the important thing is, i survived

yesterday i heard on the radio that there is a man in Finland who ran thirteen miles over the ice barefoot, and now he plans to climb mt. everest in only boots, shorts, and a baseball cap. he claims to have an extreme tolerance for cold and pain. my first thought was that finally superheroes are showing up. then, i realized that he probably just has chronic insensitivity to pain, and has a dozen broken bones and frostbite and doesn't even know it.

aside from this possibly thrilling news about superheroes, yesterday could have been a pretty bad day. i ate my bagel in the morning and found that there is a large chunk missing from one of my back teeth. i have no idea how or when this happened, but i can tell you the exact size and shape of this missing chunk because i just cannot leave it alone. it doesn't hurt because i think i had a root canal on that tooth a couple years ago, but i'm paranoid that it will start hurting so anytime i feel anything i start to panic about being in pain and then suddenly i am in pain, at least until i realize i'm imagining it. i went home and made an appointment at the dentist for 7:00 on monday morning and then went to take a nap, because anytime anything happens that i don't like, that is what i do. napping is my coping/hiding mechanism.

when i woke up from the nap, the first thing i saw was a mouse running across the floor. i knew there was a mouse downstairs, in the living room and occasionally kitchen, and have been a little mad about that for a while because the reason the mouse is down there is because my roommates are incapable of cleaning up after themselves. but i live on the 3rd floor - how was a mouse going to get up there, i thought. well, probably through the walls, is the answer. the true horror, however, is yet to come. we only have one mattress. previously, i liked this mattress. it is a chiropractic matress and pretty comfortable. but, it is only one mattress, and therefore pretty close to the ground. like, a mouse could jump from the floor onto this mattress. i saw the mouse run right by the bed, inches from it, and i pretty much went into hysterics. not crying, but a little hyperventilating and also some hyperbole about how much i hate my roommates. jake came upstairs and i pointed out where the mouse was hiding, and we discussed our options while i was standing on the bed, pillows around me like a shield-fort, the cat cowering behind me, completely oblivious to what was happening but catching on to the fact that it was scary. then the mouse ran behind the bed. the cat took one look at the mouse and fled, and i screamed a little bit but just for a couple seconds.

i immediately put shoes on, my first thought being, as it always is, rabies, and my second a host of other possible illnesses. then we picked up the mattress to try and find the hole, and found that on the side closest to the wall, the mattress had been stripped of its covering and a lot of its stuffing, a perfect place for a mouse to hide, right underneath us as we slept or napped or read comic books or held hands and watched the simpsons. that is the true horror. well, i had already decided that i wasn't going to sleep upstairs until we knew the mouse was gone, especially on a mattress so close to the floor, but at that point i was infuriated. i almost threw it out the window, but then i fell under the weight of it and screamed because the mouse might still have been in there. after jake lifted it off of me, we moved a few essentials of our own and the cat's (damned if i was going to abandon him up there, he was more terrified than i was, and also rabies) and moved into the previously-mentioned, still-empty room that my roommate is too spoiled to rent out to someone he doesn't know, although everyone he does know has too much self-respect to move into the shithole he and stephen have created. the room is ok. a little small for the cat, but there are two mattresses that, if we catch the mouse, we're going to move upstairs. i've been told i can burn the other one if i can find a safe way to do it.

catching the mouse, though. how to do it? we went to fred meyer's, jake for some aspirin without gelatin and me for some mouse traps. secretly in my heart, i hoped that they would have tiny versions of the humane traps we had when one of our cats ran away - ones you put food in, and when the animal goes in it triggers the door so they're trapped. we never caught our cat in one, but we caught the neighbor's a few times and a skunk probably three times. but when i got to the pest control section, i realized, of course they don't make those. people talk a lot about animal rights and make noise about boycotting companies who participate in animal testing, but those are for animals like monkeys or rabbits. when it comes to an animal that comes into your house, they want it killed. we opted out of the glue traps, because what happens then is the mouse struggles to get out until all its legs are broken and then either you smash it or it dies of starvation, and also out of poison because of the cat/state of retardation that is apparently popular in the kitchen. i mean, who does not empty a dishwasher before putting dirty dishes in it, or leaves leftovers on the counter for two days and thinks they are still good? people who might eat poison, that's who.

so it could have been a terrible day, but it wasn't, really. the tooth doesn't hurt and it's going to get fixed soon, and jake and i managed to squeeze a few laughs out of the whole mouse thing. also, two other possible solutions to the mouse problem, both of which i like:
get another cat who is braver and less useless
move out
if it doesn't get resolved with the traps in a certain number of days, i may implement one of these. yes.

also, i am pretty happy that my cat was just as scared as i was of the mouse. i once read a short story where a woman saw her cat kill a mouse. i mean, they play with them. they are cruel. it's like the avada kedavra, mean and painful. she never felt the same way about her cat again. also, i have this impression of my cat as a huge wimp, and it was reassuring to see him act in a manner consistent with that impression.

Stan Lee Fan Letter Project

As you may know, Stan Lee is the force behind Marvel Comics and the contended "father of the modern superhero." Were I Harold Bloom, I might argue that he had invented the modern individual's sense of morality, but I think Harold Bloom is crazy and fat, so there you go. Stan Lee will also be 85 this year, so I feel that if you know who he is, and have enjoyed his comics or any of the other forms of media that have sprung from them, now is the right time to send him a fan letter.

As a pretty big nerd and fan of Stan Lee myself, I have decided to take on the Stan Lee Fan Letter Project as a way of making this easier for you. Here is my vision for the Project: I will collect hopefully a couple dozen fan letters for Mr. Lee and send them in a package with an introduction from myself, approved by those who have written the enclosed letters. I know that these letters will encompass only a fraction of the letters Mr. Lee must receive on a regular basis, but I feel that by sending them together we can provide an example of the web (ha!) of lives his comics have informed and the kind of community that they can create. If you think that sounds corny, well, on one hand, you're right, and on the other, you don't know Mr. Lee's comics well enough to be familiar with that certain brand of earnestness that is corny and compelling at the same time.

If you want to participate, there are a number of ways to do this. You can:
write a fan letter as a word document and email it to my email address (if you know it, great for you - if not just send me a message through the blog or something. can you do that?)
handwrite a fan letter, scan it and send it
handwrite or type a fan letter, physically sign it (which i think is a nice touch, especially if it's in a different color so it's obvious that you signed it) and send it to my address (same deal as the email)
or, if you live near me or work with me, you can just hand it to me.
Ultimately, I'd like to have this done by the end of next week, but if you tell me you want to send a letter I will wait for yours.