Perpetual Smile

The mirror is a rapist in disguise. It is trying to kill me.

Every time I turn off the lights and crawl into bed, it steps forward menacingly. It moves closer and closer to the bed, until I turn the flashlight on. Then it jumps back into its place in the corner and it. is. JUST. a mirror.

With the light off? It’s a rapist again. Because the rapist got in through the locked garage/basement/front/back doors, came upstairs, AND into the closed bedroom door without me hearing it.

When the heater kicks on? I jump. When the toilet randomly makes noise? I jump. And let’s not forget the self-drying Whirlpool tub. That motherfucker is actually a ginormous vacuum in the ceiling that is going to suck me into outer space and perform rude, invasive experiments on me. As if I don’t have enough problems.

As I sit downstairs at the table, working on my laptop, I’m convinced that there is someone standing in the backyard, Michael Myers style. But there are no footprints.

The rapist has technology.

I know you’re coming for me, motherfucker. And I have a message for you: you can’t get me, as long as I have the flashlight I am safe, and I see RIGHT THROUGH your flimsy disguises.

So if I disappear and stop updating, dear readers, you know why. It was the mirrorrapist.

House sitting for my aunt was PARADISE, I tell you. I went from living with a whole mess of family to, well, just me. I didn’t even have to worry about the cat (although I did really miss her and I think she actually missed me, too). I had three bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, living room, office, and bedroom, as opposed to one bathroom, two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room (AKA my room; that’s another post for another day), and the living room. I always had hot water, never had to wait to take a shower, and a fridge that produced ice and water.

I also had an intruder.

As I dried off after taking a nice hot (bubble!) bath in my aunt’s Whirlpool tub, I heard a sound downstairs. Suddenly, being alone didn’t appeal to me too much. “Who’s there?” I said, feeling a little silly. It was probably just the house settling. Quit being a baby, I told myself. There’s no one here.

I got dressed and turned the water on to brush my teeth. A sound erupted, something between the sound of a vacuum cleaner and a tornado. It split the sound barrier in half, so if I screamed I never heard it. I ran into the hall, in the direction where the sound came from. Immediately I realized that it was coming from Katarina‘s bathroom and ran right in. I don’t know what ran through my head, or what I expected to find or what I thought I would do when I found it.

If the whirring, mind splitting tornado sounded loud in the master bedroom, it was World War II in LA in the bathroom. I peered into the tub and read one word on the digital display: DRY.

The tub was drying itself.

A self-drying tub had given me a heart attack and had almost prompted me to call my dad. I can just imagine the conversation we would have had:

“There’s an air raid alarm going off in the house! I don’t know where my uncle keeps his ammo! Come get me!”

He would have arrived to find me huddled under the bed with a walkie-talkie clutched in my hand. Or my stuffed penguin.

I’m going to be house sitting — and no, that isn’t a fancy term for a House (the lamest show ever, and YES, I said it, Mom, on the internet, in print!) marathon — for two weeks.

It should be interesting, as I’ve never house sat before, and this particular house has its quirks. There are at least ninety-nine light switchesswitches pretending to be light switches scattered throughout the house, waiting for you to flick them accidentally. These little Easter eggs usually cause power to go out in certain parts of the house, ejection from the house into outer space and, in severe cases, swine flu. The people I’m sitting for also have Comcast, and I am apparently not capable of using the remote; the various buttons on that thing could wipe out our entire planet, if I hit the wrong one.

So it should be interesting. Naturally, I’ll be blogging about it, because I owe you guys and I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of me trying to explain to my aunt and uncle why their house is on the moon instead of at their previous address: “I thought I was turning the kitchen light on!”

Anywho.

My little world has been a little crazy lately. I recently partnered my freelance web design company with my aunt’s web design and print company, and we managed to acquire a pretty big client. I’m not going to go into details, but the move was anything but simple. Luckily our client has been really understanding, and all is well as of tonight. I’m actually really surprised at myself; I guess you really do never know what you can do until you’re facing a deadline that is less than a week away and you can’t find a PHP developer. Needless to say, my basic PHP skills need to be a little more. I’m hoping to finally sit down and read the PHP book I bought over a year ago while I’m trying not to destroy my aunt’s house.

I also recently went to a new dentist. The dental hygienist kicked ass. She took x-rays of my mouth and it turns out I’m going to have to get all four of my wisdom teeth removed. That is not kickass. I knew it was probably coming, but I’m still terrified. The x-rays showed that the incoming teeth are pushing over my other teeth. I have a really, really tiny mouth, and I figured that’s what was happening anyway, but it’s still totally different to see it and hear it from a professional.

I sucked it up though and made an appointment with an oral surgeon for next Monday. My business partner and aunt said that I’ll get lots of drugs and ice cream out of the deal. I’m not too excited about the drugs, but I can definitely dig the ice cream.

I’ve been trying to write more lately, ever since I attended the 2009 NVCC Writers’ Conference a couple of weeks ago. (It may have been more like three weeks ago, but I’m so fried and brainless at this point I’m not too sure. I’m also too lazy to go check.) I recently got back in touch with Mary, my old Astrid and Dante roleplaying partner. We used to write for these two all the time, but gradually fell out of touch. Anyway, we started writing again. You can read all of our archived logs, and we are also currently writing new stuff, over at our new-ish blog. (My friends from LiveJournal might remember me posting logs or writing about these two.) I’m also planning on getting back to my novel while I’m house sitting.

I’m also currently working on a project I’ve been sitting on for a while. If you’re being followed by a freakingbookwrm on Twitter, follow back because that’s me! Freaking Bookworm is my upcoming online book club. I read a lot, and I often mind myself wanting to rant or rave to someone about different parts throughout the book. I don’t have the time to meet up with a regular book club every week or every month, so I thought it would be neat to do an online book club that anyone can participate in at any time. As far as I know, there is nothing like it out there on the net. It’s going to be kickass, so follow freakingbookwrm on Twitter (I hate that I didn’t have enough characters to keep the “o” in “worm”), and take our poll to help choose our first read.

I actually meant to be in bed by now. I’d say there’s always coffee, but my body stopped responding to caffeine a month ago.

Update: I just posted the latest Astrid/Dante, Ouch! (Part II). Go check it out and let us know what you think. (: