the way we do

i can't help but think that if this were "the wild," baby squirrel would have been eaten by an owl or a fox or a baby raccoon by now.

but, seeing as how this occurred in LA, my argument is invalid. Angelinos are all about preserving unnatural ways of life (we live in the middle of a fecking desert for feck's sake.)

squirrel nuts

the aforementioned squirrel encounter.


squirrel nuts from stephan!e lee on Vimeo.

animal encounters

i don't know what it is about today, but i'm having all sorts of wild encounters with nature. maybe it's the change of time; humans and animals are crossing paths in ways we shouldn't b/c of mass confusion. too many creatures scurrying about their business on overlapped schedules...

as i was leaving the school parking lot, two large crows were hopping the fence around the cars, snapping at each other and using their beaks to pluck at a tangled yard of police tape.

at grad school, in a lecture hall after library hours, i encounter a cantankerous squirrel who apparently decided grading papers was a far less interesting use of time than running around between rows of seats and fending off rabies with a 5 foot metal pole. (video forthcoming...)

after returning home, finally, i am stalked to my apartment door by a large feral cat/ possum who shines her electric eyes at me before jumping off the banister. whoa!

and then there's the post-adolescent male humanoid, lumbering out from his cavernous dwelling to forage for food. he scratches himself, squinting in the kitchen light, and, lacking the necessary implements (pot and spoon), resorts to its typical diet: microwaveable hotdogs and white bread. food he can hold in his hands. behold, the urban male.

fascinating discoveries in this jungle!
-stephan!e

THE FUCK?!!!

48 hours before senior project is due: i'm sitting at my desk, listening to music and working on my paper. i have 10 documents open at once, maybe 3 applications. i'm pressing F9, which on a mac, lets you zoom out and look at everything at once, so you can find your bearings.

i zoomed out and it wouldn't zoom back.

i heard gears spinning, the clicking of some hardwear trying to find its place, a fan doing its best to keep the system from overheating.

3 hours later and my harddrive would be pronounced dead on arrival. when the guy at the apple store plugged it in to try some diagnostic tests, he said he couldn't even detect a harddrive on there.

now i have a useless piece of empty computer, which will cost close to $2K to recover the data from. and i don't know if my external harddrive got fried in the process too. i'm just hoping i made it away from this with just a small piece of my music collection still intact on that external...

i feel like the Universe's bitch right now. what did i do???!! i keep wondering why my karma is so for shit these days. maybe i hit a squirrel with my car and didn't know, in which case i'd like to formally issue my apology: i'm very sorry, it was nuthin personal, i actually love squirrels very much, if i could, i'd adopt the dead squirrel's family and let them live in my home.

just pleeeeaaaase, stop it with the bad karma!

less than 24 hours to go, and i am in some deep shit.

-stephanie