• Oh really?
• Wow!
• How fun!
• That's awesome!
• Oh, cool!
  and my absolute favorite:
• Oh my gosh, yeah!
  

First, they invaded the bathroom. Like good little soldiers, they foraged for food in the pockets of my brother's jeans. The crawled up and down the tile and the off-white walls, over my bathrobe and towels, leaving that dumb scent trail they leave for their brothers to follow.

I killed them individually. I smashed them with my fingers. The way someone with a history of childhood trauma or murder would do. But truthfully, I did it out of love. Love, when I slid my finger across the counter-top, leaving a trail of dismembered ant. I did this out of love, believe me. To smash an ant is one thing, to ensure its death is another. There is nothing worse that seeing an ant twitch, twitch, uncurl itself from the mess I've made of it and continue limping, in search of food.

And then I drowned them. Spritzed them with a mixture of water and soap. They wanted water? I'll give them water.

But I wanted to kill the Queen. (I think I did. She was large, and flew onto my bathroom door. I smashed her with a napkin that I flushed down the toilet. She didn't move. She saw the shadow of my hand. She waited for her death, just like that. Now she is nothing more than an invisible splotch on my bathroom door). My parents refused to let me buy borax, to mix a poisonous solution that would kill the entire colony living in my walls.



I bought two books about ants when I was little. One came with a little plastic ant farm which was never filled. (In my attempt to fill it, an ant got into my eye, which I cried out). I tried to lure them with a Kit Kat bar, but no go. They had no interest in living in my man-made biosphere, and if they did, they did a good job in disguising it.

The other was a journal. An ant journal. Would you believe that? The day in the life of a carpenter ant. She had feelings and hopes and dreams and memories. She wrote about how she loved this particular spot of jelly for a picnic, how larvae hatched, what the Queen was like, but not about death. Not a single word about death, or sprays, or merciless smashing fingers. All she talked about was how she worked, and how she loved it.



I found one on my arm last night, when I was lying in my Martha Stewart bedsheets. And then another, trekking across the sea foam green. I killed them both. I checked my new lucky bamboo. One was crawling inside the glass, flirting with the surface of the water. I waited for him to come out, and I killed him too. And then I took a shower and changed into spandex to wear to sleep. The last thing I want is ants in my pants.
 

Since watching (500) Days of Summer, cleaning, realizing the fact that my bedroom will now (for the most part) belong to me and only me, hating my desk (and the spiders who undoubtedly live under it), I have been harboring a desire to go to Ikea.

So I did. Yesterday. There, I bought three lucky bamboo stalks (which aren't really bamboo at all).

 

 Apparently, these plants are extremely low maintenance. They live in water that you only have to change every two weeks, and are happy to sit on my desk without direct sunlight, soil, or food. Hopefully they won't die on me. Like my cactus. And my science fair bean plants. Cool.

I've decided that mental health is really important. Thus, the strings of mental-health days I've started my summer with. People think it's weird that some days I don't go out at all, except for practice. My skin color remains only a fraction of a shade darker than it was in winter, while my school-friends are all darker. They have summer hair and smell of sunscreen and the beach.


People think I'm lonely inside my apartment. They find it humorous that I'd rather watch Earth with my parents than "hang out" with them. (Which we did. And before that, we watched the Soloist. And after Earth, we saw Up). Truthfully, I hate the idea of "hanging out". I think it's a cheap expression for sitting around doing things I would much rather do by myself. I cringe at "hanging out". It means the mall or the movies and then dinner with awkward bill splitting that I hate, and then silently fighting about whose parents will drive us home.

I'd rather talk.

It doesn't help that the words "hanging out" sound so sleezy. Every time someone asks me to "hang out", I can't help but picture a hooker in fishnet stockings and bad makeup with her breasts and gut "hanging out" over a slutty outfit.


Back to the subject.

So I've been taking mental health breaks. I don't think I realized the importance of them this past year. Just to kick back and relax, in the comfort of my own home where I am finally, finally allowed to do whatever the hell I want and just be. I don't have to talk to anyone if I don't want to.









The other day I listened to four whole CDs while reorganizing some papers. The sun shone in through the window while The White Album played, while the Cold War Kids' album played, while Vampire Weekend played, where all these voices played and the sun shined and I hummed; my hair a mess; my clothes dusty; while I sneezed in time with the rhythm of some song I don't remember; while I breathed summer air and took a mental health day again, again, again.

My mom is letting me borrow (unofficially) her old Canon EOS IX Lite film camera. I love my new Nikon d40, but I want to try film too. So hopefully it's not a failure.