I chopped it off for the benefit of wig-needing little people again. And this time shorter than it’s been in, oh, twenty years! So, no ponytails for a few months. I like it, though.

It’s still just me. I figured out how to aim the camera at myself today, too. Stand in front of a reflective surface so you can see the reflection of the screen of the camera. Mirrors are the obvious choice; the glass on a framed picture worked well, too.

I dunno, what do you think? I took this one in front of the mirror in my room, btw, before opting for the better light in the living room. No flash = no strange shadows!

The fun little blur effect on the background is 100% It Just Happened. I like it.

On this one I took the time to smudge away the reflection of my arm in my glasses, which you can still see in some of the other shots. So…there you have it! That’s what I did today!

Categories: life in the big city
11 Comments »

Well, it’s been an eventful morning… and it’s not even ten-thirty.

I opened my door this morning after getting dressed and found a mouse staring back at me from about three feet away. I closed the door again.

This is the part where I look like a wuss. I don’t mind rodents outside; I don’t even mind the mice that sometimes scurry around the subway tracks. My brothers used to have gerbils, for crying out loud, and I held them all the time. Poke had a mouse for a weekend once and I held him, too. But this morning, I let an animal smaller than the palm of my hand barricade me in my room for about twenty minutes while I worked up the courage to go do something about it. And yes, when I cracked the door open at the end of that, the mouse was still sitting there.

By that time, I could hear my roommate and her boyfriend getting up and I was starting to run late myself, so I picked up my trash can (sans trashbag). The mouse was finally starting to move into the living room. This was doubly good: it wasn’t coming toward my room, and I could see that it was limping. When the gerbils got out at home, they were tough to catch, being fast and skittery. And then at least we didn’t mind picking them up.

The mouse had headed for the card table and cowered, making it, in the end, fairly easy for me to plonk the trash can over him. Jack slid a flattened paper bag under it and we carried bag, can, and mouse outside and released it. Probably going to be cat food pretty fast, but I’m inclined to cheer on the cat.

I saw one of our friendly maintenance guys while I was outside, and he said he would come by while I’m home during the day tomorrow — he was talking about traps; I want to figure out how it got in and plug whatever holes we might have (and I know there are a couple around the radiators). We’ve never seen mice in the apartment before and we haven’t noticed droppings or anything, so I’m more interested in prevention. Besides, as my roommate pointed out, if we woke up and found a mouse in a trap, we’d be pretty squeamish about that, too. (Unless it were something like a bucket trap…which might not be a bad idea. This version drowns the mouse — ew, wet mouse corpse to dispose of — but I think I’ve seen a version like that without the water, so you just have the mouse waiting for you at the bottom of the five-gallon bucket, and you go deposit him Somewhere Else. Pretty sure your average mousie couldn’t climb out of that big a bucket. And if so, get a ten-gallon bucket?)

At home, sometimes we’ll get little nocturnal lizards that slip in an open door when you come home at night and then hide in the house for days. Those are a beast to catch because if you don’t aim your tupperware (or whatever you’re trying to catch it in) quite right, the tail pops right off and you’ve got a writhing tail stuck to the wall. Ew, ew, ew. The mouse was lame, but he was all in one piece.

As a fun little coda, the word of the day from yourDictionary.com (yes, I’m a nerd and I get those e-mails) is abulia, which apparently means “a loss of volition or the ability to make decisions” (new one to me). Picture me peeking around the door and shuddering at a poor, helpless, lame, little mouse.

Categories: home, life in the big city
1 Comment »

(It’s been a year since graduation, so let’s give into the nostalgia impulse for a moment.)

• The library.
• Feeling useful at the CCLC.
• Learning stuff just for the hell of it. ‘Cause medieval history is cool, Africa is incredibly fascinating, and I still dream of being fluent in German.
• The English department lounge where EF and I hung out on fall mornings.
• And people!!! The incomparable Poke, who was there from beginning to end, and her delightful hubby. My wonderful roomies, KW, who went to concerts with me when she wasn’t on stage herself, and BS, who is far more genuine than her initials might suggest. Freshman hall buddies like KF, who I can count on for a bit of deep thinking, and the warm and friendly TV.

  All my friends and partners-in-crime at the CCLC. The three J’s and their (collective and separate) genius, mischeif, and fun. The brilliant CO with whom I shared my first class, last awards dinner, and more than a few laughs in between. My poetry buddy EF, my waterbird buddy LA, my Spinergy buddy AW, my Shakespeare buddies RB and EB, rising star EC, and the rest of the family.

  The whole gang from foreign study. My Berlin buddy HB. CS, with whom I tried to find the Oxford college that doesn’t exist. SM, with whom I figured out London’s bus system and ate PB&J while watching Ready, Steady, Cook. JG, whose Great American Novel I expect to read someday, and DG, who did the dirty work in setting up our trip across the continent.

  And all the profs I looked up to, like MO who won the surrogate mother award for telling me to eat before I collapsed; JL, who is actually closer to being family, though don’t ask me what that relationship would be (it simply emerged, of course); GA, who thought I ought to do an MFA program; BA who showed me that even Unitarians have to watch out for piety in their poetry; LB, who went out of her way to fit me into her schedule; and my foreign study profs, who helped us leave the dry campus far behind.

So raise a glass: Here’s to the good times. And here’s to knowing that the best part of moving on is that the bad times can be mostly ignored. Cheers! A very happy graduation to all the Furman graduates of 2007!

Categories: college
1 Comment »

In the latest of a series of court cases that have come to resemble a game of Whack-a-Mole, Laura Mallory’s quest for the banning of Harry Potter from Gwinnet County schools has been thwarted once again. A short article in the Chicago Sun-Times quotes her as saying “I maybe need a whole new case from the ground up.” Ya think? Whack!

Which reminds me of the white bearded madman sitting in front of the Unitarian Universalist church in Harvard Square. He had set himeself up in a lawnchair with a couple of signs, handing out fliers that accused UUs* and specifically Cambridge’s UU First Parish Church** of anti-Semitism.

Understand here that UUs tend to value tolerance, acceptance, and understanding very, very highly. The first time I walked by, I laughed. Around places like Boston Common and Harvard Square, there’s always someone promoting a pet cause. A few weeks ago there was someone making similar accusations about and in front of an Episcopal Church, come to think of it. Might have been the same guy. At any rate, when I walked back by, I gave into morbid curiosity and took a flier.

Show me more… »

Categories: Harry Potter, in the news, life in the big city
No Comments »