#darrenious

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1. The Time He Caught a Vole, But Poorly, and it was very much alive and thrashing, and I tried to grab his fool head to make him drop it, and it bit me, and long fucking story & ER visit short, I know more about rabies than my incompetent former primary care physician did (like that voles do not carry it). Ripley was inconsolable because I took his vole

2. terrible case of Childhood Poop-Foot. you remember. not a day would pass without poop-foot and traumatic sink adventures

3. The Closet of Dreams. jimmied the pantry closet door from below. lobster-trapped himself inside. scattered all the snacks all over the floor, gorged himself, peed. took a nap in the wreckage until you found him there. 3k upvotes in r/cats are assholes

4. Ripley's Sick Flips, earning him the nickname Rippy Fresh :D joyfully & zealously leaping for a feather wand until he crashed into enough furniture that he no longer likes feather wands. because the toy's coordination is the problem

me: “You understand now. I am just a milder form of him.”

darren: “ ‘I’m cold, so I’m going now.’ ” 

me: “Yeah, when he just fucked off in the middle of everything-”

darren: “Just like you.”

me: “-and later we find him in his car, blissfully basking in the sun with his eyes closed, listening to classical music and eating potato chips.”

We're gonna go with the Rhode Island bridge skunk, August 2022. To explain for those who did not hear this story in a series of disjointed texts between 8pm and 2am, I was on vacation alone, standing on a bridge at dusk staring into the water (this bridge crosses an estuary flow that sometimes gets luminescent comb jellies in it; they look like underwater fireflies), and I was barefoot, as one is, and a wild skunk barreled right up along the sidewalk and onto my feet. Which, as I said, were bare. I don't remember the touch of the skunk or really much of anything other than a tremendous surge of adrenaline and then being fairly high above the pavement as the skunk took off across the road with me screaming at it, "STOP SNEAKING UP ON PEOPLE!!* FOR FUCK'S SAKE! GET OFF THE ROAD AND WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING BEFORE YOU MEET SOMEONE WHO CALLS ANIMAL CONTROL ON YOU! Fuck's sake, dude."

*This was the 2nd time I encountered a skunk on my vacation. Just the night before, I had met one on the actual beach, trundling up the sand toward me in the dark, and given the timing and location, it may very well have been the same skunk.

[x] Oooh, I was JUST extended-daydreaming about this character before I got up today. Top 5 things I keep in mind when writing Kuri:

She is in at least moderate physical pain at all times. She's used to operating that way, but it's there, and it affects her behavior. (Because it’s a visual story, I also have to think about how it affects her movement, how she positions herself in space, etc.)

She's been programmed to follow whomever seems most capable of keeping her alive in the apocalyptic setting they're in. I have to keep an eye on who she thinks that is throughout the story, because there are abrupt shifts. She’s uniquely vulnerable to suggestion from that person (I live for the day when that person is herself).

Her use of language is unusual. Among other things, she doesn't use 'I' pronouns through most of the story, or really talk about herself at all.

She feels very deeply, but she doesn’t believe that she does. There’s extraordinary self-denial here for a long time. It’s betrayed through expressions and movements.