2007-06-05 - 2:34 a.m.


1. I held my hand into the air and a firefly bumped into my finger and clung to me.

When I was a kid, they would climb to the tallest part of available flesh and alight, but this one did not. This one stayed on top of my finger for several city blocks until I thought perhaps I was being cruel by taking it so far away from familiar territory.

To make amends, I began to look for fireflies in the grass so I could set it down near a possible mate. I was told as a child that male fireflies blink in the air and look for willing females blinking in the grass. Now that I am older, I can question the maybe-science that children repeat to each other and the gender politics that go along with this arrangement.

Anyhow. I put my three-block friend onto a plant in someones unkempt lawn, next to a very large firefly. Assuming females really ARE in the grass, this one was Amazonian. I hope he likes strong women.

I guess I should look up fireflies now to see whether or not males fly up in the air while females wait for their paramours.


2. I once (or twice) read somewhere that most ants do nothing, most of the time, and I can believe that now.

Ants have taken up residence in the kitchen wall, leaving through a breach and investigating our countertop. They are tiny, tiny and wander across a barren landscape of clean linoleum. What attracts them to these wastelands? There is no food for them there. Often I find them standing around the dishwashing liquid and I don't know why. I'm a little perturbed that I am beginning to identify with them for these same reasons.


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