I've been writing. Just not here. I've been writing lyrics and poems and sorting through prejudice in my written journal that Hurricane gave me ten thousand years ago. Soe just posted about the fall, and believe it or not, I can feel it here as well. I was still in my bikini all day yesterday, but there was a cool breeze blowing through our little hood, and the color of the sky seemed crisper.

I pulled one of my tomatoes, and replaced it with an avocado that's been shooting on the windowsill. I have some sprouting purple potatoes that are next in line, I'm letting them shoot inside and hopefully the last two tomatoes will be finished bearing by the time they're ready to go in the soil. Mummy said to just put them in the dirt, but I'm not ready and I want to try this experiment, we'll see...

The other day I stepped onto the back patio and I saw something dark writhing on the tile. Upon closer inspection, I found that it was actually a mouse being devoured by an army of carnivorous ants. The mouse looked like Swiss cheese, it had so many holes in it, and there was a strange halo of grey fur all around it, as if it were floating on a cloud of the remnants of it's own demise. I'm sure Mister was the initial killer, but this event has caused me to pause and look even closer at the activity of the ants in and around our house. I've found that they have become alarmingly aggressive, and numerous. Yesterday I saw that there is a veritable superhighway leading from an inconspicuous crack in the garden wall to the trash bin, a length of fifty feet, and at least thirty ants deep. Caroline and I named the forks at the end after some busy highways that surround our neighborhood, and had a good laugh about it, although the mirth was colored by a minor uneasiness.

For the ants are not confined to the outside, oh no. I came home the other night to a drunken swarm of them lusting over the crusty drops around the rim of a bottle of Southern Comfort. A bottle that has not been moved, touched or opened all summer, I might add. Why the sudden interest? Do ants hibernate? Or have a storing season? They've even been at the lemons that fall on the ground. Natalie suggested that we might wake in the dead of night to find ourselves being carried away and shoved down some hole out back. I slept restlessly last night.