Story

Los Angeles is oddly devoid of bugs in my experience. Ants, cockroaches, silverfish, I have grown accustomed to visits from these creatures in nearly every other place I've lived.

A few weeks ago, while eating dinner at a friends house I said, "I counted the number of room mates I've had, including family members. Anyone I've lived with for more than a month."

"I've lived with just about 30 people."

This started a flurry of calculations and musings from everyone else in the group. The largest number of room mates was 30 and change.

Lately, with the windows open all the time, I have seen some little flies in our apartment. Bill says to "kill on sight." These flies will get into grains and flour, mate, and destroy any interest in using that item as a food source again. For human consumption anyway.

I'm reading a short story now by Miranda July named "Something That Needs Nothing." In it this woman describes her relationship with another woman who she has had a few sexual encounters with in the past ten years - they are now living together. In it this woman, the narrator, discusses how she was once friends with another woman, a classmate of hers when she was a teenager. She describes this friend, Tammy, as a friend who "Everyday she told me everything she was thinking, and I guessed that this was what most girls did together."

I feel I've weaned myself off this experience, I want to try getting back to it a bit more. While writing this I squashed a little red bug walking across my computer. Narratives rule.