I’ve never called myself a “feminist.” I’m not some weird
misogynistic crazy woman, but I like to consider myself a bit more
balanced than that–people are people and the random assignment of
sex should have nothing to do with anything besides what we have
under our clothes. The concept of “women should be quiet, stay at
home and make babies, and look pretty” is equally as stupid as the
concept that “men shouldn’t cry, should make tons of money, and
should act tough at all costs.” Antiquated lies, all of them. How
ridiculous can we, as humans, be? It should come as no surprise,
then, that when I see blogs and articles about so-called “feminist
issues,” I cringe a bit. I always feel like there is another side
to these issues that goes ignored in some strange double standard.
Women should be pretty/thin/blah blah blah…but we can’t ignore
the fact that men have a “box” they are supposed to fit into, as
well. (it’s just that they aren’t supposed to share their feelings
about it, remember?) Today, however, I ran across an article title
that made me think. And then made me angry. And then made me
resolve to just speak out when I feel like it. I didn’t even read
the article–just the title. That’s all it took. The topic? The old
belief that women should be quiet. (And in my head, the belief that
men should always speak up and fix everything). Think about it. How
many times have you edited yourself when you were not sure why? I
like to think I specialize in the written word, at least more so
than most if the population. Speaking? Sometimes, not so much. Time
and time again, I fall into the “I should just be quiet” trap and
edit myself. In fact, I edit myself right into a blathering,
mumbling, soft-spoken and simpering waif…who goes on and on and
on…and still doesn’t make her point. And you know what? That is
going to stop. Why does the belief that I should be “quiet” turn
me, an articulate, educated, and generally outspoken person, into a
hyper-manic meaningless word machine? How hard is it to say “I
don’t like that” or “I would rather stay home” or “you are my best
friend” or “I disagree”? This isn’t a women-only issue…it’s a
people issue. It’s time to make it a point to save those extra
words for describing a mountain or writing a song…and just say
what we mean. In fact, I’m going to practice right now: I’m tired
of hearing people (including myself) complain about the fears that
hold them back. And as long as I’m alive, I’m sure I will at times
be guilty of doing just that…but fighting those fears the whole
time. Maybe if we all make an effort to try that, life would be
that much less chaotic.

Tonight I said goodbye to the past year by getting half-naked and sweaty in a candlelit, 105-degree room with 50 other people.

That is to say, I took a silent Bikram yoga class that started at 10:30 (and therefore ended right before midnight).  The “silent” part is important, because the normal class is based on a pretty much scripted dialogue that varies little from class to class.   For me, hearing that dialogue througout every class, even though it is repetitive, often means that I have a hard time getting into the “yoga zone,” where my deeply hidden thoughts begin to surface.  You would think that after doing something anywhere from 3 to 14 times a week for seven years, I’d be able to find the “zen place” easily, but no such luck.

Tonight’s silent class was a new experience for me, and even as I flowed through the series of postures, I realized a lot about myself and about this year.

It is hard to say goodbye to what I call my “early 20s dream,” that idea of a “perfect year” where I accomplish every last thing on my list and meet key people who will change my life.  I finally see that every year, every day, is full of potential for both opportunities and setbacks, and it all depends on which of those I wish to see.

At the beginning of class, I surprised myself by looking into the mirror and deciding that staring back at me was a beautiful creature.  On that positive note, I began class thinking about the past year and the themes that seemed to run through it.

It was a year of drawing lines, crossing lines, erasing lines, blurring lines.  It was a year of answering questions and asking still more–what is friendship, what is love, what really makes someone “family”?  It was a year of reconnections, new connections, and severed ties.

This year, either in reality or just temporarily or just in my mind, I was: a chihuahua mom, a best friend, a greek goddess, a comic book heroine, an intergalactic space traveler, a counselor, a chemistry geek, a raw food vegan, an advocate, a cute bartender, a secret, a confidante, a lover, a savior, a writer, a rock star, a foreign tourist, a fashionista, a muse, a happy girl.  And more.

I decided a few things during that 90 minutes earlier tonight.  I am not stuck in a dead-end job, I am taking this time (while I can) to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I’m not avoiding making decisions, I’m living in the moment.  Love can exist in many forms and can be shown in many ways.  And sometimes, nobody understands me better than my developmentally disabled chihuahua.

I couldn’t completely finish the final breathing exercise at the end of class–I was crying too hard.  Just like the year, like every year, I felt like the class was over even though it had just begun.  I’m sure by now I have done the series 2000+ times…but how many years will I get?  If I’m lucky, 100, 105, 110?

Lying in final savasana, I made a final decision: I’m giving up the search for the elusive “perfect year” and starting a search for perfect moments every day.   It’s just as ambitious, but a lot less daunting.   Even during my bad weeks, I can recall just one perfect moment of each day.

…and this time next year, maybe I won’t be writing about how it seems like the year ended before it really began.  Until then…

**I’m going to go ahead and mention that I don’t know much (anything, really) about Hindu deities, and I don’t claim to…so don’t be mean if I get it wrong, okay?**

Historically, I’ve never been very good at blurring the line between “everything is my fault” and “everything is the world’s fault and life isn’t fair.”  See, no matter what happened, I’d find a way to trace it back to “I suck and need to try harder.”   Remember that kid in school that teachers called “underachiever” when they thought no one was listening, the one that they all said needed an extra nudge (shove.  throw?) to try half as hard as everyone else?  Yeah.  I am the opposite of that kid.  Maybe I’ve gotten lazy relaxed a little bit, but not so long ago I’m pretty sure people were muttering under their breath as I walked by, “back off, crazy type-A person!”

At some point, I started letting the universe take a little bit more of a fair share of the blame.  Kind of like the opposite of “taking charge of your life;” a kind of acceptance took the place of the oppressive guilt feelings I constantly nurtured.  I actually started to think that maybe, just maybe, everything wasn’t always my fault.

When I want something, no matter what it is, I find a way to get it.  Maybe not right away, maybe not in a way I am exactly proud of, maybe not in the exact way I imagined…but I do.  I can think of several things in my life that were hard-won that I got because I had bulldog determination:  my education, my car, my health.

And a few years ago, that is exactly how I found myself in the situation I’m about to describe.  See, I’ve been on a weeklong rant about Ganesha and his cruel double identity–but more on that later.

I had just left a job that I loved but at the same time was certain was eating my soul, discovered my love for yoga, and made sense of a disastrous nonsensical relationship that I hadn’t been able to shake off.   As the weeks went on, life got simpler and things just made sense.  I was able to walk on water, damn it, and nobody could get me down.

Long story short, I found myself craving the attentions of a certain member of the opposite sex.  I’ll only admit that calling my state of desire “a crush” is a sad understatement, and leave it at that.  I was torn between feeling like a hot chick on a mission and wondering if I was just a sad and lonely lost puppy dog that hangs around someone’s front door with teary eyes, saying “Love me????”

I should mention that one thing at that time rivaled my type-A-ness, and that was my stubbornness.  That is why, in this situation, I found every external reason to explain why I could not convince this person that I existed.  Something was in my way, and instead of being the pushy overachiever that I normally would be, I took the coward’s way out–it must be something else.  The universe’s fault.  The moon.  The stars.  The polar ice caps, the disappearance of honeybees, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, the state of a random homeless man’s facial hair.  Couldn’t just be me.  Nope.  No way.

So I did what any rational girl would do.  I asked a knowledgeable friend, who told me to think about Ganesha, who was, after all, the remover of obstacles.

Yep.  Remove obstacles.  Not sure what my obstacles were, but they were there and they needed removing.  Hey, Ganesha!  Let’s make this happen!

Years went by, and to simplify: nothing happened.   I figured the obstacle was just me being me and I became entirely amused with something else in my weird life and just kind of…forgot.

But now I am convinced that Ganesha is playing games with me.   Obviously the old obstacles have been, to my knowledge, removed (if ever they were there)…only to be replaced with ones that seem larger.  Ha-freaking-ha.  I saw this coming miles away.

Of course, it wasn’t until last week that I learned that Ganesha is also known as the creator of obstacles.  Apparently, Ganesha likes to keep us on our toes. Not that I’m assigning blame.  On the contrary, I choose to think that all this removing and creating of obstacles just makes life interesting.

The lesson in all of this?  The road is paved with obstacles.  Sometimes the best thing to do is just breathe.

Last week I was talking with a friend about memory.

(Let’s pause here.  I don’t want this blog to get confusing. Let’s give my friend a nickname. From here until further notice, I’ll call him Twister, after a character in an old cartoon. Ok, moving on…)

Memory is a strange thing, and I will be the first to admit that I have a strange memory.  I don’t have a photographic memory, per sé; I can’t look at the pages of a book and then recite a paragraph word for word without looking, but I can, for example, remember exactly what I was wearing that time ten years ago when we went to see Mission Impossible: 2 in the theatre in Dillon, Colorado…and I can remember the date on the quarter I found on the ground, and what I ate during the movie.  And that is not an isolated instance.

Certain things, I can remember with clarity, while others get lost in a mucked-up chronology.   I couldn’t tell you the month (or sadly, even the season–Winter? Spring? ???) I lost my virginity, but I can remember with detail the last night I worked at the job I held junior year of high school.  I couldn’t tell you the date I got engaged (either time)(!) but I can tell you the serving size and calorie count of probably over 100 packaged foods, which is impressive considering I haven’t eaten anything out of a package for 3 years now.  Weird? Yes. Sad? Maybe, sometimes.

Interesting? Definitely.

See, the other night I was thinking about those years of my life that I devoted to the arduous task of dating. You know, meeting people, deciding whether I was attracted to them, waiting for them to decide whether they were attracted to me, letting them try to impress me in some ridiculous way, and stressing over whether whatever crazy thing I did to impress them worked.

And I remembered one particular time in my life when I was downright bored.  I wasn’t really interested in anybody, the dating scene sucked, and my job was boring.  Until one night, a Jared Leto lookalike walkied in.  And proceeded to flirt with me.  He asked me to “hang out” (the closest I guess you really get to an actual date when you are 19 years old?) and I said yes. Turns out, we both had pet snakes.  (What a thing to have in common, right? That…and NOTHING else, it turns out. )  Our “hang out” turned into a trip to the pet store, where Mr. Wonderful proceeded to grab the rosy boa I had been admiring out of her cage and place her down his pants before hightailing it out of the store.   Mortified, I followed.  In the car, he gave me my “gift” (from his pants, remember?) and I silently sat in the passenger seat on the way home, unsure what to do. (Turns out, I did a lot of nothing.  I was too scared to actually go back there, so I took care of her. And named her Gank.  See, back then, I even had a sense of humor.)

I never spoke to that guy again, even though he left me several messages (many to the tune of “…but I put a snake down my pants for you!”) and showed up at my work a couple more times.  When I moved to Colorado, Gank found a home with my friend Nick and I am sure she lived a full, happy snake life.

Memory (at least mine) is a very strange thing, indeed.

How many times in the past (on this blog and countless others) have I stated my intentions to carry out a juice fast (well, juice feast, really; you can’t technically “fast” on juice as you still consume calories) and days (or hours) later said “nope, sorry, I need the fiber/need the fat/too stressed/my dog ate it.”  (That last excuse is one-size-fits-all. Late for work? Dog ate it! Dreading that baby shower? Dog ate it!  Take a $20 bill from your sleeping husband’s wallet to buy a new yoga towel? Dog. Ate. It.  No, really.)

The past few weeks have been…well, interesting.  For one, I have discovered the reason  why I always “give up” on my juice feasts. But more on that later.  New things are happening, old things are happening (!) (?), you know…things.  Things are happening.  Exactly what do people mean when they say “Things are happening”?  Oh, yeah.  Things=Life.  Life is happening.

I have a ton of motivation to regain my optimal health (and yes, looks too.  I’m vain, I admit it, deal with it.)  I have several opportunities to travel coming up soon, and I don’t like traveling while feeling icky.  (I don’t even like sitting on my sofa feeling icky, go figure.) I have tons of other reasons to want to feel good again, but none so exciting. Trust me.

What will I leave behind this time, that caused me to fail miserably in the past?  Fear.  That little fucktard Fear and his posse of Negativity and Hate and Stress.  (Yep, I really did just say “fucktard.”)  If Fear were a person, (s)he would be a passive-aggressive little whiner who realizes the utter truth: (s)he is basically nothing, an invented emotion with no control at all.  Last week I was talking with someone about a question they were asked regarding whether another’s fears were justified.  And I said, “only if you let them be…” meaning that Fear only has power when you lend it to him/her/it/whatever.

Ah, Fear.  I know that I have been presented with these opportunities and choices.  “But what if I make the wrong choices?”  What if?  I have made the wrong choices so many times in my life–and look, I’m still here to tell you all about it!  (In my experience, you will eventually get a chance to “fix it” and make the right choice…sometimes years and years later.  Or at least discover that the thing you thought was the “wrong choice” was spot-on RIGHT. Funny how that works, eh?)

So Fear+juice? What is that about?  Well. I am almost embarrassed to say.  The thought of “all that sugar and no fiber” kind of freaks me out.  It is never the hunger, the cravings, the detox symptoms.  Oh, no.  It is always only my mind, telling me that a few days or weeks or months of all this vitamin-filled sweet nectar will surely do something terrible, like spike my blood sugar (or, eek, MAKE ME FAT)! (News flash: I have a blood sugar monitor like diabetics use.  A baked potato send me from 72 to 169.  Pure fresh squeezed apple juice, usually painted as an evil, high-glycemic sugar nightmare?  From 79 to 86.  Interesting.)  I have to think of it this way.  I abused my body for years with cigarettes, junk food, fake diet food, chemical-laden tap water, prescription drugs, recreational drugs, laxatives, diet pills, and negativity.  YEARS.  So, if I make my goal three weeks of juice…exactly what can three weeks of juice do to hurt me?  Yeah, there is some perspective.

Good-bye, Fear…or should I say, kthanksfuckoff, Fear…I am throwing you out on your pansy ass.

*I am the only one who gets the double meaning to this title.  Maybe I will share it with one other person someday.  However, sometimes one of life’s greatest pleasures is laughing at an inside joke you have with yourself.  Try it.

The Law of Attraction states that if we “ask and believe” we will “receive.”  Those of us who are a bit more cynical know that the moment we stop seeking, we find.

At this point, I shrug.  It figures. Haven’t I learned this lesson before?

Years ago, I found my peace center.  (I am not sure how I found it and how I subsequently lost it and where it has gone, but it was nice while it lasted.)  I knew what love was.  It was my puppy, Marley; it was smiling my biggest smile at every grumpy old crotchety man who sneered at me; it was picking up caterpillars from the bike path so that they could grow into their very best selves.

I knew that love existed in some other form, somewhere out there, but I was content where I was, with that “other love” in “some other place” “out there.”  One thing I know: you can’t pin all your hopes on someone and expect them to save you.  (You also cannot expect anyone to read your damn mind, but it is ridiculously difficult to remember this for some reason.)  I learned this lesson at a comparatively young age, and I continue to learn it in hundreds of ways.  I’m not big on having a “plan B” and that means that I am often left with little time to make big decisions.  I like it that way.   Thinking too much about “plan B” makes me feel like I am not really committed to whatever it is I am doing , and that leaves me with a huge sense of discontent rife with “what-ifs” and “buts.”  I guess what I am saying is, as much as I know you can’t put your everything into one dream or goal or person, it’s difficult to find that balance and turn off the hyper-focus.

And when I was younger, teachers and parents and other people (whose business it was not) always said to me, “now don’t spread yourself too thin.”  Oh. Okay.

No wonder I was confused.

Every day, I learn a little more about what happiness isn’t and what love isn’t and what peace isn’t. Which, to me, means I must be closer to knowing what these things are.

**I snuck in a song lyric as the post title again.  Blessid Union of Souls is probably the most under-rated 90s band EVER, and that line is beyond perfect for me right now.PP

I know, some of you are thinking I should have my ass kicked for using a song title as a blog post title (because, it’s like, SOOOOO 2004 MySpace blog, you know?)  but every now and again I like to take a song and kind of integrate it into my post.

Let’s talk about dreams, shall we?  Not dreams as in “aspirations,” dreams as in the kind you have at night while you are asleep.

About six weeks ago, I had a dream that left the above-mentioned song playing in my head for days,  and left me haunted with a desire to change my name to Ruby (out of necessity, trust me) and run off to the mountains.  Said dream actually ended up inspiring me to put some other stuff into motion in my life, but I never really figured out what it meant.

I have been terrified of dream interpretation since I called a “professional” dream decoder and spoke with her. (Live! On the radio!)  One of the now-defunct local radio stations had a show one night a week where this dream doctor took calls, and the first time I called, I got on.  The dream?  I had broken into one of my yoga teachers’ houses.  (Don’t worry, I am not into B&E at all, never done such a thing.) (At least one of you knows I am lying.) (But that was different.  I mean, I’m spoiled, and I need access to a bathtub.) (Don’t ask.)

I remember that she kept using the word “private.”  (Not “privates” because that would means something completely different.)  “Breaking in is something you do and keep a secret, it is very private” and “yoga is a very personal private thing so the fact that it is your teacher’s house means privacy fascinates you” and “I can tell you are a very private person” and somehow she got to “trust issues.”

*cue sound of record scratching to a halt*

Trust issues? Me?  Is she for real???  I am probably too trusting, I mean, how do you explain the little broken-hearted emo kid I was before the word emo even existed?  Trust issues. Pff.

But then.  I realized that maybe “trust issues” does not necessarily refer to the ability or inability to tell someone everything about myself.

(If you are under 18, you probably want to stop reading right now.) (But you won’t, especially since I said that.)  (Damn.)

1998.  I was 18 years old, just out of my freshman year of college, and in my very first apartment.  My kind-of-cute neighbor and I hung out and watched bad TV together, and sometimes his twin brother came over.  Now, I don’t remember why, but one time when Brother was not there, he told me a story about how Brother and his girlfriend would, er, perform what I considered a bizarre sex act involving nudity and a Dairy Queen Blizzard.  (Er…cold.  Sticky + outdoors = bugs.  No. Thanks.)  (No, really, I have no idea why the hell this tool told me this story.  Why didn’t I see something wrong with that back then?)  I spent the next few weeks obsessed. Not obsessed with thinking about Bro eating his Blizzard (eek!) but obsessed with the fact that apparently, these people trusted each other in a way I absolutely did not understand.  (Also, dear GOD, why did this guy tell his BROTHER this story?  Okay, I’m done now.)

So yeah, if you want to talk about that kind of trust…sure, maybe I have issues.  That makes me kind of sad, in a way, but I think it goes beyond trusting someone else enough to be kind of kinky–it has a lot to do with trusting myself. And that is something I can definitely work on.

Moral of the story?  The dream lady is always right, and please, find something else to do besides pour fake ice cream (with candy chunks in it!) on your girlfriend’s cho-cha, because that just can’t be fun.  Well…what ever gets you going, I guess…

and I never did really figure out that dream. “I’m so glad you have a one-track mind like me…”

Get into a conversation with me, and you will likely walk away thinking “How the hell did we end up talking about (insert random topic here)?”

My train of thought is usually destined for a trainwreck; that is, it is too fast and has little direction.

Such a thing happened yesterday, when in the midst of a conversation about Gabby the Chihuahua, I told someone about my guilty feelings over being a crappy girlfriend.  (Not girlfriend in the romantic sense, girlfriend as in a female friend to another female.)  In my limited experience at being an adult friend to other adult women, I somehow had this train of thought when a friend told me she was getting married:
1. Yay, that is awesome!
2. Bachelorette party, that is my job.  Shirtless men, inappropriate inflatable toys, champagne.  I can do this!
3. Um, wait, maybe she doesn’t want one. Not everyone wants one.  If she does, she will tell me.
derp derp derp, months go by…
and days before wedding friend invites me to her bachelorette party, organized by another friend.
4. I am such a ho-bag.  Really.  What do I do?
I don’t even go. Because I feel like a ho-bag and an outsider. Hooray!
5. I suck.  Isuckisuckisuck.  Time to go hide now. Forever.

The discussion then turned to the fact that as a child, I thought my parents were geniuses who knew everything that was best for me, and took what they said and accepted it as true. (Until I was about 12, but by that time, a LOT was ingrained into my head.)  One thing that came up was the fact that any time I had “friend problems” (long before”boy problems”, you know?)  my mom had the kind of “f*ck ‘em” attitude that came with the advice that nobody would stick by me (except my parents, of course!) and that friends really didn’t matter.  (This paired with my mom’s own lack of girlfriends, save for one that she worked with and gossiped about viciously.)

And to this day, I often find myself on one side of a bridge holding a gas can and a match.

And it upsets me more than anyone could ever even know.

Since turning 30 last year, I have often thought about wondered about bitched about “wasting my 20s” in various ways.  Being really, really sick…having a severe eating disorder…chasing stupid boys after I left one of the only decent ones behind…studying things that I knew I hated just for the prestige factor…buying useless crap and then complaining that I was too broke to leave this town.  Etc.

All this cliché talk about burning bridges has a point.   (I think.)  To continue the crazy figurative talk, it’s time to put away the book of matches.  It’s also time to just admit that I am a clueless freshman when it comes to friendships with other women.

Er…slumber party, anyone?

I have come to the conclusion that earning “Psycho Ex” status has less to do with being psycho than it does with being human and dealing with other humans.

Somewhere around age 20, you will find that it is no longer possible to date anyone without hearing stories of their “crazy ex, who…[insert story here].”    And I’m not talking about”bad date” stories, because everyone has those.  (I could devote an entire new blog to those,  but it might be prudent to wait until the “Sex and the City” hype dies a little bit more.)  I am talking about full-blown relationships, complete with thrown dishes, pulled knives, restraining orders, and great make-up sex.

(Also, after watching the Chi 3, my dogs, for a year, I have decided that violent arguing is a biological urge in all animals, which includes humans.   Humans, though, have just grown silly about it.  “Did you look at her ass?!!!? DID YOU????” *plate whizzes past head*  The Chi 3, however, if we could hear their thoughts, probably sound more like, “Foodfoodfoodfoodfoodfood MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE GET AWAY NOW BITCH!” )

Like it or not, everyone we hook up with/date/marry shapes us in some way.  (Trust me, I still have an intense fear of and hatred for cameras for this reason.)  Everyone is so quick to talk about the bad things that came about from this relationship or that one, but what about the good things you took away?  It seems that we all want to be jaded, bitter, and scarred.  And the longer I live on Earth, the more I wonder, “why?”

According to me, love is meant to be shared, and I have finally come to understand that it (and the people/animals/trees/thoughts/etc that are involved) can’t be owned, bought, coerced, changed, or forced to do anything. (This is why I love shoes–I can buy as many as I want, then they are mine.  I can modify them to be comfortable, and if they still hurt my feet, I can take them off and throw them across the room, and put on a different pair.)

Silliness aside (for just a moment):  why is it that we end up with (or being the Psycho Ex? Is it a way to rationalize the break-up, to oneself and others, and at the same time turn the pain into a(n attempt at a) humorous story? Does it make us think that others are more likely to accept our less-than-perfect past, because there was a crazy person involved?  Are we all just to quick to say someone is “crazy” when they don’t agree with us 100%.

All of the above.  That’s what I think.  All of the above.

And remember:  you should always be aware when  you are in the “Psycho Ex Danger Zone.”  If you don’t want to end up the subject of years of stories,  beware of anyone who has nothing but Psycho Exes.  If (s)he tells you about multiple restraining orders, exes gone wild, and other crazy stories, you will definitely end up a part of that list.

Trust me.

A long time ago,  my eyes wandered to a low shelf in the local library, and there, on that shelf just centimeters above the floor, I fell in love.   The object of my affections was Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, the first in a series of graphic novels about slacker Scott and his unfortunate situation (namely, the need to battle his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes.)

The story is amusing, sure, but the thing that really got me hooked was the sheer expression in each of the character’s faces.  The drawings are not super-realistic masterpieces, but they capture expressions so well that you just feel the need to squeeze each and every one of the characters.

I immediately decided that I needed to learn cartooning.  My boyfriend at the time told me hat it was okay that I sucked at drawing–cartooning was “a skill” that I “could learn.”

Ha. Hahahahah.   He knew not what a disaster I am with a pen, a marker, a pencil, a paintbrush.  People can’t even read my handwriting.  (Also, the only class I ever failed was “cutting,” in kindergarten, setting me up for a lifetime of artistic failure)  (and I didn’t even really fail, I got an “N” for “needs improvement”) (but then what do you expect when giving a 5-year-old a blunt pair of “scissors”?)

Therefore, like so many of my dreams, becoming a cartoonist with a famous comic strip/comic book/graphic novel fell to the wayside, to be all but forgotten.

Until the other night.  See, I was messing around with Microsoft Paint, trying to make something for work (it didn’t work) when I saw a strange flutteringflappingflying movement in the hallway, moving from the bedroom to the bathroom.  I immediately grabbed the Chi Three (my three Chihuahuas) and moved them into the kitchen.
“Why the F*** is there a BIRD in my APARTMENT?!?” I thought.  (A few years ago, a pigeon got into my old place and I trapped it under a trash can.  But not before it shit all over everything, including my curtains, bed, and clothes.)  How wildlife finds its way into my homes is a mystery.

Oh ho, though.  I quickly realized my mistake when the Demon Bird from Hell flew back from the bathroom down the hallway and into the bedroom.  “That is no bird.”

What did I see?

“Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”  (Sorry, it’s my favorite moment in <u>Fear and Loathing</u>).  It was a bat.  A full-fledged, sonar-equipped, leathery-winged BAT.

But really, after it settled in on the miniblinds in the bedroom, it looked like this:

…and like this:

I called my husband, who was at work.  Keep in mind that this is about midnight.  I called my mom and stepdad.  I called my dad.  My mom said to kill it with a broom.  It must have heard her.

No way could I kill it.  It wasn’t doing anything but hanging out, trying to stay dry, and besides, knowing me, I would make a mess and then feel guilty and have to clean up.  No thanks.  I  called my husband again, who left work citing an emergency and came home to trap the bat and let it outside.

Coincidentally, my husband is obsessed with Batman, so I think he was secretly excited when I said “thanks for coming home, Batman.”  Dork.

He had to take the puppy gate down so he had a quick and easy pathway to the back door to let the bat out once he caught it.  Now, the Chi Three were behind the gate and the bedroom door was closed, keeping them in the living room/kitchen area and the bat in the bedroom. (No way could I put them in the bathroom and close the door. It was midnight, and they knew it.) (Read: yowlbarkgrrrrrrrryowlyowlyowlcrycrywhinewhiiiiiiiiiineBARK!) When the gate came down and my husband opened the bedroom door, guess what happened?  Satchel went running in to the room, barking.

This, by the way, is Satchel:

We call her “Ditzy,” “ShortBus,” and “Filled With Love, No Room for Brains.” She is special and we love her for it.

and this is my rendition of her brave entrance into the batcave:

I immediately got her out of there, and assisted my husband, who trapped the bat inside an old dog crate and ran it outside where he set it free in the storm.

Poor bat.

Moral of the story?  Bat refugees can make a web comic artist out of anyone.

More to come.  Let’s hope I get better with MS Paint, eh?