PBW: Feeling Antsy

Do you ever feel “Antsy”? There's a feeling of boredom or claustrophobia, a nagging suspicion that there's something you should be doing, but what this is is just out of your grasp.

The other night working at my computer, struggling with this feeling, I heard a scuffling noise on the floor. I looked down into the shadows at the foot of my bed and saw nothing. Then I saw movement. A black ant about the size of a fingernail scurried into a corner, hoping I didn't see him. It may have been the largest of that species ever to venture into my house. Photo Blog Wednesday always a concern, I decided to capture and photograph the subject.

Nearby was a small Snapple® bottle, recently emptied of its contents, water, lest anyone think I had a sugary substance to attract insect friends. I'll generally refill a bottle with water a few times before discarding it in the recyclable bin. I lured him into the container, and a photoshoot ensued before I left the bottle on its side outside on our verandah, with the cap off for him to find freedom and live out his days as a giant ant.





That's what boys do, sometimes even at the ripe age of 32. The next morning, I told the tale to my mother.

“Oh, is that where that came from? I squashed it this morning.”

I was horrified. After all that, it stayed in the bottle until the next morning, when my mom went out to check on her plants, dumped the bottle out and stepped on its contents.

“Do you want to see it?”

I did not. I only hoped that the size of the creature indicated many long years before meeting its demise on the heel of an old lady's slipper. Perhaps bugs are growing larger these days, though. On Wednesday, one of my cubicle neighbors heard buzzing in her cube and swatted a horsefly bigger than my ant with a folder. He staggered around on her desk, stunned, and fell to the floor, where he continued to walk in circles. She couldn't finish the job, so I had to take a paper towel and put him out of his misery. And yes, I did think about taking pictures first but a camera wasn't handy.

Insects face danger when the head inside. People face danger when they head outside. It's been a week since my ankles burned at the beach, and they still look like this:




I know; gross and unnecessary. Hopefully that heals soon.

For anyone antsy and eager to leave this post after that, I do have some pleasant images this week. One morning before work, I finally caved to my mom's requests to shoot some of the more colorful things growing in our yard:




If only he crawled out of the bottle, what a wonderful yard that ant would have found to live in. I can't imagine why anyone would want to come into my room besides me. I definitely need to do something with this space soon, and find some time to organize it. This is a bit like peeking into my brain, but I decided to try an experiment this week. Standing on my bed in the precise center of my room, I took a picture, turned to the left and took another picture, and repeated this process until I was facing where I started. I then strung these together as a false panoramic shot that doesn't quite but almost works. I suspect a tripod or a monopod with the camera at a fixed height and a level angle to avoid conflicting perspectives would do the trick, and perhaps I'll try again someday when the room is more presentable. Click below for a larger image, if you dare...



I can't imagine why I sometimes feel antsy.