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In this Discussion
- distant_shoe October 2012
- joey October 2012
- kdawg October 2012
- Leland October 2012
- Loose_Thread October 2012
- Matthew October 2012
- MirandaJuly October 2012
- swamp_knobbler_mahan October 2012
- the_owls October 2012
- UncleBoatShoes2011 October 2012
- YoursTruly October 2012
What's your day
Today I am giving that talk on campus, and am nervous
and also I just realized that my planned PowerPoint for Friday's class somehow had all the millions (okay, more like twelve) of clips from music and movies deleted, probably by me, at some point. This means re-ripping and editing everything (like, finding the random spot in one entire symphony where this one thing happens, and I certainly don't remember where that point is, because I'm a dummy), which as I recall took like two full days when I first made the damn thing. "Why am I such an asshole?" There is still a small chance they are on my computer at home, just not in my Dropbox folder (unlikely). Also possible on some weird burned CD in a drawer somewhere. Poor me!
However it is nice and chilly and gray outside, which I love
and my hair is looking really weird and cool
and tonight I get to take a long bath soak and then lie on the couch while somebody else makes dinner
and I finally get to make doctors appointments and get my eyes checked and get this thing cut off my leg
and snoopy is clean
huzzah and hurrah
and also I just realized that my planned PowerPoint for Friday's class somehow had all the millions (okay, more like twelve) of clips from music and movies deleted, probably by me, at some point. This means re-ripping and editing everything (like, finding the random spot in one entire symphony where this one thing happens, and I certainly don't remember where that point is, because I'm a dummy), which as I recall took like two full days when I first made the damn thing. "Why am I such an asshole?" There is still a small chance they are on my computer at home, just not in my Dropbox folder (unlikely). Also possible on some weird burned CD in a drawer somewhere. Poor me!
However it is nice and chilly and gray outside, which I love
and my hair is looking really weird and cool
and tonight I get to take a long bath soak and then lie on the couch while somebody else makes dinner
and I finally get to make doctors appointments and get my eyes checked and get this thing cut off my leg
and snoopy is clean
huzzah and hurrah
Comments
should i do it
it's going to be boring, I warn you. Also pitched at undergrads (i.e. babies)
OWLS (seeing adorable cat): WHAT IS WRONG with your face??
CAT'S PERSON: His name is Taco and he got hit by a car.
For the record, Owls meant it as a compliment. It was accidentally true. Also I badly wanted to say "yeah he got hit by the cute car."
I am wearing a Skinhead style cardigan and it has brought me comfort.
Tomorrow I will travel to the island next to this one and I will make my day a better day.
Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing" got me on a pretty severe private island obsession. Then I found one in Québec, just an hour away from Ottawa. Private island with a really nice house on it. $299,999 CAN.
If I could find the money I think I could pull it off.
I could just fade away into madness. How romantic.
I don't know much about Decatur, I know someone who grew up there. She is a really cool sailboat kid.
We do have a boat, a wooden canoe. My dad gave it to us, it needs to be re-canvased. We thought about getting a sailboat years ago but we know we'd just flake out and let it sit in the marina.
No whaling for me, than you.
27 acres on Decatur Island $399,000. It's a pretty fun website, rural land for sale everywhere.
Here's something important: whaler style keeps you dry.
I just happen to look more city person-like these days because there is no rain on the horizon. Whaler style needs some moisture.
You should buy that Decatur land and grow quince or something.
Hard work, you guys!
One time I found DrJ asleep in my yard under a (moist) towel. I was like "I have blankets DrJ!" but it was too late. It was already morning.
Owls: I like your day.
My day was: Painting clay on the other island. My friend made a really great spicy fish soup. I don't usually like fish, but this soup was rad. Then she gave me caramel sauce for me to dunk apple pieces in. Then we had bread pudding. Then we had toffee popcorn.
Too much sugar.
Today I went to a doctors appointment, was told I am "fine," then drove frantically to the nearest coffee shop and drank two large coffees because I had waited hours without coffee because I thought I couldn't eat/drink before a blood test. This turned out to be an erroneous assumption. While drinking coffee I had a really really intense conversation over texts (!!) with Katy about death and dying, had a little chit-chat with Jae, and read my book about the 16th century. Then I came home and took my snoopy to the park for a long time, then came home and farted around on the internet and planned class tomorrow.
A great day!
Needed a bunch of time to just drift.
Wolfed some tomato and peach today, trying to get the last tastes of summer. Bought a pear for later, when it's time to taste some autumn.
Think Alan and I are going to the mooovies tonight! LOOOPER, will I love it if I am stoned?
Also drove 20 miles north to pay a bill at a corporate HQ. Medical insurance. Big five building campus. People walking around with lanyards. Eerie. Made perfect sense that there were TWO low-rent casinos right next to this place. The Silver Dollar and The Red Dragon. Hilarious. American Culture. Love it or lump it.
@Joey. That night with the towel was really something. It was Heckfest. I was positive I had packed my bedroll. I went to all the shows and all around town carrying these bulky bags, certain that their bulk was caused by all the warming elements that would accrue to my comfort in slumber. After an internet session on the bench outside the Dept. of Safety I hoofed it over to Joey and Fudge's. Lugging my bulky bags, looking forward to finally laying them to rest. It was 3 or 4 am that I got to the yard and found to my dismay that, though they had been quite awkward, somehow these bags were entirely free of any bedding. I guess I brought the wrong bag from home? I still don't know exactly what happened. It was too late to get anyone up. The best I could do was to put on all my clothes, three t-shirts I think, and two pairs of pants, and lie there on the grass under a beach towel for a few hours. It rained a little.
It was kind of like, "I know that's my bedroll. It's going to be so worth it when I lay down.... Wait! That's just a towel! Wha??!"
Poor DrJ!
I had lots of blankets, and bigger towels, too.
It was just one of those "tough it out" situations.
Also, "What a dummy!" And, "I am not my own best friend."
Still working on making improvements. ;)
Self sufficient! Few needs!
It's just one night, you did it! NO BIGGEE!
we frail wraiths would have withered in the face of discomfort
I was just trying to imagine what I would have done in Dr. J's position and I honestly don't know. I think I would have driven to a motel, or banged on a door, or just sat up all night weeping
the thing for me would just have been that I would have been SHATTERINGLY cold. Like , curled up in a fetal position shuddering and teeth chattering. Was this your experience Dr. J?? I think I run colder than other humans, so I'm very afraid of this kind of thing
I'd learned from prior experience that motels are not an option on Shipwreck weekend, and who wants to pay $100 for like 4 hours of sleep anyway.
Also, the situation was a dozen or more people dead asleep all around the yard and throughout a house I don't think I'd ever been in before. So I really didn't feel like stumbling around trying to find somebody who would know where the blankets were or whatever.
If it had really been cold I could have gone over to the Donut Shack to avoid hypothermia or whatever, but it wasn't like that. Seriously, mid-July in the PNW. Who doesn't sleep on a lawn from time to time?
"scooch over, dickhead!"
I decided to push it, trap and all into a paper bag and take it across the park for release. I was wearing thick leather gloves as I spilled the wooden trap platform out onto the sidewalk. Reaching down to lift the spring bar was the most difficult maneuver because this provoked a new level of panic in the young rat. He vocalized a little 'EEE-EEE' just like you might expect from a little furry creature and seemed to try to get where he might bite me. I felt secure in the gloves though and found my nerve to open up the spring (not before I stepped up onto a bench, though. I had a vision of it finding its legs again after the bar was lifted and running up my legs.)
From my perch on the park bench, I ignored its wee cries, lifting the bar so it felt to the sidewalk. It dragged itself a few inches flat on its belly, the back half of its body a dead weight. It paused and seemed to gather itself for a moment before continuing to soldier slowly along the path, hanging in the shadows.
With my eyes affixed to the wounded heap clawing its way into the dark, I thought of the cats and birds in the neighborhood and the challenges this creature would be facing for however many more hours or days of struggle lay ahead.
Back in the attic, of my three traps, one had been cleaned of cookie butter bait, another was still set, and the one that had nabbed my released prisoner was now ready to be reset.
I decided to try pieces of moldy hotdog for bait, cursing and fretting as the subtle trip latches refused to hold against the tension of the spring. From several directions around me I could hear scritch-scratches of my victim's comrades presumably making judgements about my intervention in the space they had claimed.
Finally the traps were set again and I took a step down the ladder, pulling the square of plywood back to cover that part of the ceiling that opens to the crawlspace beneath the roof. Another step down and I left my feral audience to their missions in the night.
"it's a hard world for the little things"
But letting it go is super emo too.
Burly dudes where I grew up always had hunting knives on them in case they hit a deer with their car and had to finish it off the ol' fashioned way. I can't imagine
So my dad did it and I cried, but it was probably better than letting it die of some massive throat tumour? I don't know.
I've killed fishes before for eating, but it would be much harder to euthanize/kill a larger animal.
I had a cat put to sleep once and I didn't even like the cat and I still cried. Death is intense
Rats.... YOU WIN!!!
I'm paraphrasing because I forget who the poet was and can't find it on Google, but I wish I'd never read that poem, because I can't even squish a fly without thinking about it.
When I had to catch a mouse, I used a trap that just closed him inside, so I could dump him out later. I guess maybe a full fledged rat could just gnaw his way out, tho.