Goodbye mouse

So I'm too lazy to recount this whole story but I feel an urgency in posting it because I know you're hanging on every twist and turn so I'm just going to reprint an email I sent to someone about it.

Dear [Redacted],

(note: I actually have a friend whose name is "[redacted]". I thought it was weird too, especially the brackets.)

This morning I found the mouse in my shower! I grabbed a trash can and trapped it in the overturned can. Then I put a bunch of shampoo bottles and anything else I could find nearby on top of the trash can for fear the mouse would somehow get out. Then I worried those bottles weren't heavy enough so I put stacks of books on top of it along with a box of bills and crap. Then I called the super. He came and wet the mouse with water by filling the tub and then he flushed the little guy down the toilet. The image of the little thing swimming as fast as it could while circling the bowl is haunting me. I have mouse blood on my hands. And mouse poo in my shower.

So, yeah. Anyone know how to remove a tiny chalk outline of a mouse from their shower?

update! breaking! alert! words with exclamation marks!

I"ll be on Red Eye tonight. Make sure to watch unless you're busy.

New York smelled good today

like laundry and flirtation. sadly I think that might have been drakkar. it's weird how high school informs so many of your associations. but it felt very potentially-exciting-in-a-back-to-school-way, which is in stark contrast to the way New York usually feels around this time of year which is stagnant and like death and melting cassette tapes in the back of a car. actually it didn't feel exciting, because it's hot and gross, but it smelled exciting. this is why I get paid the small bucks to be a writer.

Best Bets 8-18-07

I forgot to post this delightful number from a couple weeks back. I didn't love it for some reason if I remember correctly, but don't let that stop you from loving it, since you probably will since you're very like that. (but it's what I like best about you.)

Today's TONYblog 1 Thing

You like to laugh. I know because I'd recognize that braying titter anywhere. I mean, I like it, don't get me wrong. It's just very recognizable. Especially when I have a headache. But don't go changing because it's what makes you you. Even if sometimes it's what makes you annoying. You know? But like, in a good way. Anyway, take your lusty guffaw to a Comedy Central Presents taping, won't you? You have to register on their site and then hope and pray for an opening. If it doesn't happen you can bring your wet-sounding chortle to the Ritalin Reading Series at 7:30pm.

Wake up with me

Because your ardor for me is matched only by your curiosity, you're likely wondering what my mornings look like. Well I'll tell you. Every morning I wake up with the intention of going to the gym before work. Half the time I actually go, even if I end up riding the bike because it's the one machine I can essentially sleep on while exercising. I call it sleepercizing. The other half of the time I press snooze repeatedly until the window for 1) going to the gym closes 2) taking a shower and washing my hair closes 3) taking a shower and not washing my hair closes 4) taking a shower at all closes. I'm surprised I even change clothes to go to work, and don't think I haven't been tempted to just wear pajamas. There was a time when I used to wear make up and look stylish every day at work but that folly is behind me. Plus the more you're on TV the more it begins to feel like your real life and your real life feels more like downtime and it's all very confusing. I hope that doesn't sound as affected as I fear it might. But back to this gym thing. One of my motivators for going in the morning, which is always painful, is to change into my gym clothes and then let myself get back into bed for a little while knowing I'll really go in 10 minutes but lately I can't even do that! Anyone have any tips for making themselves workout before work? Share, won't you?

Clip from CW11

Interviews done like this—taped with a producer asking you the questions—are at present my least favorite kind to do. I just prefer live TV or, if it's taped, I prefer to be hosting. But anyhoo, here I am talking about a story we ran in Time Out. And for those keeping track this was in that few days block where I was wearing this shirt for TV appearances. I'm cyclical... like a mouse.

I love my exterminator

Is this what Eva Braun felt? I'm sorry, that was a terrible joke and I should probably take it down but the heady rush of the exterminator having swept through my apartment has clouded my judgment. I love him! He even smells good, which is probably the smell of rodent poison or something to mask the rodent poison. Anyway, while I'm not entirely confident the problem is solved because I won't believe it until I don't see it, I feel substantially better than I did a couple hours ago. I kind of wanted to take a picture of him for the blog, but then something stopped me. Strangely it was the urge to eat through rotten wood, crap in the linen closet and then scurry, squeaking, through a hole one eighth my size while possibly carrying pestilence though I think that's more folklore than anything. Strange.

And while we're talking about this I have something unrelated to say. I think it's funny when people pile on the host of that late night show I do for being so twisted. They'd probably be surprised to know a sweet looking girl in love with her exterminator spawns some of the more twisted material.

Best Bets 8-25-07

Perhaps it's the fact that it's 20 degrees hotter in my apartment than outside or maybe it's that I have about four thousand deadlines in the next few days and all I really want to do is take a nap somewhere sunny, which is really weird since I'm hardly a somewhere sunny kind of person, or maybe it's the hyper-rodent-vigilance I'm now engaging in round the clock, but I just felt kind of spacey during this morning's Best Bets and also, apparently something painful crossed my face while talking about the second event. I think I swallowed wrong. Enjoy!

UPDATED: Red Eye 8-23-07, parts 1 and 2

Part 1:



Part 2:

Mousewatch 2007

Dear Mouse,
Please leave my apartment you tiny furry bastard. I was unhappy to find you hanging out brazenly on my stove and slightly disgusted when the sight of me kind of waving my hands in the air and saying "uh....uh.... uh..." while debating whether to try to trap you with an overturned box or hit you with something which I couldn't really do caused you to slither down into the body of the stove. A braver person than I would have actually lifted up the top of the stove but I couldn't do it. Instead I decided all my cooking tonight would happen in the microwave even though I've lost my appetite. Is that you crawling up my leg? This will be the first of twelve thousand times I wonder that. Anyway, enjoy your stove furlough you horrible horrible pointy faced jerk.
Alison

Links and mice

I've been posting quite a bit on the TONYblog. Maybe you want to read my posts over there? I think you do! Here's today's 1 Thing. It mentions movies and my inspirational prowess and then here's a 1 Thing from Wednesday which mentions Brooklyn and Michael Showalter. And then here's a delightful little post where I busted my coworker for his breakfast trysts. But wait there's also this one! And surely you love this conversation about mumblecore. And some stuff about Fringe. And a very important You Gonna Eat That with Drew Toal.

Also, unrelated except not to me because everything relates to this: I saw a mouse in my apartment last night. If you were anywhere near me a year ago you know how I named the mice last time around with the hopes that I could convince myself that Chad, Rob and Grover were cute uninvited cohabitants instead of horrible frightening vermin. It didn't work. Then a professional exterminator "rodent proofed" our apartment which solved the problem and was the best couple hundred and seventy five I could have spent. Well now a year later those whiskered assholes have chewed their way back in apparently. Or one has. He was hanging out near the foot of my bed seemingly surveying a box of beads which was down there too since the mini-move has put the wrong things in the wrong places. I just hope there's only one of him. Regardless the exterminator is coming out tomorrow morning. I'll be sitting up all night holding a jar of peanut butter, a wedge of cheese and a giant box. Probably a couple magazines, some triscuits, a paddle-ball, a Chinese finger catcher, a Chinese jump rope, some fortune cookies, a Magic 8-ball, an actual eight-ball, two cans of hairspray and a squeegee too.

Red Eye photos

Oh look, it's the wave I always do even if I don't particularly want to:



And here I am looking smarmy:

Watching you watching me

This is actually the second Fran Drescher reference I've gotten this week but it's nice nonetheless. And yes, they do slather you in lip gloss.

Me talking about skee-ball on the 11pm news 8-17-07

An excuse

So I promised that I'd give you the behind-the-scenes rundown each time I do a TV appearance and already I've fallen behind. You were right to turn your back on me years ago, adoring public. But see I had to change desks at work and I'm changing rooms in my apartment and while these two mini moves hardly add up to anything like a real move they're still unsettling enough to make me clam up. Did that sound like a real excuse? Because it was hardly one. But I'll rectify this soon I promise. Expect duck jokes and more. Plus clips!

see me tonight

I'll be on NBC local news between 11pm and 11:30pm so tune in if you're so inclined which you pretty much definitely are. Then stay right there without even sleeping so you can see me on the same channel at about 9:30am. Okay then.

HIGHLY SPECIFIC SCENARIOS INVOLVING DUCKS (and what to say)

THE SITUATION: someone has given you a duck which you're trying desperately to give away, so desperately that you resort to flattery

YOU SAY: "Nice shoes! Want a duck?"

HIGHLY SPECIFIC PICK-UP LINES

THE SITUATION: there's been a break in
YOU SAY: Was your father a thief? Because my watch is missing.

THE SITUATION: it's Easter
YOU SAY: How do you like your eggs in the morning? Scrambled or hidden in the backyard?

THE SITUATION: there's been a hurricane
YOU SAY: what do you say we go back to my place and slip out of these wet clothes?

TRENDWATCH

HOT: branding iron
NOT: guppies

Today's TONYblog 1 Thing

Iambic pentameter? I'm not into Satan, thank you very much.

Alfresco is really the best way to enjoy Shakespeare, with the possible exception of al dente or, if you're feeling funky, in a class called something like "From [Name of Tragedy] to [Name of Tragedy]: The Tragedies of William Shakespeare." I took such a class in college which, despite my dewy face and general youthful demeanor, was some time ago, and so I can say that the plays really hold up. I mean, I read them when they were current. We'd pack up a saddlebag of tomatoes to throw at the players

TRENDWATCH

HOT: waffles
NOT: nuclear winter

Today's TONYblog 1 Thing

See her tonight at Rumsey Playfield

When I interviewed Fiona Apple in late 2005, I thought that if I were somehow a different kind of interviewer, or maybe a different kind of girl, I would have known how to share lipgloss and become best friends with her. It felt, in the setting we were in—a rehearsal studio in Burbank, techs and musicians and guys all around; we were the only women there and we're roughly the same age—that that's what should have happened. I don't know that I can explain it exactly, but if we'd been on a double date we should have gone to the bathroom together,

TRENDWATCH

HOT: Dante's Inferno
NOT: Santa's workshop

SPECIALTY LIES

SPECIALTY LIES: CIRCUS EDITION #2

SITUATION: You’re stuffed into a Volkswagen with 30 of your friends and you fart.
STANDARD LIE: “Do you guys smell that? Wow. What are they feeding the elephants?”
DELUXE LIE: “Is it me or is someone using turned grease paint? Bubbles? Is that you again?” (Note: This works especially well if no one in the car is named Bubbles).

SPECIALTY LIES

SPECIALTY LIES: CIRCUS EDITION

SITUATION: One of the other clowns accuses you of stealing her rubber shoes.
STANDARD LIE: “Bubbles did it.”
DELUXE LIE: “Gross. Do you know how many germs can live in shoes? I’m a germophobe, so I know. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I would never steal your shoes. No offense.”

HIGHLY SPECIFIC INSULTS

THE SITUATION: you're dealing with a really annoying egg
YOU SAY: "get luteinized and slough off!"

THE SITUATION: those are some mighty big forecepts
YOU SAY: "forecepts? more like fivecepts!"

THE SITUATION: you're 93 and you're playing pinochle with someone who is really crappy
YOU SAY: "you play pinochole like an 81 year old... an 81 year old who's never played pinochle"

THE SITUATION: the damn hen is taking forever
YOU SAY: "you gonna hatch those chicks or just sit on 'em all day?"

THE SITUATION: the piano player is smug and tinkly
YOU SAY: "you play piano like a tuba player"

THE SITUATION: the Queen is acting uppity again
YOU SAY: "is that your dress or did your bustle throw up?"

THE SITUATION: the Grape Nuts have betrayed you
YOU SAY: "et tu, Grape Nuts?"

THE SITUATION: you're angry at your corn flakes
YOU SAY: "what are you, Grape Nuts?"

TRENDWATCH

HOT: a thermos with soup in it
NOT: a thermos without soup in it
EXCEPTION: gazpacho

TRENDWATCH

HOT: fire
NOT: penguins

TRENDWATCH

In: 11:04pm
So five minutes ago: 10:59pm

Am I ruining the mystery?

I've decided that from now on when I do TV I'm going to post about the behind-the-scenes experience because television is magical and all sorts of important and exciting stuff happens which you may or may not be aware of and I'd like to build a bridge between you, the viewer, and me, an emissary of the enchanted land of television. Actually I don't want to build a bridge between us, I want to be the bridge that connects you to TV. It's a good thing that I'm not making any bridge jokes because that would be tasteless. I'm just saying more that television is an organ and you're a pedunculated cyst and I'm the stem. That's disgusting! Truly, I just made myself sick. For YOU.

So today I set the regular three alarms for 4:48am, 4:58am and 5:11am. Because I'm neurotic. I woke up on the intended second alarm (the first is so I can hit snooze and the last is just a safety precaution because if I were to sleep that late I'd be screwed). I got to the studio, drank a small cup of coffee and noted once again the dichotomy between makeup and hair people, who are generally exceedingly calm and soothing, and morning TV personalities, who are somewhat antic. I'm somewhere in between, but I like to make sure the first few words I speak aren't on air because I want to eradicate any sleepy conversational clunkiness. For this reason if anyone asks me any questions before I go on air and I struggle to answer I take this as a slightly foreboding sign, especially when the questions are "hey, what's going on" and "how are you?"
Then then hair and makeup people told me I was perfect exactly as I am and that if they were to touch me it would be gilding the lily and also unfair to everyone else so I said okay and was brought out to the set. Actually, that didn't happen. Please read critically.

The segment went well. Michael and I wondered aloud what Yo-yo-ers should be called and then when we were talking about Home Movie Day he said that the footage we were looking at was Thomas Edison but I thought he said Thomas Jefferson which really didn't make sense.

After the segment I drank another cup of coffee but I think the milk had turned or maybe the coffee had but anyway I quietly excused myself to throw it away in Conan's trash can. I mean, not his personally, but the one across the hall by the entrance to his studio. I'm not sure why I did this since there were trash cans in the green room.

Then I sat around for awhile and then I changed into my walking home from TV clothes and walked home except for the part where I got lazy and took a cab.

Best Bets 8-11-07

Blash-up: vacation spots/signs your friends are high

I fear these blash-ups are hardly the level of awesomeness I'd begun to achieve when I did them more frequently on MySpace. So bear with me. I'm refinding my blash-up voice! I can't remember the the last place I saw it. I'll stand very still and hope it finds me. While crying and whimpering.

Jamaica
What's with all the corn nuts?
Cabo
It's funny, but not THAT funny
The Poconos
Lake George
Green butter
Maui
Hacky-sack
Are we there yet? Actually, we haven't left!
Paris
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude.
Aspen
You smell like a Christmas tree
The Shore
Wizard of Oz and Pink Floyd again?

Blash-up: salad dressing ingredients/signs the graft isn't taking

For those unfamiliar with "blash-up" it's short for "blog mash-up," a term coined by the lovely Laura Leu when I was casting about for one and a debt is owed as well to my favorite book, For the Love of Cheese from the makers of Might magazine. I don't even love cheese! But they used to do similar types of lists. Anyway:

Salad dressing ingredients/signs the graft isn't taking

oil
vinegar
gangrene
salt
intense itching
garlic
what's that smell? oh, it's your hand
mustard
pain
dill
what type of blood did you say you had?
marjoram
can you feel this?
pepper
come back in two weeks and bring the hand

Best Bets 8-4-07

Here's Best Bets, and I'm sorry I haven't posted anything of consequence word wise lately. Would it please you to hear about my allergies? Because I feel like someone rubbed a cat all over me today, which is not a euphemism. I have histamines in places I didn't know were possible. Date me?

UPDATE: Red Eye 8-3-07 WITH MORE LINKS

Hello readers. Did you see me in the Post? And Gawker? It's been a strange day. Anyway, here's this: