finding life in ambivalent places

megan and i were talking last night (she slept in my room because for some reason it doesn't seem to attract the mice like her room does), and we figured out that we've had mice in our house for at least five months. what, you may ask, are we doing about it? how could it be they're still around, with all the technology available to us? let me tell you.

we started out by calling our landlord. he called the exterminators, who set up a sticky strip under our stove to catch the mice. periodically, we would hear a disturbing squeal and know that a mouse had been caught and effectively starved to death, and we would call our landlord to come get it. we probably caught at least four mice using this technique. then the mice started showing up upstairs in our bedrooms, so we bought these great traps that tempt the mouse into a circular enclosure and then locks them into it, so that we don't have to see the mouse at all. we caught one mouse this way, and we were able to dispose of it ourselves, which of course made us proud. it seemed to be getting better for awhile, and then it got really bad. the mice were getting on megan's bed in the middle of the night, while she was sleeping in it. this, obviously, was completely unacceptable. i was out of town, so megan started sleeping in my room, and she took matters into her own hands. she bought the classic victoria traps, she bought poison, and she bought bleach. we strategically placed traps in all the places we'd ever seen a mouse (did i mention we'd see them running on our kitchen counter in the evenings?), and we got in the habit of bleaching the countertops every night. but the mice were eating all the peanut butter off of the traps, and going home to their families to tell them where they could find a great meal.

(this is becoming a long story about mice - can you tell that it's been a big part of my life recently?)

we were more than frustrated until rick came over and reset our traps, so that they would actually snap. and then we started hearing snaps in the middle of the night. we've developed a pattern now - every morning we go downstairs and look from the living room into the kitchen without turning any lights on, to see if there's a bump on top of the stove. there is, and we (by we i mean megan) get a paper towel and drop it over the mouse without looking, and then we call rick to come get it. four mice in four days. that's a total count of nine that we've caught, and who knows how many more there are.

this morning, there were no mice in the traps, and no evidence of any mice...but i'm not holding my breath.

i've been sitting at my desk now for almost an hour, finding things to help me avoid reading about dissociation and intimacy and psychological theories.

i've been listening to the rain spatter against my house (which is sort of a luxury - usually it doesn't rain hard enough that you can hear it in seattle), drinking a beer (alright, i admit it's actually a cider - but beer sounds so much tougher), and looking at my ex-fiance's blog, hoping to find myself in his archives.


i've been listening to more martha wainwright and damien rice (i will forever think of heidi now since her memorial video is set to a damien soundtrack - not the above song), enjoying the agony and the anger of their music and thinking about relationships...since of course that's what every song is about. (side note - if you're interested, www.heidimemorial.com)

i've been trying to push out of my mind the conversation we had at church tonight about jesus healing people, lacking the energy to wrestle with the reality that he doesn't heal everybody...i'm tired, and i'm tired of grieving and i really wish there was a reasonable time frame for feeling like this - hasn't it been long enough already? (btw, as a therapist and a friend, i would never say this to anyone else - just me) .

a little light reading before bed - an article titled broken hearts and mending bodies: the impact of trauma on intimacy.

at least my sheets are clean - small pleasures seem big...

stuck in the airport after a long funeral weekend, the second time this month...

i've been wanting to post for awhile, but can't find a way to put into words all that has been in the last few weeks. if i try, i think things like this: grief is hard and messy. overwhelming. can't make sense of much. flowers seem like life when everything around me is dying - looking forward to spring. school seems nearly impossible when i can't make complete sentences. i should take better care of myself, since i'm still alive - taking care of myself takes too much effort. sleep is good. home is not what i thought it was. i want to stop spending so much money on things that don't really matter - i like retail therapy.

i'm blogging instead of working on my research paper, but i know i'll have to do it at some point...

i went to see snow patrol before going to phx, and it was a great show. i like small shows much better than big arenas, but it was still good. martha wainwright is that haunting voice with them on set the fire to the third bar, and i looked her up when i got home and bought one of her albums on itunes. she's pretty incredible.

(disclaimer: explicit lyrics)


i've also been listening to sandra maccracken's album the builder and the architect - it's her modern interpretations of old hymns. having grown up in a non-traditional christian home, i never really got into hymns, but my friend sara sang for me the day after heidi died, and there was something comforting in the old-ness of the songs, so i went looking for more (i'm holding onto anything that brings me comfort these days). it's a good album. unfortunately, i can't upload her music onto this blog ( i can't figure out how anyway).


it's hard to ask for what you need when you don't know what you need. grieving is especially like that. thanks for being available, for asking what you can do, for checking in, for reminding me to eat...when i figure out what i need i'll let you know - in the meantime, keep asking. :)

my delayed flight is supposed to leave in 20 minutes, and we haven't even started boarding yet. it doesn't look good. guess i'll work on my research paper after all.