Sphecidae

wasps, ants, and substacks

Adjustment

It’s the Fourth of July, American Independence Day. Fuck yeah, grilling and fireworks. I woke up too damn early for a day off. The Cat, the black little furry beast, likes to schizo out in the morning and wake everyone up. Once the kid is up there is no going back to sleep. Which was fine because I was in the middle of a weird dream where I was driving a large RV around a wooded lake. I got up to pee, went to the back of the RV, and noticed that it was infested with these bulbous orange ants. I was pissed off because it explained the reason the RV was so damn cheap, it was a rolling ant colony. I fucking hate ants, industrious little shits. I’ve always agreed with the grasshopper.

I was feeling manic so I went downstairs and did the dishes. We are having friends over and I want the place to look nice. I spent most of yesterday cutting the grass in 90-degree heat so the yard would be a pleasant place to spend time in tonight, so I wasn’t about to let a pile of dishes ruin my good mood. Sometimes I’m an industrious ant.

I ate some grapes, drank a cup of coffee, and came upstairs to write. I didn’t write much this morning, nothing is coming out and I have a bit of a headache. I drank a bottle of wine last night and watched Child of God. I think I stayed up a bit past 11 pm, back in the day I used to start my night at 11 pm but now I like to be in bed around 9:30. I’m a hardcore party animal these days, Pinot Grigio, a nice piece of fruit, a decent movie. Wild night.

Anyways, nothing exciting was coming out, I think it was the morning sun coming through the window, giving me a headache, so I went downstairs to cook up another cup of coffee. I’m a French Press guy, but lately, I’ve used the Bialetti Moka Pot my wife bought me a while back, there's something pleasant about the dark bitter Italian brew that I’m enjoying right now. I also like the bubbling sound it makes when the hot water starts to push through the coffee grounds, it has this alchemical laboratory vibe.

While I was waiting for the coffee I walked over to the back door to see if there were any cool birds in the backyard. Earlier there was a red house finch at the birdfeeder and a mockingbird on the fence. The birds were gone but I spotted this evil looking black wasp. The creature was diving into a hole in the ground, over and over, so I got closer to inspect. The hole was the entrance to a fire ant outpost. The beasts are slowly colonizing my yard and I’m going to have to genocide them soon. Well, this wasp, this sleek, alien machine, was diving inside the hole and fucking these ants up. It kept going in and out, each time coming out with gross white looking pebbles that I assume were disgusting fire ant larvae. The ants scrambled out in panic, frantically scurrying around the mouth of their hole trying to keep the flying death away from their bloated eggs. I watched this display of insectoid brutality for a few minutes until my coffee started to bubble and boil. I should do something nice for the wasp, I hate fire ants.

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Insect Songs

Something is irritating about Substack. It’s the boosterism, the pretension of professionalism. People asking each other what the best way to post, or the best practices in getting readers or whatever the fuck. Listen, I’ll tell you. The best way to get and keep readers is to write something that isn’t shit. It’s not about your posting routine, your formatting, or your interaction and feedback. Nobody gives a shit. If you write stuff that people want to read they will come back and read more of it. If you don’t then you are wasting your time. There’s this gross vibe of importance about a fucking newsletter blog. This place is just onlyfans for ugly people, alcoholics, and nerds. We aren’t better than the whores who sell tit pics on Instagram, let’s not pretend we are.

Talk about selling. I’m done with selling short fiction. Honestly, I’ve been done with selling short fiction for over a year now. I don’t like fiction magazines, I don’t read them, so why should I write for them? The whole process of submitting fiction to editors, waiting months, so I can post a link in my bio that I was published by Anal Space Magazine or whatever is boring. It’s like a nerd version of merit badges, nobody gives a fuck besides other dorks. It’s not why I write.

So I’m going to post all my short fiction on here, I made a section in honor of my waspy champion and from now on everything that I write besides the Great 21st Century American Novel will go under that tab.

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It’s almost noon. I should go lift weights, it’s been a few days. Holidays always make me lazy, and whenever I get lazy I spiral into guilty depression. I have a few hours to kill before our guests arrive, I’m going to grill. I think they are bringing a stash of fireworks. I hope the noise doesn’t drive off my wasps.