after i ljed last night, it occurred to me that the mouse situation was very sitcom-like and probably more lj-worthy than the entry i wrote.

autumn figured out, much to our collective horror, that the mouse she was carrying in her mouth WAS NOT A TOY (she has wind-up ducks and a key-turn mouse) and dove under the couch. harlow--a creepy neighbour cat who likes to perch on our windowsill (from the outside) and stare, unwavering, at us during the day--was outside so we decided to let her in hopes that she would take-on autumn as her padawan--pawdawan?-- learner and instruct her in the ancient ways of mousing. as it turns out, harlow was really only interested in using autumn's litterbox: before i could stop her she took a big old DEUCE in it... and then joined autumn for a scaredy-cat party under the couch.

in the meantime, derek is chasing the mouse--it has stopped playing dead and is bouncing off the walls like one of those high impact rubber balls-- around the living room repeatedly trying--and failing-- to trap it in an extremely tiny jar because "it made sense to [him] in the moment."

after about ten minutes of this derek trips and knocks everything off the coffee table and the mouse, seeing an opportunity, vanishes into the storage space under the stairs.


^{mouse may not have been exactly as pictured}

we're going to have to get traps. i feel guilty about this because i've watched The Secret of Nihm many times and i think of all mice as Mrs. Brisby on a reconnaissance mission without her hooded cape. (this makes it even more terrifying because that leads to dreams that super-intelligent rats are living in the attic and hot-wiring our electricity to their highly-sophisticated rat lair complete with working elevator and alchemy lab.

so i have taken to using that delightful expression first introduced to me by coco73 whenever i screw things up (which is often).

it's amusing, and supplies accountability and lulz at the same time. it seems appropriate for all manner of screw-ups.

well almost all. consider the email i just sent my group because i accidentally overslept and failed to give the project one last look over before it was to be submitted at 9am:

"i'm really sorry everyone. i set my alarm but obviously shit the bed on waking up."

... yeahhhh.

i'm gonna go with "appropriate for all manner of screw-ups except for those actually involving YOUR BED" where people are inclined to take you at your literal word.

no mountain goats this time but we did see:

-prosthetic (?) testicles hanging off the bumper of a truck in Calgary.

-Skunk Cabbage Boardwalk

-the most ridiculous 20 questions solutions ever: oil, cytoplasm, monocle. (how was i ever going to guess oil and does it really count as "alive"?)

next stop, van!

i know a lot of straight-up dudes who absolutely love Back to the Future, D included. i enjoy elements of the series, and by elements i mean mostly the fact that there is a time-travelling Delorean and the character of Doc Brown because Christopher Lloyd's portrayal is endearing and wacky and wonderful (memo to Andy Dyck: take notes! that is how it's done!). but in general i find that the film series has little of interest for me as a woman and a feminist. plenty of people have written about BTtF and revisionist history; i am certainly not the first to point out that these are, at their core, movies about men revising an already patriarchal world so as to better fulfill their patriarchal fantasies. for marty this is moderate rockstardom, and wealthy tennis-playing parents. well-adjusted in BTtF basically means reagan-era yuppiedom. i get that it's a marker of the times but it would have been nice if jennifer did more than pass out and lorraine had any interests besides snagging a guy. i love Mary Steenburgen as Clara Clayton but it's kind of ridiculous that the only woman who enjoys a moderate amount of mobility in the story resides furthest in the past.

also, the scene in Back to the Future part II where rich future Biff basically tells Marty exactly how to get the Almanac back with zero hesitation makes me want to tear out my hair. I guess you can wank it that he's still supposed to be stupid and a stupid person wouldn't figure out that it came from the future and so it might be possible to go back and undo that event, but seriously. Evidentally Future Biff should have read Watchmen.

me: i am spectacularly behind and sinking. i tried to stay up all night but that failed.

imperfectmedium: aw, i'm sorry dude. is there anything i can do to help?

me: well not really... peace that passeth understanding?

imperfectmedium: you might have me confused with jesus. it's a common mistake. ;)

me: you do both look good in a strappy sandal. i almost wrote "stroppy" sandal: the sandal that gives you guff and always plays devil's advocate in an argument.

theoryofgravity linked me to the origins of the incendiary food log and i'm thinking that as triggering as i've found food lists in the past, i like the idea of trying to disarm that trigger by writing down (publicly) what i eat without judgment (or writing down what i eat as a way to tease out/confront unconscious judgment). i'm going to put all these entries under a cut. oh, and call them with "Essen" because the german noun for food is also the verb for eating and the german's even have a song they sing when food takes too long at restaurants which i find both amusing and obnoxious. point is, german wurst is the best.

(abroadallmylife, you know the "wir haben hunger" song of which i speak, yes?)

also, is it weird that when i think about enjoying food i automatically think of friar tuck from rocket robinhood?

( contents of my stomach include )

i've been meaning to put up a Dollhouse weekly discussion post because i know a bunch of us are watching and it's exciting to have new joss product to (not necessarily) swoon over. eps 1-4 will be mentioned--SPOILERS for all--under the cut.

( scowly babies, rihyonce )

have reverted to my normal role of mild-mannered scientific genius bruce banner arts administrator.

last night's class wasn't actually awful. Bipin, perhaps taking note of the vitriol that spilled into my emails actually showed up to class after all, claiming he'd made some sort of survey for the final part of our case study. of course, he brought no evidence of the survey and as of now has failed to send me digital evidence, but i am holding out some small hope for him. evidentally my tactic of sending the draft with nothing attributed to him was the visual slap he needed to move him to do actually do shit. or at least to move him to care enough to lie about actually doing shit.

i think we're gonna go see watchmen on friday. i made a conscious decision not to re-read Moore's opus this year because i knew that there was no way a feature film could come close to approaching the masterful intertextual paen/critique of the comic genre. i am not kidding when i say that this is a text that CHANGED THE WAY I THINK ABOUT COMICS. it's right up there with Perks of Being Wallflower in terms of texts that make me feel like if i could write something that's even a 1/100th as amazing as this, i will finally be able to call myself accomplished.

( watchmen... not really spoilery if you've read it, but some rumours/speculation about story changes in the firm that could be spoilery )