i hid underneath your porch because i love you

[wizened_cynic]

I saw Up today and it's pretty amazing. It may be my favorite Pixar film after Finding Nemo. Go watch it if it's still on in theatres, because DVDs wouldn't do it justice. At least, that's what the person I watched it with told me. She's trying to get a job doing computer animation and shit, so I just assume she knows what she's talking about.

Oh, yeah, here are the results of the prompts for Day 1 and 2. Alex has kids and Lorelai has woes. Two totally different universes.

Alex thinks the kids are the worst thing that has ever happened to her, and that includes being related to Chad.

There are so many of them and they're all so loud, except for Rowan, who mostly sulks and rolls her eyes and spends all day in her room, doing god knows what. Talking to online predators, maybe, and if Alex had enough energy left to care, she would check and make sure that wasn't happening, but she's pretty much on the brink of death simply from trying to keep the rest of them from destroying the house before she can sell it for a decent price and get the hell out of there.

Trevor's house is smack dab in the middle of Fucking Nowhere, Oregon, and there are seriously days when the only other adult voice Alex gets to hear is Billy Ray Cyrus's. Somehow Shelby's locked the TV so that it's Hannah Montana 24/7. The boys complain about it but Alex has trained herself not to listen unless someone's bleeding, which happens a lot more often than she would like, actually.

The one time she goes into town for groceries, the kids almost tear down the general store, so now she has them delivered. She has to tip the delivery guy, who's usually this creepy, functionally-retarded guy named Kirk, but it's worth it. It's so worth it.

She's caught in the middle of a lightsabre fight one afternoon when the groceries arrive. "Just one second," Alex yells over the clamor of Isaac's attempt to stab his brother in the eye. "Cut it out, you two, or I'm going to . . . burn all your toys."

It's a threat that Alex hasn't tried, and it achieves its intended effect. Isaac and Han Solo stop and regard her hesitantly, trying to gauge whether or not she's serious. (She might be. She's not actually sure. Does burning someone's toys qualify as child abuse?)

"He won't let me have the DS," Han Solo says vehemently.

"He has the PSP," Isaac retorts.

"I don't want the PSP," Han Solo says. "I want the DS."

A month ago Alex would not have known what either of those things were. Now, she just says, "Han Solo, let your brother have the DS for another ten minutes, and then you guys can swap. Is that fair?"

"NO!" Isaac cries.

"Too bad," Alex says. "Now get lost."

The boys grumble a ceasefire and run off. When Alex turns around, the front door's already open, and the delivery person is standing there, waiting to be paid. "Sorry, Kirk," Alex says reflexively before she notices that it's not Kirk.

"No problem," says the woman, and Alex just stares at her, like she couldn't be real.

She can't be real.

She's an adult, and she's in the house, and she doesn't look like a registered sex offender.

She has to be hallucination of some sort.

Alex keeps staring, which unnerves her hallucination, who shuffles her feet and says, "Uh, hi, I'm Lorelai?"

"Hi," Alex finds herself saying. "I'm Alex."

"Alex," Lorelai says, her smile brightening. She's beautiful. Maybe too beautiful to be a hallucination. "Wow, you've really got your hands full here."

"Yeah," Alex says. She looks at the entropy surrounding her, the chaos that is now her life, and wonders what she has ever done to deserve this. Is it because she never took on pro bono cases?

"How many kids do you have?"

"What?" The question jars her back into reality. "Oh god, no. They're not my kids. No." She laughs nervously, frightened by the thought that somebody actually assumed that they belong to her. "I'm just watching them for a while. The house, actually. I'm watching the house. But no, definitely not my kids."

Lorelai looks sheepish. "Sorry, I didn't realize."

"It's fine. It's all right. Just ---"

"Don't ever suggest that to you again?"

"Unless you want to give me a stroke."

"I would never want to do that," Lorelai says, grinning. "Who'd take care of all these kids?"

Alex half-laughs and half-sobers at the thought, and then remembers to pay Lorelai. It takes her a minute before she locates her wallet in the dog's water dish. Fucking Christ.

She's about to say goodbye when Shelby stomps out, scowling, her arms crossed and fairy wings askew. "I thought we were having a tea party."

"We weren't," Alex tells her. "You were having a tea party. I was washing the dishes."

"Then let's get back to doing that," Shelby implores, and disappears back into the the kitchen.

"I better not keep you," says Lorelai, who looks like she's trying not to snicker.

"Yeah," says Alex, and then forgets how to finish the sentence, exhausted.

"Same time tomorrow?" Lorelai asks.

"That'd be great," Alex says, and for the first time since she learned of Trevor's death, she smiles. At least she thinks that's what's happening. She vaguely recalls that this is what smiling feels like.

Day 2 is bananas and it is over here.

I'm as exhausted as Alex after wrangling half a dozen kids, so I'm gonna call it a night. Happy B.C. Day, livejournal.