Well, if you don't want two black eyes on a regular basis, I suggest you make some kind of peace with the rural life.

Its an occasion today. No, Little Man is still running free. He dashed across the room tonight. I believe he gave me the middle finger over the traps. We're not on speaking terms now. Anyway. Thats not the news. The news is that the new Old Crow Medicine Show album arrived in the mail today. Big Iron World. To say I'm delighted is an understatement. I'm positively ecstatic. I love music but I'm rather fickle in my loyalty to bands. Not the case with Old Crow Medicine Show. I am truly truly looking forward to the show in October. God's Got It and Cocaine Habit are spectacular. By the by, Little Man just fucking ran across the floor under my feet and back into the bedroom. Apparently he knows its bedtime.

The owls are not what they seem.

I am not what people would consider a calm person. Quite the opposite. I can feign calm. But really its just masked neuroticism. It's not a cute neuroticism either. I came face to face with this last night when in quite plain sight, right in front of me (who was curled on my couch engaged in a horribly awesome TNT drama fest movie marathon) dashed...a mouse. I screamed. I wish I was joking. I screamed and I jumped to the top of my couch. Where I remained perched while I considered the situation. I've been rocketed, I've been mortared, but I was rendered into the depths of pathos....by a mouse. This was last night. I got no sleep. When I say no sleep. I mean no sleep. I had nightmares in the wee hours. But no sleep. Now I'm home from work. And I've set two mouse traps. The kind the kill behind closed doors. And I don't want to kill the mouse. I even named him Little Man after he took off so bravely and quickly across the floor. I don't want him to die. We had a mouse in Baghdad in my office. We called him Supermouse. He was the highlight of the day. I don't hate mice. But I'm apparently terrified of one in my house. I had to make a gin and tonic tonight just to calm down after I set the traps. Which went off while I set them and I screamed again. I looked for new apartments today because frankly if Little Man doesn't leave I'll have to.

You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a nay-sayer and hatchet man in the fight against violence.

Now I remember why I wasn't allowed to buy a banjo until I finished my masters degree. Alas, it is now too late, and I'm alternating improperly picking at my new-to-me banjo purchased from a parking lot an hour away, and counting NYT articles from the early 80s that reference AIDS. As of yet the two have nothing in common. But I'm holding out hope. Once I finish this degree I'll be free to pursue the vast playground of my abilities to pass time by myself. I foresee book-writing, banjo-picking, and adopting some kind of odd culinary ability. And reading. And listening to NPR. And producing my own podcast. And practicing yoga. I will be an odd, odd island to my 27 year old self. I think I had more in mind to write when I started this entry, but since I'm on page 6 of my paper, and I can see its completion somewhere in my future, I'm going to sign off and go back to casting stones at the New York Times for its utter reckless apathy towards AIDS in the early 80s. For shame, NYT. For shame.

Harry, my dream is a code waiting to be broken.

I think I've made an amazing personal revelation about how the world could be a much better place. Picture this. The baggage carousel at the airport, everyone jockeying for a better position, closer to the conveyor belt, elbowing, cursing, their neighbor, futilely searching for their luggage, while edging others out. Now imagine this. Everyone takes five steps back. Five. Not one. Not three. Five. You'd have a bigger circle. Everyone would be able to watch the conveyor. And when one person's luggage did appear they'd have room to step forward and get it without grasping at a handle beyond their reach and watching in desperation as it passes by. Everyone would get a shot at their luggage. People wouldn't be throwing hips, elbows, bags at others in an attempt to claim their space. All it would take is to be as concerned for the person next to you as you are for yourself.

Diane, never drink coffee that has been anywhere near a fish.

www.gofugyourself.com. accolades to my sister-in-law for introducing me to this delightful, albeit long-winded site. (the beauty of thesuperficial.com is in its utter short, simplistic, utterly unrepentant, posts). additionally i've found a new waste of time. correction, wasted time saturday night watching something that i hope i never watch again. please don't judge me. i meant to go to bed. but it was there, and it was a marathon. and. i. couldn't. stop. laguna beach. i watched four hours straight. worse yet i thought about the characters when i went to bed. i wondered what happened to them. and then the next day i wrote them into my grad final. as if this sad sad tale couldn't get any worse, my ex boyfriend informed me that the show was scripted. and i hated him for it. in other news, i'll be beantowning-it this weekend and in honor of such have a hysterical clip for all to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0

Hi, Mike, Bobby. Now before we get started, have you two fellas got your stories straight?

i woke up groggy this morning, many times. i kept falling back asleep feeling like my mind was short-circuiting its way through a merry go round of dreams. when i finally got up it was 2 hours later than i thought it was. anyway i got out of bed and started crawling my way back to a stable viewing platform, equipped with a vanilla skim latte, i crumbled in front of the television. i turned it on and before finding all the news of the terrorist plots in England, i found an old episode of the cosby show. it was cliff's parents 50th anniversary. and nothing bad happened. the kids sang a song for them, they all had dinner, then they all got dressed up and went out dancing. it was such a pleasant, amusing episode i almost didn't recognize it as tv. nothing happened in the episode. it was just a family enjoying being together. my head is frigging killing me.

Sheriff, what are you sitting around for? We've got places to go and people to see.

You know what one of my favorite movies is? Waking the Dead with Bill Crudup. Yes, brother, you recommended this to me many years ago. I love Billy Crudup's character. And I've been thinking about it since I saw the preview for Trust the Man this weekend. Billy Crudup plays an idealist whose lost his way in Waking the Dead. The movie is really all about him straying from his idealist beginning and then waking up to it again, thinking that he's losing his mind because to feel those ideals again is akin to insanity. And thats how everyone around him treats him. Like he's insane for stumbling blindly across an abandoned belief system. The only one who makes him feel that its okay to grasp at his old ideals is an apparition of a girlfriend killed in a car bombing years before. You can imagine how comforting it is to have your sanity and ideals justified by a dead girlfriend. Very reassuring. For years of watching this movie I believed the ghost was real. I thought she really had just gone away for a decade and was now back because he needed her. I much prefer an ethereal eternal view of love than flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is so finite. Enough on that movie. I don't know whether I'll watch it again, if I do I'll most likely fast forward to the restaurant scene where Crudup has a nervous breakdown at the dinner table with his whole family. You actually see him crumble and then somehow put the brakes on it and recompose. Its a really powerful scene. I love breakdown scenes. Is that weird?

Heaven is a large and interesting place, sir!

I am going to make a greater effort to post more. I don't know how this will go, but I thought I would put my intentions out there. I've been thinking long and hard about the book I'm writing. I haven't made any progress on it but I'm busily developing scenes and characters in my head. The book takes place in a time of war. To be precise in Iraq, and here in the States. A question that will stream throughout the book is which place is worse to be. I discovered a new character this week. I haven't written him in yet, but I think he's going to play a pivotal, unintentional role. I've been out of the country for a bit, so I missed the news of an Army sergeant and Arabic linguist being put out of the military because he's gay. Jon Stewart informed me of it, and I subsequently went online to investigate. Apparently the Army has put out 55 Arabic linguists for being gay. 55. Of the most critical jobs in the Army. Because they were found to violate don't ask don't tell. Not only am I vehemently opposed to the discrimination of gays in the military, it also makes me physically sick to think the abhorrent regulation against homosexuals in the military could be costing lives in Iraq. Linguists are so absolutely integral to what we're trying to do in Iraq. And our government has not only shot itself in the foot by discharging those 55, its also shot servicemembers in the back. You ask a Soldier walking the streets in Baghdad if they'd prefer to have a linguist with them or not, every one of them will say they'll take the linguist. And I highly doubt they'd give a damn about their sexual oreintation. And so my gay linguist is going into my book. And his discharge is going to cost the life of a main character. Am I being overly dramatic, am I being unreasonable? I don't think so. I think that if the government sees fit to put our sons and daughters in harm's way, than the government has forfeited its right to be a bigot.