Forgive me, Mother.

Mom, I know you will cringe at this post. I know you will hate it and shiver and that it will be horrible. And I am very, very sorry. Know that I feel your pain.

I went into the kitchen this afternoon to get a glass of water and found a fat little brown mouse crouched on the mat in front of our sink. I was startled (and disgusted) and became very surprised when the rodent didn't move when I approached and told it (very firmly, I might add) to scurry, dang it! (It was so that I could forget it was there for a little while and then later bring up the subject with my roommate to see if she had any leftover traps from our last mousy escapade, if you must know.)

But the mouse didn't scurry when I told it to. Perhaps it didn't speak English. Or perhaps...it was DEATHLY ILL??? Because it didn't even run away when I tried moving one corner of above-mentioned kitchen mat, I decided that I would try to scoop it up with an empty pizza box. (I had pizza last night, people. We don't leave pizza boxes around for days, or anything. Yeesh.) At that, it seemed to object, and scurried (at last) in the crack next to the oven.

Okay, I thought to myself. Now I will try to get a trap at some point so we can catch this furry marauder.

So I went to my room to read a little and shudder. Later, I came back into the kitchen, and the mouse was once again on the mat. What the heck?!? I thought to myself. I tried again unsuccessfully with the pizza box, but this time I noticed that the mouse was walking oddly, and kept swaying as if it were drunk. Had it gotten into my roommate's wine?

When I came back into the kitchen again, after having left said pizza box open on the floor in the (stupid) hope that it would crawl in and stay in while I surreptitiously shut the lid on it, I found the mouse lying prone on the floor, little paws stuck to the side, tail laid out along the tile like a fallen streamer. Oh, heck. Let me be realistic. It looked like a dead worm attached to an even deader mouse.

I looked closely at the mouse. It was not breathing. So, choking back my gag reflex, I used one of the ubiquitous Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons we get in the mail, and scooped it into the pizza box. I noticed that rigor mortis had already set in, since the thing didn't bend at all when I was doing said scooping. I took the whole ensemble down the stairs to the dumpster, all the while wondering what the thing had died from and, more importantly, whether the disease was likely to kill me too.

Things like, you know, bubonic or pneumonic plague (except that I'm not sure if mice died from that? or even carried it? was it just rats? and did just the infected humans die?) or, I don't know, some sort of feverish horribleness that spreads via seeing weird drunken-seeming mice weave around your kitchen mat.

So, if I start developing flu-like symptoms or buboes in the next few days, just drop me off at the local emergency room, warn them that the next pandemic (and possibly the end of the world) is now at hand, and oh--would someone be kind enough to take notes for me in class on Tuesday? I'm not sure I'm going to make it.

You always knew you wanted to float in a library

So, you know how I sometimes like to just embed a YouTube video rather than actually writing something myself?

Well...

I'm doing it again.

The lip movements aren't really synced so much, but it's from the 80s. And it takes place in a library. And there's a chimp wearing a Red Sox shirt. Is that enough awesomeness to make it all okay? Why, yes. Yes it is.

(P.S. Fair warning: There is one little swears. It's relatively mild, but it's there. Just so you know.)

Um, hey. So...it's been awhile.

Oh, you know. I've just been keeping myself busy with this and that and the other thing (although, if I'm going to be honest, I have to admit that the other thing is really what's been taking up the bulk of my time).

Yeah, I know you've been wondering why I haven't called lately, why all those texts stay unanswered in my inbox, why all those posts you've made to my Facebook wall have gotten no response, why I never even acknowledged that time you threw the brick through my window. (You know--the one with the ultimatum wrapped around it, secured with a piece of fraying twine?)

And believe me--I kind of feel like a jerk about it all. I sit in my room or on the couch and just think of all the great times we used to have and how bad I feel about the way I never seem to keep in touch with people and how I wish I had the time and energy to call people and chat it up or send an awesome lengthy email or, say, post to my blog for instance. Maybe.

And then I sigh and get back to working on assignments I've procrastinated until the day before that end up taking about 10 hours more than what I expected and I cut felt for a flannelboard story until my hands ache and I curse the dull scissors that I need to replace but I haven't really got the money and why the heck would I want to buy another pair of scissors when I'm most likely going to be moving sometime in the next seven or eight months and that'd be just one more thing to pack and I really kind of hope I pass all my classes this semester so I can graduate and get a real job so I don't turn into one of those over-30 folks who live in their parents' basements and make my family ashamed to be seen with me in public.

So, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because I know how it looks to you, and I just wanted to let you know that there are good reasons why I'm turning into an unresponsive hulk of Lizardbreath.

Thanks for being there, though. Thanks for understanding. Thanks for still liking me despite it all.

--Your loving Lizardbreath McGee

P.S. Oh, yeah. And you owe me 300 bucks for that shattered window.

P.P.S. Realistic (i.e. factual and uninflated) depiction of my sleeping schedule over the past few days:

Awake: Thursday morning at 6am until Friday morning at 3:30am
Asleep: Friday morning at 3:30am until Friday morning at 7:00am
Awake: Friday morning at 7:00am until Friday afternoon at 3:30pm
Asleep: Friday afternoon at 3:30pm until early Saturday morning at 12:30am
Awake: Early Saturday morning at 12:30am until slightly later Saturday morning at 4:00am
Asleep: Slightly later Saturday morning at 4:00am until Saturday morning at 6:10am
Awake: Saturday morning at 6:10am until BLOGPOSTTIME. Whenever that is. (i.e. NOW.)

I am trying to resist taking a nap. Please, please send good wakey-wakey vibes my way.

Homework is EATING ME ALIVE!!!

It's true. Homework is engulfing me from the ground up; my toes and Achilles tendons have been nibbled away, my calves chewed upon, and now it's turning a hungry, baleful eye on my kneecaps.

Gross, homework! Keep away! I hate things that eat people! (Like mosquitoes, tapeworms, etc.)

Perhaps I shall conquer it with my vorpal sword. Or my stare of death. Or my.

Or my diligence, hard work and sacrifice.

But whatever the solution, I cannot conquer it by blogging.

So, away I must. (Go, that is. Away I must go. Silly sentence structure, that.)

Farewell. Until I emerge on the other side of this gruesome conflict, in which more shall be injured than paper and...laptop keys?

I. Make. No. Sense.

But I love making it nonetheless.

All Wet

The streets are rivers, the dips in the sidewalk are lakes, and even moving through the air is like trying to breathe while standing under Niagra Falls.

Ah, autumn. Be less beautiful, or be less brief. Or something.

P.S. Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been both busy and a little...distant. Even while feeling like I'm missing people more than ever. I have no promises or anything (like posting more, for instance), but I just wanted to let you know. I'll post when I can.