11:30 p.m.

BECAUSE I CAN'T HAVE ONE. -.-

9:30 p.m.

Awww, thanks guys! Mike and Maddo both ended up donating, so I am now at $510 for First Book! The Brick is happy, too. His thanks are far cuter than mine. Observe:

I am off to do a happy dance to Pink Floyd's Coming Back to Life.

Also, I just got a mention on the front page, and I swear my voice dictation program makes me sound like I don't speak English. I'm probably slurring and then not proofreading properly because of the tired. Here is what it should have said:

My tip for surviving the Blogathon: "Raid your housemate's/mothers/own makeup case and do the most intricate tribal designs possible on your face and arms using lipstick, eyeliner, glitter, and mascara. Make sure to do your hair crazy too, perhaps with lots of tiny pigtails strewn about. Set up a fort in a dark room, and take sequences of pictures of you in the fort. Later, stage a one-person raid and destroy the entire edifice. Post the aftermath for a triumphant Blogathon finale!"

Dear blog gods: Please to be giving me functional hands again, kthx.

7:00 p.m.

Hellooooo? What are you posting?



Here is some squee, courtesy of Tweaker, who would rather nap in my clean laundry, kthx. Please ignore the high-pitched "whee!"-- I am a little stir crazy!

9:30 a.m.

Meet my cohosts!

Since everyone in my house is out of town this weekend, it's up to me to keep myself company. I can't leave my house for more than 15 minutes at a time, so people basically have to come to me. Luckily, that's where pets come in.

These two boys are named Tweaker and The Brick. They're my pet rats that I got through a rescue program at my university. For the first year of their lives they were used in a behavioral psychology class. It took awhile, but they're pretty normal and well-rounded boys now. Before I got them, they had never been outside of a cage!

I rat-proofed my room a couple of months ago, so I can shut the door and let them roam around in here with me. They're litter trained, so I don't have to worry about them leaving me little presents outside of their cage.

The Brick is the one on the left. If you can't guess by his name, he's not that bright. Because of this, he's my favorite of the two. You sit there, and you watch him, and it is so clear that he has absolutely no grasp of what's going on a good 75% of the time. His brother is far more intelligent, and thus far more devious. He's also a bit spastic, which is how he got his name. He has a tendency to beat up on his brother more than he should, but that has gotten better now that I've gotten them a brand-new cage. Like all brothers, they fight less now that they don't have to share a room!