In The Abstract

My mom is inventing a new way to art! Sort of. It’s actually seriously kickass embroidery, but she’s sort of making it up as she goes along, so that counts.

It further counts because we have invented a name for it.

We call it “needlepointilism.”

If there is a better form of arting, I sure as hell don’t know what it is.

Consistency

Today’s Activities:

• Dither about whether to go out job-hunting or to wait for the results of the interview I’ve just gone to.
• Volunteer to go with my brother to beat back the demonically spreading aspens in the backyard.
• Nearly have a heart attack when the cat bats at the clippers.
• Go inside, stoically ignoring random pain shooting through skin. This is a normal response to being around junipers for me—merely brushing up against juniper causes me skin irritation and pain.
• Notice that pinky is particularly painful.
• See enormous splinter lodged in pinky.
• In the way of Schrödinger’s thought experiments or Wile E. Coyote physics, register WAY MOAR pain now that I can see the splinter.
• Dig splinter out of finger with carelessly sterilized needle and tweezers—while answering the phone.
• Decide that that is quite enough yard work for the day.

Yeah, I’d say the day has been seized. Can I go in now?

FOUR HUNDRED BABIES

Watching the most bizarre Animal Planet show I’ve ever seen. As far as I can tell, the premise is that our host is an EXTREME MAN, and in order to prove it he goes and punches dangerous animals.

So this entire damn episode is EXTREME MAN HOST going around prepping to go diving amongst Humboldt squid. It isn’t clear what his motive is here, except to be NEAR DANGEROUS ANIMALS. So he goes and practices by punching a surprised and indignant octopus, and then they give him some kind of armor and he goes and punches a dog, because dogs are like squid in that they are carbon-based. This is a necessary step, because, as the HOST tells us, if he fails at getting bitten by a dog, the scientists won’t let him move on to getting bitten by a squid.

And then, during the last ten minutes, he catches a squid, hacks it to pieces, and tosses it back into the water so the rest of the squids will cannibalize it, then he jumps in the water and all these squid are like ATTACK FRENZY and he’s like DUDE HERE I AM AROUND SQUID THEY’RE GNAWING ON ME and then he comes out of the water and is like ROCK ON.

And then as the credits roll, our HOST says reflectively, “People shouldn’t dive with these things.” So I guess it was FOR SCIENCE, after all, because we learned something today. Kids: don’t dive with giant tentacly predators who can rip your arms off. Even punching them may not work.