WAR ON MUS

That's right ladies and gentlemen: I AM A GENERAL IN A WAR.

Well, I guess General. Probably not though. Probably just a foot soldier. But still, the battle is on. We have found, in the little kitchen of our apartment, a mouse. More than one mouse. Two mice. Dos. Mus musculus. In our kitchen.

Traps have taken care of both. That's how we know it was two, rather than just one. Please, I'm not all up on that mouse recognition business. I majored in biology, not animal testing. Anyway, my roommate found a trap that was - ahem - ocupado on Saturday night, and I found one this morning (I took me by surprise when I opened it and saw the dead little mousie smiling at me and I might have screamed like a small girl). So two mice. The exterminators have ruled that those were probably the only two, but mice should consider themselves on alert. I'm watching.

In non-mouse news, school is killing me softly. The only thing that's keeping me going is the thought that next Monday it'll be over and done with, and that even if I totally bomb all three of my finals I can't possible fail. Also, Lola and RD have gone a long way toward making sure I don't dive into the deep end. Ah yes, my sidekicks, where would I be without them?

I'm writing. It's going . . . slowly. Everything feels like it's dragging, screams to me that it doesn't work, that the transitions are clunky, all that. It's going to need a lot of work but the important part is getting myself moving. Once I start it gets easier and starts going much faster. I was talking with someone about writing tonight and they're of the philosophy that you should take your time and wait to write it until it's good. Doubtless that works for a lot of people (Christopher Moore has talked about using this strategy) but I'm more of the "throw a hot mess on the page and pretty it up for the show" kind of writer. I write as much as I can, as quickly as I can, with everything I even remotely want to include, and then I pare it and polish it and re-write it later. They're two different mentalities for sure, but with writing I've found it's more important to roll with what works for you, rather than what your idols do. Stay true to yourself, yo.

And stay in school, kids. Just think, you too could wind up a stressed, over-worked nursing student with a serious writing issue! And who doesn't want that?