when_i_woke raze when i woke, there was an ant on the pillow next to mine. it was lying on its back. its legs were moving. just a little. it looked like me. it looked like it was waking up. "what_the_fuck?" i said. "what are you doing here?" i blew on the sleepy visitor. that always gets them to run back to wherever their nest is out of fear. nothing happened. i cradled its body in kleenex, sure the threat of being crushed would get it to stir. still nothing. it didn't lie down next to me to get some sleep. it came in here to die. the most comforting place it could find to spend its final seconds was beside the inert shape of someone who would have killed it at any other time of day. so i got to do the noble thing for once and lay a leaving thing to rest. 220508 ... epitome of incomprehensibility ...it hurt to swallow. And I'd thought my blocked ear the day before was an allergy thing. I thought it was a cold (it still might be), but I asked Dad to get me a rapid COVID test kit, which he did after his walk with Mom in the nature park this afternoon. The result was a bit ambiguous - there are supposed to be two lines but the second one was very faint - so I'll try another tomorrow. I'm not very sick (sore throat mostly), but I'm a bit pissed off. This is JUST when I finished my term's work and was looking forward to going to the movie theatre, library, etc. If I have it, it's only five days of isolation and then I can be up and about if I feel better. So no REAL reason to complain. I need to get some creative writing done to send to Janet anyway, and there are plenty of things to read. And at least it's not just before I had to fly to England. But how_the_fuck (to continue a motif introduced in the meeting-an-ant prelude) did I catch this thing? Je ne comprends pas. 220508 ... past a deep feeling of stress rested on my soul. "ah," i thought, "i must be kicking the cold because i am able to feel overwhelmed again." 220527 what's it to you? who go blather from