Introduction

I currently reside in Los Angeles in a cozy apartment where the hygienic standard remains quite high due to the vigilant efforts of an ant colony. Camponotus modoc I believe, though my taxonomic skills are rudimentary at best. The kitchen trash can lives and teems just outside the back door and even a speck of consumable matter left unattended on a countertop is equivalent to a vellum lined invitation for an expedient infestation. These tiny cohabitants are in many ways humble, in size and ferocity, but so organized, hard-working and abundant in number that humanely containing their population is a daily chore. Lemons seem an effective deterrent. Lemons and garlic everywhere. The other day I was mincing garlic as I watched a lone forager enthusiastically charge a clove in wait. Upon making contact with the garlic, the ant turned and ran in the opposite lemon-soaked direction, clearly discombobulated by the apparent sole choice between garlic matter and lemon juice, probably feeling on an instinctive level like I feel about exercising my right to vote. The perfect workers - industrious, indomitable, unquestioning drones. Yesterday I watched an ant crawl across my leg with another, presumably dead ant in its pincers... I'm skeptical this transport of remains was for any kind of funerary rite outside of protein worship.

But here I am prattling on about bugs when there's work to be found (and lost).

 

This account begins after I quit my first post-college "real" job in the fall of 2008. Upon receiving a Liberal Arts education at a public university of debatable desirability in today's market, I hit the ground running. At one point during my tenure as a non-profit administrator I realized the only time I smiled genuinely for days on end was in response to late night LOL cat perusal. As in, I can has the pursuit of happiness. The unexpected upward jerk of my neglected facial muscles was painful. After a year, I was sick of touching bases, reaching out, following up, groping for proof that human connections still have meaning in an environment best characterized by cunning superficiality, political office gossip voodoo and ennui. My choice was easy enough to make: get out or shrivel up, reticently retreating to a self-contained existence of wretched servitude, crossword puzzles and e-greeting cards with dancing banana icons that mirthlessly chant “Happy Friday”. Yes, indeed. Crisis be damned, I was peacing out. -This account is the result, a sort of field guide for how to deal with failure and rejection without laughing or crying out loud until you are safely closeted away in your own home.