So, besides all the dead flies, the other thing I discovered as soon as I came into the cabin yesterday, was mouse droppings back on the counter and stove. After my debacle with the mouse last week (which, gratefully, there's no sign of anymore), I thought I was free of rodents, but mice are, apparently, like white supremacists . . . mighty fine people. No, what I meant to say was, there are always more than one of them, always more than you think.
So, I laid out a trap as soon as I noticed the droppings, putting it on the floor this time (that horror that awaited me last Wednesday would've been better on the floor), and figuring, I could catch it during the night, and there'd be no time for putrification (the original title of the last Pierce Brosnan Bond movie, by the way).
So, I woke up this morning--not insanely early for a change, although I did wake up around five, just out of habit, checked that the fire was still going, and then went back to sleep--and noticed the mousetrap had not been sprung . . . but the peanut butter I'd put on it was all gone. Clever girl.
I laid down two just now, and we'll see if the mice dare come out during the day, or if they wait until tonight.*
So, the movie I put on today was 1953's IVANHOE, a swashbuckling Technicolor adventure I had never seen before, but was referenced in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD two weeks ago, and, to my surprise, actually featured Robin Hood (though I believe he's only referred to as Locksley). It starred Robert Taylor and Joan Fontaine and Elizabeth Taylor, who was really radiant, but seemed to be the only American in the bunch. I have to admit to laughing a couple of times at the action and stunts (the arrows are particularly amusing, since they seem to be thrown from offscreen, harmlessly bouncing off walls and people), but the story itself held up remarkably well, and I think I'll seek out other adaptations, to see how the tale is told in more recent productions.
I think I'd even welcome a 21st century version, if anybody would dare make a film with that title now that the "ho" part sort of makes it impossible.
I continue to edit "My Friend of Misery," doing Chapters 6 and 7 today. Chapter 6 was, edited down from fifty-four to about eighteen minutes, and that probably took me two or two and a half hours. Chapter 7 was four minutes and thirty seconds, edited down to two minutes. A two minute chapter, kids.
I wonder how I can live with myself as a writer, when chapters can be that inconsistent. Still, I'd rather not know how to write at all than have to write every single one of my chapters the same length, like Robert Parker did.**
I worry, as I keep saying, that "My Friend of Misery" is just no darn good, and yet I keep finding lines or bits in every chapter I edit that I really, really like. And the premise is solid. And the performance, unless I'm way off the mark, will be a good one too. But you never know what the finished product will be like. When I watched ED WOOD a month or so back, he honestly didn't think he was making bad movies, despite those around him seeing their all-too-obvious flaws . . . and I'd wager more people today know who Wood is than George Cukor or Vincente Minelli.
I'm also super slow in getting MFOM out there. One of the things I was going to do while up here this weekend was draw up what I wanted the cover to look like, so see what Gino could do with it. Damn, I guess I'll do that right now.
Ugh. I used to fancy myself an artist. Yikes.
Oh, and I checked on Chapter 4, to see how long it was . . . and I hadn't finished editing it.
Push-ups Today: 69 and 70
Push-ups In October: 1067
So, while I was typing this, a little after it got dark, I heard a snap (startling me pretty good) across the room. A mouse had come back to the same trap it had taken the bait from before, but triggered it this time. Ostensibly, a mousetrap is supposed to break the neck or back of a mouse instantly, or at least quickly enough that death occurs very promptly. But it hadn't quite worked, and this was a very large mouse.
So what happened was, the mouse started to run around, dragging the mousetrap with it. It had become, essentially, trapped in the trap, but not killed by the trap. And it started to go under the cupboard, pulling the trap with itself. Now, me being a coward, I didn't want to pick up the trap with my hand, so I tried putting a 2 liter soda bottle on top of the trap to keep the mouse from escaping . . . but to my surprise, it pulled hard enough to tip over the bottle, and start to get away. So, I bent down and grabbed the end of the trap that DIDN'T have a mouse in it.
It was struggling to break free, and I think it might eventually have succeeded in getting out, since its back and legs were not broken and it was essentially just pinned under the mousetrap bar. So, my choices were--take the mouse outside and crush it with a rock or stomp on it (I think my shoes were off by this point, though), take it out and try to spring the trap and release it into the wild--which I would've found difficult because I didn't want to get bitten, or . . . well, kill it another way.
My brother would've had no compunctions about squashing it or slamming it down, but what I decided to do--and feel free to call me a bastard, if you like--was to put the mouse in the toilet, so it would drown. Which I did.
But it didn't work like I thought it would. The mousetrap floated instead of sinking, and the mouse swam around in the water from side to side, still trying to shake off the trap. I didn't know what to do--flush? Hit it with something? Weigh it down so it sank?--so I simply watched it swim around for a moment, starting to really feel guilty about this.
Look, a mouse is a pest. It is vermin. They get into our food and chew holes in fabric and tear up books and drawers and boxes. They also leave droppings everywhere, like were all over the counter, sink, and stove. BUT . . . they are living things, and worse, this was an extremely cute living thing, with great big oil drop eyes. A mouse can make for a good pet, just like a rat or a hamster. However, I once had a pet rat that attacked my little sister, tearing two holes in the bridge of her nose that bled in two directions at once . . . and it didn't matter that it was cute anymore.
The mouse kept swimming, using the trap as a floatation device, but after a moment, it capsized the trap . . . and that was that. It had no way of flipping back over, since the trap was attached to its back. So, within a few seconds, the mouse drowned. I then took it out on the deck and dropped it into the rocks there.
I originally didn't type this in such detail. I just said, "the trap just sprung, and caught me a mouse. Hopefully, that's the only one." But that's less interesting than what happened, if it is interesting at all.
Sit-ups Today: 300
Sit-ups Total: 2926
Once again, I got very few words written. I got to the big falling out between Lara and Holcomb . . . and I didn't write it. Instead, they sort of agree to disagree. And that just sucks. This was supposed to be a divide between them, where Lara's essentially good nature can't co-exist with Holcomb's essentially bad one, but instead, I gave them common ground. The witch has been changed by her time with the girl, and isn't the monster she started out as.
Of course, I plan to switch her right back in the epilogue of the story, with the girl none the wiser, and if I do that, then I get to have my cake and eat it too. Which might be fun.
Even better, I could have Lara find out the truth at the beginning of the next book, and they can have their big falling out then . . . only to have the villain I only referred to in this story show up when they are most vulnerable. Perhaps that will be the final story in the series, and that works just fine.
Words Today: 675
Words In October: 13,947
*That reminds me, about thirty years ago, my friends and I went to a Burger King where there were mice running around on the floor. My buddy Rhett, who is cleanliness-obsessive, told the employee that we'd seen one, and the employee said, "Yeah, there are lots of 'em." Rhett stormed out in a huff, and vowed we'd never go to that restaurant again. And we didn't--it closed soon after. It was not a traumatic experience for me whatsoever, and I never think about it, but Rhett brought it up on Wednesday, telling the story like it was still fresh in his mind. I wonder what he'd think of the squalor I live in.
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