, but I turn to the Internet. Yep. A couple days ago, I threw myself on the mercy of the Google gods and queried the Oracles for a remedy for ants.

I've done this before, lest you think I'm a total slacker. I may be past middle age, but I am not from the middle ages. I'm quite adept at looking up stuff on the Internet. Periodically I've sought remedies for ant invasions. That is how I found out about diatomaceous earth, which is rarely mentioned on ant remedy sites, I've noticed. Some people reported luck with a spray of vinegar, some sprinkled coffee grounds inside and out, or dribbled lines of cayenne pepper or scrubbed the floor with lemon. All great ideas. In my limited experience, however, the smell-good remedies don't smell bad enough to drive the ants from my kitchen. I can hear them laughing. Or maybe that's the cat.

This time I went online looking for some bigger guns. Instead of passive deterrence, I wanted a more aggressive weapon, something decisive, but preferably non-toxic to everything but ants. I want to win the war. I found a variety of suggestions, a few of which (very few) made me cringe. Pouring boiling water in the ant nest? Really? Ugh, I don't think I could do that, even if I could find their nest. The only ant nest I've ever seen was a plastic-covered ant farm when I was about seven. Hell, knowing my luck, the ant farms that are sending soldiers to the Love Shack are located directly under my bathtub. And my kitchen sink. And my bed. There might even be an ant nest in my hat, now that I think about it. I certainly find scouts on my neck often enough.

I decided to try the vinegar spraydown, since I have a bottle of white vinegar and a sprayer thingie. There were a few scouts reconnoitering the counter. I mowed them down using a wide-angle spray. The ants stopped moving, submerged in vinegar, which would probably be my response, too, were I subjected to the same indignity. Ouch, I imagine. I sprayed the splashback behind the sink and waited to see what would happen.

An hour later the place was swarming. What the—! Did I use apple cider vinegar by mistake? I know these guys love apples. I checked the label on the bottle: nope, white vinegar, the cheapest kind. Good for soaking the fungus from your fingernails and toenails, in case you are so plagued. What's with the vinegar fest on my counter? I theorized that the ants had dissolved into the vinegar, creating a kind of ant-flavored...uh, salad dressing? Tasty to other ants, perhaps? I don't know. I wiped the whole thing down with a sponge and walked away in disgust.

This morning I swept up a few scouts with my dusty powdery paintbrush with callous disregard for ant well being. I was ready to deed the kitchen to the ants and walk away. I got busy doing other things, and this afternoon, when I went into the kitchen... there wasn't an ant to be seen.

You know how things seem darkest before the dawn? This isn't one of those times, I'm pretty sure. This is more like that eerie moment right before the tsunami hits, when the water in the bay rushes out to the ocean and you can prance with the starfish next to the high-and-dry boats. While you are dancing, the water comes rushing back in and sweeps your village out to sea.

I think this is the calm before the tsunami. I'm trying to enjoy it. I've seen a few scouts today, just a handful. I peer at them. Did the vinegar leave a residue that is keeping the army at bay? Is it the rain? Did the landlord come round and surreptitiously nuke the ant nests with agent orange? I don't know. I'm afraid to question, for fear this calm will evaporate under a tsunami of ants.

Hey! While I'm blogging, what is that thing running around the edge of my glasses? What! I'm going to trash this entire post. I just found an ant on my glasses. I think the honeymoon is over. The final invasion is starting. Tomorrow I am going to buy some Borax and some sugar, mix them together, and put the resulting poison in plastic containers covered with plastic lids. I am going to poke little holes in the lids, and then I am going to put the deadly little tubs under my sink, in my cupboards, and outside below my kitchen window.

Watch me press the red button. Here I go. Five... four... three... two...

If you can't beat 'em.... eat 'em

The ants in my kitchen discovered a flaw in the security system I devised to protect my compost bucket from marauders. I did not realize that the lid of the bucket, open to the back of the bucket, extended past the dike of diatomaceous earth I had erected. Thus I inadvertently left a convenient drawbridge for the army of ants, who wasted no time exploiting my carelessness. I entered the kitchen in the morning, bleary-eyed, to find a long trail of laborers marching from the bucket, to the wall, along the bottom of the cupboards (out of my sight), to some tiny opening behind the microwave a good ten feet away.

I made coffee and drank it, mulling over my strategy. For some minutes, I watched the trail and considered doing nothing. I felt like god must feel, watching the little critters trooping along the edge of the bucket. I could almost hear them gloating to themselves: Apple cores galore! Banana peels! It's the motherlode. We're rich! Our children are saved! Even as I imagined raining carnage down on their tiny heads, I admired their relentless persistence. I am pretty sure these little buggers will outlast me. Long after I'm gone to the big compost bin in the sky, the ant armies will be industriously scouring the earth for apple peels and rotten bananas.

Humans are bigger and (arguably) smarter, but we don't play a long game. We get distracted by the day-to-day, we lose our focus. Once you lose your focus, you lose your drive. Forward momentum dissipates along myriad pointless paths. The ant blows by you while you are gaping at the stars. And that is why ants will inherit the earth. Hmmm. Inherit? They already own it. We are just renting month to month.

Eventually I went with the nuclear option and rained carnage on the unwitting trail of ants. First, I took the compost bucket out to the green rolling bin and dumped the startled diners out on their heads along with the kitchen scraps. Then I moved everything off the counter, napalmed the trail with alcohol which I keep in a handy sprayer bottle for just this purpose (why else would you put rubbing alcohol in a sprayer bottle?), and wiped up the carcasses with paper towels.

Since then, my strategy is to go Hannibal Lecter any time I spot something moving. I hunt the nooks and dig into the crannies. I stand vigil with the rubbing alcohol AK-47. After shooting intruders, I carpet bomb with the diatom dust. I told my friend V. about the episode. She shared some similar experiences. For an insane moment, we cackled like a pair of Hitlers.

Do I sound like I'm having fun? I'm not. I don't want to kill ants. If there is a hell, I'm going there. After the most recent Ant Armageddon, I'm sure there's no hope for my soul. My karma is ruined for a thousand lifetimes. I used to care. I used to try to save scouts if I could, or at least try to flick them in a direction that would save them from drowning or frying. I strive to live and let live. I rescue flies, spiders, moths, and yellow jackets. With ants, however, I admit I'm engaging in size discrimination. Ants are just too damn small to save. And when they congregate, which is sadly their nature, it triggers a fear that I will lose my living space to tribes of tiny squatters. And I go ballistic.

Now I don't care anymore. I'm overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And it's frustrating to discover they don't go gently into the good night, these ants. They petition me constantly, in protest for my heavy-handed Hitler management style. They climb up my shirt (never down, always up, aim for the head, get her!). They bite my neck, they self-immolate on my stove, they sponsor tours to gaze at my toothbrush. I swear they dive-bomb out of thin air to infiltrate juicy targets. The only safe place is in a tub of hot water, and even then they rage at me from the shore.

I don't always notice their protests, which must be so frustrating for them (and maybe why they feel they must bite me.) For example, I'm usually unaware of the brave volunteers who infiltrate my salad bowl. My cat won't eat ants: He knows they bite. But my nose is useless and my eyesight is terrible, so I don't see the ants in my food, waving their little protest signs at me. Freedom from tyranny! Stop the bombing!

Should I abandon my kitchen to the ants? Well, do we really own our kitchens? In a metaphysical sense, you could say our kitchens own us. I mean, I don't know about you, but I spend a lot of time worshiping at the big white box. Whatever. Anyway, it would do no good to abdicate and let them have the kitchen. Because they aren't just in the kitchen. As I've noted, they are in the bathroom, the bedroom, and the living room. Last night they were mining something on the couch. If I looked real close, I bet I could see them wearing tiny helmets equipped with flashlights and waving little pickaxes. I guess I should be thankful they are happy to clean up after me. I just wish they would do it at night, after the picnic, and then fade with the light, like some of their insect brethren.

Well, if given a choice, I'll take ants over cockroaches or bed bugs. Any day. I guess I should count my lucky stars. One....two....I'm counting now.

This time it's ants and dogs... well, one dog

Last night after blogging, I enjoyed an evening of network TV and congratulated myself that I'd won the ant war that has left the Love Shack in a dusty shambles. After some desultory surfing between Letterman, Fallon, and Kimmel, I turned off the TV and converter box and went into my bathroom to take a bath. When I turned on the light, I discovered to my horror another trail of ants, this time leading to the medicine cabinet (which is nowhere near the cabinet that held the half-empty bottle of mouthwash that was the center of the previous ant battle).

I howled. My cat came running. “I can't believe it!” I cried in anguish and ran for the bucket of diatomaceous earth powder. My cat watched as I daubed the loaded paintbrush into the crack that seemed to be spewing little ant soldiers. Then I gingerly opened the medicine cabinet door.

I don't store all that much in this shallow cabinet, probably because it isn't over the sink, like most medicine cabinets, but opposite the sink. I peer into the mirror occasionally when I'm trying to extract a recalcitrant whisker, but I don't really open the cabinet door that often. I yanked open the door to let in the light. The ants continued their industry. I leaned in to see the damage.

The jittery trail led up the side of the cabinet to one of the top shelves, where there was an opened package of cough drops, the menthol eucalyptus kind. (Hey, weren't those the same ingredients in the mouthwash?) I watched for a moment, paintbrush poised. The ants were marching in an out of the package in smart regimental style. Ho Weeee oh, yooooo-oh. You gotta admire the little f--kers, they really know how to get sh-t done.

I eighty-sixed the cough drops that were attracting the crowd, plus two other bags of herbal cough drops that were getting no attention at all. You can't be too careful. These cough drops have been stored in that cabinet for at least five years. If it took them that long to find the menthol eucalyptus goods, then it could be a while before they find the herbal stash. I'd rather jettison all attractive nuisances. I figure safe, not sorry.

So, maybe now I can do a tentative victory dance in the bathroom. I'll let you know.

I tell you, I need something to be glad about. Today I witnessed a sad event: the passing of the neighbors' dog, Mojo.

Mojo was a medium-sized skinny white dog with a big smile. He was shaky and mostly deaf, but always had a tail wag and a welcoming grin for me when I'd get out of my car. Old age came on him fast. Today I looked out my kitchen window and saw a small crowd crouched around something white lying on the grass in the neighbors' front yard. From the looks on all the faces, I could guess what was happening. I could just make out white fur between the rhodies that divide our two yards. People took turns patting the dog's side and fondling his ears. They were saying good-bye.

An hour or so later, I looked out my window again. Mojo, unmoving, was being attended by two people in scrubs. The vet, a hefty woman, sat awkwardly on the ground, efficiently assisted by a young bearded technician. They worked together to shave the dog's leg and insert a needle attached to a plastic tube. In a few minutes, some white stuff flowed through the tube. My window was closed: I couldn't hear any sobs but my own, but I could see that the women were weeping. The men did their best to look sad but stoic (although I noticed one guy couldn't watch while the needle went in.) Only Mojo's dad was unashamedly crying.

It was over in a few minutes. The doctor checked for a heartbeat. The bereft parents bestowed their final kisses. The tech wrapped the body in a blanket and put it in the back of their Mini. That was the end of the brave and kind dog named Mojo. I presume he will be brought back in a small cardboard box, or maybe an urn, and placed on the mantel to preside over the fireplace he used to doze in front of.

I've had allergies all day. I'm surrounded by piles of soggy white tissues. What's a few more tears?

Who does networking better: people or ants?

As I recover from the minor trauma of having my breasts squashed between two plastic plates by an overly enthusiastic technician, I reflect on two topics: ants and people.

First, people. Last night was the monthly meeting of the Organizational Development Network Oregon chapter. It was a lovely evening, by Portland standards: mid 60s, clear blue sky (in March! I know!), a slight breeze scented by growing things instead of perfume... It doesn't get much better than that this time of year. The meeting room in the multistory NW Portland Con-Way building wasn't quite ready when I arrived at 5:30 p.m. The earlier arrivals had commandeered the chairs in the security lobby waiting area. Other folks stood by the security desk, talking. I didn't know anyone by name, so I got my visitor pass and went back out into the sun.

A woman whose name escaped me (I know I am connected with her on LinkedIn...Don't get me started on the uselessness of that social network) was standing nearby, checking her smartphone. I greeted her. She responded politely. I said something about the weather. Her reply was terse. From that I surmised she was probably conversing with an invisible someone else via text and had no extra bandwidth to devote to a conversation with me. I was fine with that. I walked over to a bush covered with white blossoms and sniffed a flower. Heaven. The off- and on-ramps from the Fremont Bridge soared in the near distance, buzzing with rush hour traffic.

Time out while I brush an ant off my monitor.

Pretty soon another person arrived, a tall young woman in luscious cream pants and high-heeled shoes. She went in, got her visitor pass, and came back out. I greeted her. She responded politely and pulled out her electronic tablet thingy. She began poking at it intently, clearly not interested in talking with me. I leaned on the cement wall and watched as another person came outside, holding her smartphone in front of her. Now there were four of us standing in the sun outside the building, not talking. I couldn't help smiling, thinking how ridiculous, how strange, that four women who all belong to the same networking group are ignoring each other while standing no more than ten feet apart.

It occurred to me later, after we'd all gone inside, that if I were a paranoid schizophrenic, I would have assumed they were all texting one another about me. Who is that weird woman who always wears a hat? And those pathetic fingerless gloves... does she know they are just cut-off socks?

Time out while I flick an ant off my desk.

I don't care what people think about me anymore. I used to care deeply. Age has cured me of that particular malady, lifted it right out of me. Age has also transformed the mammogram from a dreaded, painful reminder of my femaleness to a slightly annoying, completely painless inconvenience in my day. I guess age has its uses. Deflated funbags being one I sometimes forget to be grateful for.

At the meeting, I sat at a table up front, where I connected quite satisfactorily with the younger-than-me woman on my left. She reported her status as “in transition.” At first I thought she meant she was dying. Then I realized she meant she's unemployed. (Although dying and unemployment could be perceived as similar conditions, with a little shift in my perspective. I fear I may find out for myself in a few months.)

Time out while I scrape an ant off the back of my neck.

The topic of the evening was brain-based coaching, also known as results-based coaching. Odd that two very different monikers name the same coaching process. I know squat about coaching, but I really enjoyed the workshop. Sadly, the trainer ran out of time and felt compelled to rush to the closing. As we were applauding, she tossed off a comment about how she learned that chasing the money instead of serving her clients got her neither money nor clients. And eureka, there was my nugget for the night.

Last night after I got home, I inadvertently located the hidden treasure of the ant hordes high up in a cupboard in my bathroom. They apparently weren't expecting me home so early. When I turned on the light, I found an ant caravan leading to a half-empty bottle of mouthwash I didn't know I had. The ants knew I had it, though. The random scouts had come back with the loot. The gold rush was on. It was a simple matter to nuke the mouthwash and dust the trail with diatomaceous earth. That should take care of the bathroom. (And by the way, don't you worry just a tiny bit about what ants would be attracted to in a bottle of mouthwash? The same thing that dentists are attracted to, I wonder?)

I had similar luck in the kitchen, where the ant generals got cocky and revealed the doorway to their underground cavern. I would have had to have been blind to miss the pack trail going into a tiny cave by my vitamin cupboard. I swooped in with the dust bomber (a paintbrush dipped in diatomaceous earth) and plugged up their door.

I thought that might be a turning point in the war, that I might finally be getting the upper hand. But earlier today, I was folding tee-shirts after laundry, and found ants roaming the stack of tee-shirts in my dresser! Wha—? There is no food in my dresser. The only food in my bedroom is carefully wrapped and stashed in my bugout bag (in preparation for the earthquake, coming soon). I checked the bag: no ants. So what the heck are they doing picnicking in my tee-shirts? I'm confounded. I admit it. I don't understand ants. Or people.

I just found a caravan of ants trundling along the bathroom door jamb. I ran to get the diatomaceous earth bucket and paintbrush. Suddenly I felt something crawling on the back of my hand. Some things. Ants! Crawling from the dust, making a break for freedom, via my hand! The resilience (and nerve) of these tiny creatures is astounding. If I had half their persistence, well, I leave it to your imagination.

Excuse me while I pull my ant helmet further down over my ears. Clearly, this siege is not ending any time soon.

It must be spring! The chronic malcontent has been swarmed by ants

It's that time of the year again: the season when I subsume my own needs and desires to the whims of the insect overlords who inhabit the Love Shack. I once thought I was something special because I'm descended from cells that figured out how to escape the primordial ooze. Now I know I'm nothing but a transport device for my ant masters to move from one part of their domain to another. And if I forget it, they do not hesitate to punish me by biting the back of my neck. Bad human!

It's hard to imagine creatures so tiny could have such a profound impact on something as large and powerful as a human (I claim god-like qualities because it's true: I'm bigger than an ant and capable of raining serious destruction on their tiny heads. That makes me large and powerful.) What impresses me is how relentless they are. And sneaky. (If I were half that relentless and sneaky, well... you can imagine! I probably wouldn't live in a place overrun by ants!)

In my efforts to defend my turf, I periodically reinforce the barricade around my compost bucket with a wall of diatomaceous earth, which I understand for an ant (or any crawling insect) is quite painful, like swallowing pins while walking on broken glass. White powder runs the length of the counter and surrounds the microwave. The place looks like a debauched baker got carried away with the wheat flour. Of course, if you know me, you know that we are gluten-free here at the Love Shack. So it's more likely to be anthrax than wheat flour. (Kiddding.) In any case, once it gets wet, the diatomaceous earth is no longer effective. Then it clumps into handy little stepping stones for ants to more easily forage among the tasty detritus around my sink.

Last night I found a dozen ants congregating in my bathtub. The cabal broke up when I swooped in with a sponge. Now, I don't mind sharing my space with well behaved critters. I'm all about live and let live (as long as you stay out of my bed). I'm sorry to say, some of them ended up floating in the soap scum. I don't like to see any creature suffer, but let's be realistic. It's pretty damn hard to save every drowning ant, especially when they are hell bent on invading my bathtub. What can you do? Well, the good news: So far they have avoided my toothbrush. I take that as a sign that I've finally found a toothpaste that doesn't appeal to ants (and dentists).

While I was on the phone today with my friend V., two ants skittered across the back of my neck. I assumed they got on the mass transit system (my fleece shirt) in the kitchen, planning to get off in the living room, where they no doubt intend to watch television or surf the Web. However, V. said something that led me to believe that ants are dive-bombing onto my head from the ceiling! I can't see them, but they are sneaky, as I have already pointed out. I wouldn't be surprised if they have little cloaks of invisibility.

Desperate times call for drastic measures. (Coincidentally just in time for Easter) I'm in the process of inventing a hat shaped like a wide flat bucket. I have plenty of cardboard. I intend to fill the hat with diatomaceous earth. The stuff isn't heavy, so that won't be a problem. It's a bit dusty, though, so I might have to wear a face mask. Small inconvenience if it keeps the ants off my neck. Have I mentioned, those little f--kers bite!

While patrolling the kitchen, I captured two scouts exploring the cat food area. I don't know how they got through. They must have had inside information. I've got the whole cat food area diatomaceously dusted... under the rug, around the edges, all along the window sill, and under the elevated platform on which the cat food dishes are placed—in water filled dishes that serve as moats. (We aren't kidding around here at the Love Shack.) And still the ants have infiltrated my defenses. They are either kamikaze sky-divers, or they are spirit ants from a parallel universe. Either way, I'm fighting a losing battle. If I don't post again within the week, send in the fumigators and save my cat.

You know something is wrong when ants gather on your toothbrush

I suspect consumer products firms are making products that require the purchase of more of the same products. What do I mean? Well, vitamins come to mind. How do you know they actually work? What if they make you feel lousy, which inspires you to buy more vitamins? Ever think of that?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe humans can ever get along long enough to conspire on anything more complicated than texting a vote to American Idol. Something has happened to make me consider changing my mind.

Every day this week, I've found a little cabal of ants crooning in a daze on the bristles of my toothbrush. I shudder to imagine how many times I've brushed my teeth without checking for the presence of critters. (Ant-flavored toothpaste, anyone?) So, what would you think if you found ants gathering on your toothbrush? Wouldn't you think there was something in the toothpaste that ants found attractive? Like, maybe, sucrose, sucralose, or some other ingredient that by any other name would be just as sweet as sugar? Eew. I'm officially grossed out. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that dentists are in cahoots with Proctor and Gamble.

This isn't the first time I've had misgivings about consumer products. I've long suspected facial tissue manufacturers. It seems to me that every time I blow my nose, I feel compelled to sneeze, which means—you guessed it—I must blow my nose again. I have allergies to a lot of stuff in the Love Shack, for instance, dust, hairballs, mites, pollen, cat hair, and did I mention dust? I sneeze a lot, especially on special once-a-year occasions like vacuuming days. Sneeze, blow.... a-a-a-choo! Blow again. Well, a genius brain like mine eventually spots the connection between sneeze and blow... hey, maybe there is some sneeze-inducing compound on the tissue! Their slogan oughta be Pollen-infused Softness. Or how about, Fresh as a Stamen. Or maybe, Carpals and stamens, for those personal moments.

While I wait for feedback on draft one of my dissertation, I decided to clean up the apartment. I started in the bedroom. I washed the curtains. I folded the laundry and put it away. I stripped and flipped the mattress and replaced the summer percales with winter flannels. I swept up the little drifts of diatomaceous earth that I used a few months ago to barricade the cat's water bowl from the ant hordes. I moved everything off the carpet and vacuumed up the ankle-deep layer of dust, detritus, cat litter, and hairballs. I stopped every 15 seconds to sneeze, blow my nose, sneeze, blow my nose. My sinuses quickly swelled to fill up all available space in my cranium. Eventually I had to breathe through my mouth, and thus was able to stop sneezing for awhile. I don't clean very often, and this is why. It's an ordeal that lasts for about three days after I stop cleaning. The nights are especially long when one cannot breathe.

I'm not counting, but I'm pretty sure I've sneezed at least 20 times since I started typing this post. The mountain of used tissues takes up much of my desk. (I like to use them twice before tossing, you know, really get my money's worth.) Now my eyes are swimming. I'm having a hard time seeing the screen. It's time to find a drawing to illustrate my misery. And then I'm going out for a walk. The pollen in the park can't be any worse than the dust mites in the Love Shack.

Self-employment and ant wars

While I wait to find out if the Institutional Review Board at my illustrious higher education institution will approve me to interview human subjects, I am floundering deeper into the murky bog of self-employment. My business plan is taking shape. That is part of the problem: I'm mostly form and little content. Story of my life. It's all about look-good. If you look good, then you must be ok. I'm not going to go into any of that, maybe you get my drift, maybe you don't, it doesn't matter. What I'm saying is, my business plan looks awesome!

And they say there's no point in liberal arts degrees. Ha! I knew that B.S. in art would finally pay off. Why, I'm utilizing all kinds of “useless” skills during the process of crafting this plan. Philosophy! (What is my customer service philosophy?) Creativity! (I included a rich picture of the research process. From now on, everything I write will include a rich picture. That should be fun. For example, how about in a note to the Self-Employment Assistance case worker? Hey, wtf is this stupid picture for? Hmmm. Well, maybe not everything...) I'm thinking outside the can of worms, or however the saying goes.

I'm a little nutty. I've spent just over eight hours today working on this plan. I've looked up my local and online competitors, seen some impressive websites (and a few that made me say, hey, I can do it better than that!), thought about my marketing approach, my pricing structure, my communication strategy... my mind is bubbling with ideas that will fade to hazy memories come tomorrow morning. I'm trying to remember everything. I'm trying to shove all the pieces together in my mind, to make a nice, neat diagram. Hence, the rich picture. I'm tired.

I can't think of much I'd rather be doing than creating this fledgling business. Except maybe laying around in the tub, reading vampire romances and eating potato chips and ice cream. That won't be happening, at least not the chips and ice cream part. Starting this business seems like the next best thing. But I fear I'm so involved in doing that I don't have time to worry about whether it will actually work. Sort of like going for a jog with my nose three inches off the ground. Wow, aren't all these pebbles interesting—Blam! Hey, where'd that tree come from? In the business world, we talk about doing the wrong thing well. That could be me.

The last confounding question is this, and this may be the profoundly perplexing metaphysical question of our time: What do ants find interesting in an empty bathtub? I'm serious. I want to know. There are scouts—a few intrepid explorers—relentlessly trundling along the edges, across the bottom, searching for something. What are they seeking? It's raining outside, surely they can't be thirsty. There is no food in there, far as I know. So what are they looking for? I have an idea, and it makes me slightly queasy.

A few nights ago I was relaxing in a hot tub of water, reading some sci-fi escapist trash, when I felt something pinching me on the upper back. What the f—? I leaned forward, looked around, and saw about ten ants swarming right where I'd been leaning. They bit me! The little pissant ants, they bit me! So now, when I see them roaming the empty tub, I have an uncomfortable feeling they are looking for me. The big warm hunk of protein and blubber. Must feed the children! If they can take me down, my dead carcass will keep their larders stocked for years, considering all the extra meat on my bones.

My cheek is twitching. Time for a bath. Hey, if you don't hear from me for a while, send the coroner. He'll probably find me in the tub, feeding the ants.