My unbaked thoughts and self righteous commentary on politics, pop culture or whatever else might slip out of my fingers onto the keyboard. For tech stuff, visit my technology-related blog and for bad poetry and stories, my poetry/story blog. Actually, both of these other blogs are updated much more frequently these days.
Posting here in the past has been a compulsion, a nervous tic; however, it was real easy to step away once I got sucked back into the workaday world at a job that required a bit more of my attention, as new jobs often do. But here I am, back again.
So what's going on? Not a lot - As I write this, I'm locked in mortal combat with a mouse who's invaded my home. I'm sure this fucker'll forever be two steps ahead of me as I waste far too much energy on hunting the beast down. I feel vaguely like Wile E. Coyote (or perhaps Al Bundy would be a better analogy). Why the anger toward this Disneysque creature? I'm sure the whiskered cutie breaks out in song after hours as I slumber, after all. And frankly it's nice to have company over - I should welcome him into the fold with a saucer of milk (saucer of cheese?) Ahh, fuck all that - I've got the traps all set up, so it's just a matter of time for him and his brethren. Short of that, I'm at the ready with my fireplace shovel to slap him into space, Scratchy-style. Then again, Scratchy is the one who is repeatedly pummeled by that little Itchy rodent. Where's Willard when you need him?
(Epilogue: The mouse is dead, long live the mouse. I found it this morning in the kitchen, caught in the web of one of my glue traps, poisoned by the bait and stuck. It had managed to slide the trap half way across the room, trying in vain to drag it with him under the stove but only half making it. Judging by the particular trap he was snarred in, I now know the tiny hole from which the guy made his entrance. Time to close it up. I feel awful about his demise but imagine he's only the first of an army, now seething with anger over my atrocity, much like Platoon's Sgt. Barnes in the village. I'm waiting for the Johnny Depp translator mouse to come up to me and start asking who the rice and the weapons are for ... er, I mean the glue traps and poison-laced bait. But I digress.)
The squirrels living above my headboard on the other side of the glass were restless last night, their home blown asunder by Mother Nature's strong winds. They'd worked their furry tails to the bone last year building a leaf-based shelter on the ledge off my bedroom, using the air conditioner I'd never bothered to remove from the window as a lean-to. A newlywed couple made their home there and have since brought two kids into the fold: your classic all-American nuclear family.
At first, these fuzzy beasts annoyed me but all my attempts at trashing their little home went for naught as they calmly rebuilt the thing each time in a matter of hours. I thought of calling pest control but in the end didn't have the heart. Or was it that I'm just an incurable procrastinator? Either way, I've grown used to sharing my nights with this crew (they live literally less than two feet from where I lay my head on the pillow each evening). Generally, they're pretty quiet. When the "kids" arrived into the world and the noise picked up, I'd just tap on the window and they'd usually pipe down pretty quickly. So we'd reached an agreement of sorts and they stayed put. Through rain, sleet and snow, resolute and steadfast. Until last night.
Last night the wind gusts reached epic proportions, blowing the squirrel home's load-bearing leaves to kingdom come. Now, as I mentioned, I'd done similar damage to their hovel back when they first moved in, but that was in the early autumn when replacement leaves were plentiful. It's the barren dead of winter now and the Squirrel Home Depots are closed for the season. What's a Tamiasciurus to do?
Ahh, they're tenacious fuckers - they'll make do. They've got a whole community of scurrying, scampering fellow travelers. They're a bit like the Amish in that regard and I wouldn't be surprised to see a squirrel "barn-raising" taking shape to replenish the requisite leaves in due time.
In fact, in the time it's taken me to write up this post (admittedly, a word every now and then over the course of more than 12 hours), I see that the home is already half repaired, with five or six neighboring squirrels helping to scavenge leaves from various adjoining yards. I'm surprised the female squirrels aren't there with lemonade and refreshments, because it's otherwise eerily like the Witness barn-raising scene. Only furrier.
I toil in the murky world of software development and architecture for my supper, a frustrated writer who fell into the technology game quite by chance.
My humor is usually parched and pitch black (if you don't squirm, it's not funny), aimed often at the brilliance and sublime idiocy in politics and pop culture.
Finally, at the end of the day I'm really just a devoted student of life with failing grades who keeps registering for new classes with the fervent hope that he doesn't get expelled this semester.
The opinions expressed here are my own (and they usually don't qualify as that for very long). They are not to be construed as opinions of my employer, my dead dog, the Pope, Richard Nixon's ghost, or Paris Hilton. (Well, maybe on occasion, Paris. I think that - like me - she's student of life at heart.)
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