Forgot I was using voice on chatGPT and ended up with a transcript of me talking to my new foster fail rescue pup, Ms. Rubi Roo. Condensed the approximately 900 “mm mm mm”s and sniffs, but this is basically how it went:

[humming, sniffing]

“We’re not doing that, baby girl. We’re not doing that. Sorry, but we’re not.”

“Girl, stop.”

“Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.”

“Uh, God. Ow.”

[more humming]

“No, leave that! No ma’am! Nope. Not happening. Not happenin.”

“Girl, you better leave it. Girl? Rubi Roo.”

“Good girl.”

[sniff. hum. sniff.]

“Why are you crying? Quit cryin. THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!" \*Tom Hanks Voice\*

"What? What do you want? I don’t see what you want.”

“You want your squeak? Hmm? Want your squeaky, Rubi Roo!?”

[squeak]

“No. Ugh. Girl. What you want?! You hungry?”

[brief pause. hum.]

“Like this? You want that? Yes? Yeah? Yummy.”

“Eat your food. Eat your food.”

“What the fuck? Oh my god, what did you do.”

[extended mm mm mm intermission]

“Can you sit? Good girl.”

“Stand? Stand?”

“Off, off, off! Girl, off! You’re not listening!”

“Good girl, hold on.”

[dog whining]

“Why are you frustrated? Why are you frustrated, baby?”

“Go get your bone! Get the bone!”

“Oh, you want squeaky toy?”

[squeaking]

“Give me that squeaky toy. That's my squeaky. Give me that squeaky!”

[human and dog growling]

“Careful… Careful… Oh my gosh, you okay?”

[sniff. hum. scratch.]

“Oh, girlfriend. You are annoying me.”

“What do you want, baby? Do you want this side? You want that? No? You want this?”

“Oh, you want THAT side.”

[several sighs]

“Go ’head, honey, go outside. You can go outside if you want.”

“Go ahead. Go outside.”

“What are you doing? Make up your mind.”

“No, we just were outside. Nope.”

[humming resumes]

"Aw. Outside? Outside, OUTSIDE?"

"Okay, Roo Roo. Let's go outside!"

I was in the 7th grade in 1996/7 and I did not have an email yet. My much cooler friend Naomi had an email address and had printed out and brought to class one of those email chain letters that had been forwarded to her and she was to forward it to an arbitrary number of people or her and her immediate family were in danger. She printed this out for some reason and brought it to class to share with her friends. I, a dumb ass, took it seriously and was confused as to what forwarding meant but she explained that it meant you send it to other people so that you don’t end up with the misfortune of your entire family disappearing.

All I had was a notebook and a bic pen so I got to work. I copied the whole thing which I am pretty sure took up a solid two pages out of my notebook with my larger bubbly 7th grade handwriting. I remember my hand physically hurting from trying to start on a second copy as fast as I could. I think I was half way through the second copy and trying to figure out who I was going to give the letters to when my friend explained it only worked via email. But she like, let me do it. I think she just enjoyed seeing me be a dumb ass and copy it word for word to spare my family.

I didn’t pass the letter out and I wasn’t allowed to have email until the 8th grade and by that time I was privy to chain letters and I didn’t fall for them any more. I spent my time in a much more civilized fashion, such as in AOL chat rooms. I was free to be much more gullible there but that’s where I met my first husband, so maybe that’s a story for another day.

My roommate and I are very different. They are very easily overstimulated. When they're out, they're focused on their destination and will effectively be blind to 90% of outside stimuli. It's not something they do consciously, it's just how they're wired.

I'm the opposite. I am taking in as much sensory information as possible. I can't turn it off, everything is hitting me constantly. Smells and sights are everywhere, and often neither are good (as is wont of a highly populated city).

Because of this, we've had conversations where I'll casually bring up the latest "theme" of the day/week, and they'll be incredibly confused how I keep finding these things. They've lived here for going on 10 years, and I've only lived here one. In that short year, I've encountered multiple places that are fronts, people passed out on the sidewalk (in a way different than a homeless person. One guy was knocked out, weird position, and a bag of groceries he'd dropped. Called him an ambulance when he was unresponsive), more dead animals than I can count, so many bones (not counting intact corpses or bones that are reasonably from restaurant meat), and a dozen puddles of blood, often fresh and reeking to high heaven.

To be fair, the fronts are not something I can confirm, but when I tell you how weird the energy is in there. And like, they don't know their own menu. I ordered limoncello cake and the guy working there asked what that is. Changed it to tiramisu, but he grabbed me plain slice of cake. Or the place where people (6 or so) were talking and smoking inside, but when I entered they all went silent and just watched me. All of them. It was Uncomfortable and I did not stick around. Roommate later told me that fronts are very common here and that I need to stop walking into random cafes just because they say they're open.

Anyway, we're living in the same place and having drastically different experiences. They live in a beautiful, friendly city of convenience, whereas I'm surprised if I leave the apartment and don't see something at least mildly horrific. I say this all with the utmost affection. Everything I see comes with a story, and I like to imagine what it may be. Keeps things interesting.

I'm laying here typing as I listen to a faint, occassional crackling scratchy sound coming from the corner where my closet door is open. There's a pile of blankets in the open doorway and a plastic tote and some clothes in a bag. there are also a few other items on the floor of the closet.

I've seen plenty of these fat beetles around the house. they move slowly and are about an inch long with big bulbous bodies. I think it was some time last year when I heard a similar sound and found one of them scratching against some papers or a box.

I'm hoping this sound is another beetle. Because the alternative, that has me afraid I won't be getting any sleep tonight, is that it's a mouse. I cannot stand mice. And if there's a mouse in my room, I'm done for.

So why haven't I gotten up to move stuff around to see exactly what's going on? Because I'm a coward. That's why. I did turn a flashlight in that direction and peered into the areas behind stuff as best as I could, but I didn't see anything. I even took an old curtain rod and poked at stuff from as far away as I could. Nothing.

So here I lay, waiting for the sun to come back up, hoping that whatever is making these sounds will find it's way out like it got in.

I’m sitting in class right, and my teacher is talking about how she likes the flavor of coconut, but not the texture. so I ask her “what about piña coladas?” she says “me and frozen alcoholic beverages are not a good idea.” so I go on to tell her about my trip to Florida, and I’m telling her about how I went to the Mai Kai and how I ordered a virgin Piña colada. and how it was in fact NOT virgin, but a bit slutty. and she bursts out laughing and the girl next to me thought it was so funny that she fell out of her seat.