Last night I had a fever, which resulted in the collapse of the Indian political system, leaving me trying to rebuild it. The strange thing was that I was trying to rebuild it out of cylinders, cones, and blocks.
The whole process was a struggle between two factions - one on each side of the bed; the wall side was promoting a complex system constructed purely from blocks that would promote interdependency and mutual support, whereas the room side favoured a tall central cone that would coordinate a dynamic network of cylinders and blocks.
The problem was that everytime I rolled to one side of the bed, the previous construction of the other side would be toppled - and every time, they would try to rebuild something slightly different.
I'm pretty sure that explains what is wrong with the world today.
Posted: May 06, 2003 05:57 PMthis one time i had the flu and i was lying in bed, thinking it was an atari factory and i was the only staff memebr around. so i had to assemble all of the ataris by myself, out of my pillows.
it was tough work, man.
last night I dreamt someone was breaking into my apartment (the dream was biased by a coworker who got robbed the night before) and I imagined they were just reaching through the open window to steal whatever they could reach (which, upon reflection, is quite a bit). then at 4a I awoke, the noise continued to exist outside of my dream, and there actually _was something poking around my windowsill. I could sorta see a shadow moving around behind my blinds but I couldn’t tell what it was, so I put on some pants, got my big 4 d-cell maglight ready in the “illuminate and pummel” configuration, and went and lifted the curtain to come face to (thank goodness) face with a skunk standing on the ledge above my computer. oh. shit.
the skunk was trapped between some venetian blinds at the back of the sill, and a sheet/curtain hanging over the whole window box on the room side of things. it had climbed in and couldn’t figure out how to get back through the blinds to the outside. I decided that this was the type of fun late-night hooliganery that chris should be involved in, so I woke him up. thoughts quickly turned to that great resource http://www.google.ca/search?q=how+to+lead+a+skunk+outside, but our inter-Net™ was down (damn you telus). we then weighed the various pros and cons of using my small mammal trap, getting post-bite rabies shots for the next 2 months, and where to get 40 litres of tomato juice at 5a. I seemed to recall that skunks were nocturnal so we thought it best to get it out while it was still darker on the outside, otherwise it might be prompted to travel deeper into my room. a scheme was hastily concocted to carefully raise the blinds and goad the skunk back out the window. first, where is the pull string to raise the blinds? aha!, the skunk was sitting on it at the right end of the window where the opening is. leaving chris in charge of making sure it didn’t get any further into the room, I went outside with a coat hanger and carefully fished the string out the window. pulling tenderly and expecting a bomb to go off at any moment, I raised the blinds.
while chris shone the flashlight on the curtain, the skunk ambled slowly out into the lightwell at the side of the building that houses my window. this is when telus failed us. had I been able to do some research and determine that skunks are essentially giant balls of fur with stumpy legs, I would have built the skunk a ramp to get out of the lightwell then, while it was still night and it wasn’t freaking out. however, I thought it’d be able to climb/jump the 20” wall and go merrily on it’s way. after closing my window and going back to bed I couldn’t figure out why it kept scratching at the window. did it leave a mate inside somewhere? a fairly exhaustive search suggested no, but it seemed determined to get back in. in hindsight this was because it couldn’t go anywhere else, and I curse the architect who designed a skunk trap outside my window. so this morning I wake up to find the skunk still outside, sleeping under a scrawny tree that’s rooted in my lightwell. fishing a 4’ long strip of plywood from our storage area to build a ramp with, I went out and tried to place it down quietly but the gravel bed of the well crunched and gave me away. a quick hiss, like the turbo overpressure release valve on dave’s talon (r.i.p.), and suddenly the delicate aroma of burning rubber permeates the air. oh. shit.
so now the little stinknugget is still sleeping outside my window, my room smells like I’ve been huffing burnt plastic (gad dam cheap crappin’ single pane non-sealing windows), and I’m tired as hell. I just hope he’s gone by the time I get home tonight or I’ll have to try the drunk-as-a-skunk trick.
I dreamed last night I got on the boat to heaven,
And by some chance I had brought my dice along,
And there I stood,
And I hollered,
“Some one save me,”
but the passengers they knew right from wrong.
For the people all said,
“Sit down, sit down you’re rockin’ the boat.”