November 13, 1998 (Friday)

Two questions: If you cross the path of a black cat, who gets the bad luck? And, is there a way to pass the 7 year mirror curse onto other people?

Oh boy, have I got a freaky Friday the 13th story for you, my dear reader! This is nuts- it really is. Last night, my mouse's wheel was making the regular sqeaking noise it usually makes when he runs in it, but I had to sleep and he wouldn't stop, so I took it out of the cage. This was around 11:00, so I was still fully awake, and I made sure to lock the door of the cage and to actually get the mouse out of the wheel before I pulled it out. (I'm not that silly) So, this morning at 5:40 AM, I wake up to a weird noise coming from my bedtable (on which rests the cage and the discarded wheel). I figure the mouse has found yet another annoying, noisy habit, and smack the cage a few times. This doesn't stop the noise, and I realize that I actually sounds eerily like the wheel. But that's not possible, because the wheel is outside the cage, and the mouse is inside cage. Right? I look over, and in the darkness, I can see the wheel turning next to the cage. Needless to say, I mumbled an "Oh #!%* !! My God!" and got that little turd back into his cage pronto. Now- here's the mystery. The door was locked, and it's on the ceiling of the cage. To open it, the mouse would have had to hung upside down, pushed a big metal bar up and to the side (it's springy), then push the door open, climb out, and close and lock the door again (it was locked when I went to put him away). All by himself, and no, there are absolutely no holes around the bottom of this cage. Personally, I'm a little terrified. You would be too, if you had to sleep next to this magically materializing mouse every night.

Have you ever experienced the feeling of switching form speaking German to speaking English? In Deutsch (Entschuldigung- German), all the souds come from the back of your mouth. Not all gutteral, the way the infuriating non-speakers mock it, but still back there. And English is completely different- we form most words off the roof of our mouths in a very forward motion. The pronunciations just don't mix, and when you speak German for a good 45 minutes, it's not so easy to switch back to your native tongue. The words you are thinking with either have a German accent to them, or are German words themselves. Viel Verwirrung. And it makes a person want to flush one language out of their system completely. I've discovered one word that actually accomplishes this: BLAH!!! (Note: the three exclamation points are necessary, if only to get your point across to innocent passers-by)

I was watching TV the other day (big surprise there- my life is spent in front of one of two screens- this is so pathetic), and that old "Mortal Kombat" movie was on. For those of you who haven't had the ultimate privilege of seeing it a million times (such as I), it ends with this huge demon suddenly ripping a whole in the sky, big black clouds covering everywhere, and basically terror and hell coming into our demension. Now, instead of screaming and running for cover, or, heck, even letting a trace of fear or surprise pass over their faces for even a nanosecond, the five or so heroes immediately jump into karate stances. Then the movie cuts to black, leaving the viewer to contemplate. The whole time, I was thinking, 'one day, I'm going to have that kind of confidence in myself.'

To end, somethings that made me laugh: "Anything not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down." and "Create Havoc," which is what the tag on my sweat pants says (It is now my official dream to create havoc while wearing my navy blue sweat pants and my purple Africa sweatshirt. I think it'll make the papers, don't you?). And, something that made me feel better about being a so-called 'traitor' to a past 'friend': "If I am not fun, and I am not interesting, perhaps I am not interested in you... I'm going as far as I can go. Away from here, away from you,... and the hole you've sunk me into. I wish that I could belong here with you, and just be, but that's not all that I'm about to do." (Lisa Loeb, "Jake")