Real Stingers

I went out to lunch to-day and saw this wasp as I was heading back to my car. I decided to follow her around a while.










I've always been a big fan of wasps. I used to draw wasps all the time in the margins of my notebooks at school. I think this one's a paper wasp. She didn't try to attack me at all.

I think I had an apocalyptic hangover yesterday, which may have been due to a combination of four slices of pizza and a glass of scotch for dinner. I seem to be feeling a lot better to-day, and a lot more motivated. I lost four games of chess last night, playing even worse than I usually do. I was at least putting up a fight by the fourth game, but I knew it was time to quit. Yes, four games in I achieved that foresight.

I just can't seem to win at chess at all anymore. It's been months, stretches where I play three games a night. The guy I play with most of the time remarked once that he felt he and I were at about the same skill level. "Yeah, except you always win," I said, to which he didn't have a reply. But he wasn't out of his mind making that statement because our games usually run out the timer and he usually wins by getting one piece ahead of me and whittling me down. It's something I'm getting almost superstitious about.