You have GOT to be kidding me.

Just now, The Boy and I heard the sound of Birchy throwing up in the front hallway.  As we went to inspect the damage, The Boy said "Oh my gawd it's in your shoes!" ...Then he laughed, because he was kidding.  We weren't even in the hallway yet.

But once we got out there...guess where the vomit was? 

Yeah.  In my $200 leather shoes.  Both of them.

I really don't know whether Birch was helpfully trying not to mess up the floor, or if he just hates me.

Confidential to Birchy: dude, your puke looked like a handful of pristine, untouched kibble in stomach-acid gravy.  CHEW YOUR DAMN FOOD.

Yay! Stats!

The Boy suggested I try loading up my blog stats in a different browser - and it worked!  (He is a genius!  I think I'll keep him.)

I can see now that "A Very Important Announcement" got more views than any other post, probably because of its eye-catching title.  Which is funny because the "important announcement" was that if I stick my tongue out really really far, I can see it in my peripheral vision.  It's possible that other people wouldn't actually consider this "important" per se.

In future I shall be careful not to abuse grandiose post titles.  I don't want my audience to get all excited for Big News, only to find a post about root beer or my cat's kibble farts.

How to tell if you are in your 30s (in 2010)

-If someone says the phrase "tell all your friends!" you yell out "...tell the whole bunch!  I just had a hippopotamus for lunch!" (or at least you want to).

-If you start dialing a number and your friend asks you who you're gonna call, you yell out, "GHOOOOOST...BUSTERS!" (or at least you want to).

-If you ever owned a pair of shiny black spandex bike shorts with a wide neon stripe down each side.

-If you ever let Sun-In, AquaNet, or a crimper near your hair while sober.

Ummm ummm I dunno.  There are tons of lists like this circulating on the internet but I'm trying to come up with things I don't remember from any of them.  The first thing on my list actually happened to me the other day, which is why I'm thinking about this stuff.

Anyone have anything to add to my list?  Leave it in the comments!

Sad bastard with a paintbrush

Every tube of black paint that I own has the lid so badly stuck on that I can't remove it.  I've been puncturing the tubes with a pin and squeezing paint out the side instead.  It comes out in a thin little drizzle, like Wacky String.

My streak of breakuppish paintings continues.  I'll post pics...I dunno, sometime.  Soonish.

I've come up with a theory recently: I think it's impossible to fully get over someone until you're in a relationship with someone new.  This does not mean that it's a good idea to put up a personal ad twenty minutes after a breakup; a person needs to go through a lot of mourning, soul-searching, and self-esteem-rebuilding before they have any business trying to date.  I'm just saying that a new relationship is kind of the finishing touch - the cherry on the sundae, if you will - to a long and complex healing process.  And I did not know that before.

During the years that followed my divorce, I went through the requisite period of extreme bitterness where I was convinced that all relationships are doomed to unhappiness and failure.  Slowly, I healed to a point where I could allow myself to feel cautiously optimistic about love again - but my optimism was entirely theoretical, and I knew it.  In order to actually know that good and healthy relationships exist, I needed to experience one...and that's where The Boy came in.

Long story short: I thought I was entirely over the whole divorce thing but it turns out there was one last tiny bit to process.  I'm working through it via my paintings.  Once I've dealt with all that residual angst I am gonna feel so good.  Goddamn.

GRRR

The "stats" area of my blog has been broken for, like, a week now.  This means I can't see how many people are reading this or how they found their way here.

Awesome.

A Very Important Announcement

I have discovered that I can see my own tongue without looking in a mirror!

I'm 37 years old I've only just figured this out. 

If I had a super-long tongue, I surely would have tried to glimpse it in my peripheral vision before this.  But I only have an average endowment, tongue-wise, so I assumed it was a lost cause...until today!

Never give up on your dreams, kids.

Closure on that mouse thing

By the way, the mouse problem is solved...for now.

Late last night I was puttering around in the kitchen when The Boy called out that he'd cornered the mouse in the bathroom and needed something to put it in.  "Don't bring Birch in here," he added, completely unnecessarily. 

I ran to the bathroom armed with a plastic container from that day's lunch.  The Boy grabbed it from me and used a wooden backscratcher (shaped like a miniature rake, kind of) to drag the mouse out from behind the toilet.  Then he used the scratcher like a spatula/shovel to toss the mouse into the container, and he put on the lid (but didn't completely seal it because he didn't want the mouse to suffocate).

Just to be clear, a mouse loose in the apartment will freak the crap out of me - mysterious rustling noises, suddenly bursting out from under things and running past four inches from my bare toes, etc.  But when a mouse is safely contained, I think he's cute as all heck.  I took some pictures of this one (as best I could through the plastic).  If you're having a hard time making out the actual form of the mouse, that's his round ear roughly in the middle of the picture and he's facing right.  The white thing he's sniffing/eating is a piece of cheese we put in there to keep him occupied while we took pictures and got our coats and shoes on to take him to the park and release him. 

Here's an underneath view.  The container is smeared with the remnants of a salad...sorry if that's a bit gross.  But LOOK at those widdle pink toesies!

And then I thought it would be funny to put the container next to Birch, who had slept through the whole mouse-catching thing because he sucks and is the worst hunter ever.  I had a feeling he wouldn't understand what was in the container or be particularly interested in it, and I was right.

Oh well.  Good thing he's pretty.