Nothing much to say today, just a quiet-ish Sunday morning on which I woke up curled like a boiled shrimp under my fuzzy blanket, hugging my book and half a pillow to my face, with the cat tucked deep into the curve of my legs, so soundly asleep that she didn't even move when I got up at 8:30, just emerged an hour later to yell "HI!" with all her kitty bedhead still tousled around her.
Lazy convo with the Dood about nothing while he made breakfast for his roommate and roommate's family. I advised him to put the grated potatoes into a colander and press out as much moisture as possible, lest he end up with a pan full of flaccid fried potato mush.
Washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom while I ponder what to make for Roni for dinner -- we still haven't had our Christmas, and I haven't seen her since mid-December when she went to Oregon to spend two weeks with her man. She came back engaged! I'm so happy for her because she finally has a man who seems to have his shit together and isn't a criminal or layabout and who isn't sitting around waiting for her to take care of him.
Some mixed feelings as the realization sunk in that my best friend is going to be a continent away in about 6 months. Actually, there was no "sinking in," there was Life, bonking me on the head with its interminable impermanence meme. Goddamit. This, for some reason, triggered some wholly unreasonable feelings of anger at Dood. Poor guy's all "What'd I do? Huccome you're mad at ME?" I dunno, I just WAS. Really uncomfortable weekend last weekend -- so uncomfortable that I called a time-out that lasted all of a day and a half, before I realized I'd rather be pissed about something and talking about it than pissed and hiding. I will say, however, that the day and a half did give me a chance to take one big, deep oxygenating breath and collect myself.
I get to still be Aileen and do Aileen things, and Dood gets to be Dood and do Dood-things, and as long as we are both truthful about where we are (emotionally and physically), we aren't doing harm. If I think I hear something in his tone, I recognize that it's my own projection, and vice-versa. I do kinda wish he'd stop using the label "ugly" to describe my actions or words, but as long as I know that my intention was neutral, I have to let that go. Labelling has the effect of simply shutting me and any reasonable response I might have down. I don't even bother responding anymore -- I just pause and move along, because otherwise we get into a debate about why the words I said were "bad" (therefore, making me "bad" for saying them) and he gets to be the injured party and I end up defensive about doing nothing wrong. Know what I'm saying? So in in the very act of defending something that doesn't require defensiveness, I end up resentful because I've been made to feel "wrong" when I didn't do anything. Better to just let the judgement rest where it landed, just outside his mouth. It's not for me to point out someone else's projections, but only to recognize my own. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
So it's a nice, quiet Sunday morning, and I had the breakfast of a five-year-old, quick and easy Cream of Wheat. I love Cream of Wheat, and completely forgot I had it in my pantry. With a nice pat of butter and some maple syrup, a good and comforting Sunday breakfast.
And my Sunday morning music while I blurt this blog post? Good, mellow Sunday morning music: George Benson's "Breezin'." I remember my brother used to play it on Sunday mornings -- on vinyl, of course, on his Technics turntable, of course, which was hooked into his Yamaha receiver, of course. (I still have that receiver, the one powered by tubes and shit, at my friend Sean's house, where it resides with my Bose 201's.)
But I digress from my digressions. Did you know "Breezin'" was written by Bobby Womack? And "This Masquerade," by Leon Russell? And "Affirmation" by Jose Feliciano? The amazing things you can learm from liner notes.
In this era of digital music downloads, does anyone bother with liner notes anymore? Does anyone squint at the copyright line on a digital track and say, "Wow, I was TWELVE when this record came out," and in that instant have a series of flash-memories of being 12 and what it felt like to wake up on a Sunday when you were 12, and going to 10 o'clock mass with Dad, and coming back to Mom making breakfast and the smells of sausage and coffee and Dad's Pall Mall Reds, and the "Pittsburgh Press" scattered around the table, with George Benson (a son of Pittsburgh, along with another jazz great, Ahmad Jamal) playing in the background? Do families even eat Sunday breakfast together anymore?
One day I'll regale you with a story about a friend of mine who used to work for GRP Records and the time the esteemed Mr. Benson was in his office noodling on a new guitar he was showing off. Another time.
Anyway, it's a calm and peaceful Sunday. The Steelers won against the Ravens last night in a game that came down to nailbiting in the last five minutes of the game. Today the Jets play the Patriots, and in the event of an unlikely upset, I guess the Steelers will be going to the Super Bowl again (I mean, how many upsets can the Jets pull off phhhht?). Ho-hum, Steelers in the Super Bowl? And the sun came up in the east this morning, too.
Another Lombardi would pretty much complete the image rehabilitation of Ben "The Molester" Roethlisberger, wouldn't it? Rabid sports fans can forgive anything except losing, I guess.
I start traveling again next week -- I leave for LA on the 24th, fly to Houston on the 27th, then back to LA on the 1st, then to Cincinnati on the 3rd and back to Houston on the 4th. Finally back to NYC on the 7th. Poor Miss Kitty is going to be soooo pissed at me.
But I'll get to see Dood for two weekends running, which is a good thing, because like it or not, I need the human contact to keep him real. The words, words, words of all our talk, talk, talk, they just aren't enough for me. I need to taste and smell and touch someone to remind myself that I actually have a real relationship with him. Elizabeth Barrett I am not, and if I were, I probably couldn't come up with, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."
I'm more Audre Lorde:
Coming together
it is easier to work
after our bodies
meet
paper and pen
neither care nor profit
whether we write or not
but as your body moves
under my hands
charged and waiting
we cut the leash
you create me against your thighs
hilly with images
moving through our word countries
my body
writes into your flesh
the poem
you make of me.
Touching you I catch midnight
as moon fires set in my throat
I love you flesh into blossom
I made you
and take you made
into me.
("Recreation," Audre Lorde, 1978)
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cats. Show all posts
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Appendix A
Oh, and this one? Just as I suspected, she's a little hoor.
I mean, look at her! All sprawled out with those come-hither eyes and that exposed belly.
She pretends to be all shy and retiring, but when the right person comes along, suddenly she's all, "Oh, and what did you say your name was again, Person Who Opens Cat Food?"
Slut.
I mean, look at her! All sprawled out with those come-hither eyes and that exposed belly.
She pretends to be all shy and retiring, but when the right person comes along, suddenly she's all, "Oh, and what did you say your name was again, Person Who Opens Cat Food?"
Slut.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Boy, They Sure Sleep a Lot, Don't They?
It's the last day of my vacation and the last day for me to observe the daytime habits of Mambo and Miss Kitty.
Mambo tends to curl up in his chair for hours at a time, then he wakes up, hurls himself off the chair, flops around on the floor like a landed fish for a second, then regains his feet and staggers around until he accidentally finds the food bowl. He eats for a little while, wanders around some more in the vicinity of the food bowl until he accidentally runs into it again, and chows down once more. Given his age (19+) I kinda think he eats the second time because he forgot he just ate two minutes ago. Then he wanders around some more, exploring the apartment with his forehead (punctuated with an occasional "chunnng!" when he makes contact with my geetar), looking for all the world like Stevie Wonder doing his "Isn't She Lovely" thing. This is broken up by his occasionally getting lost in a corner and wowling his way out. There are usually six big "WOOWWWWL's." I've counted. If I pet him in the middle of his litany, his tone immediately changes to a soft and inquisitive, "berruooot?" Then he wanders in the general direction of one of the 3 litter boxes in the house. If he poops, it's always IN the box. But because he's old and feeble, he never covers, just walks away nonnchalantly, ignoring the labrador retriever sized turds he leaves behind. (Where do they COME from! I ask you) If he pees, more often than not it is "litterbox adjacent." (Hence the rising stock price of Bounty paper towels, wee-wee pads, and "Nature's Miracle.") After two or three tries, he manages to hop back into one of the chairs, where he stares into the cushion for a half hour or so before laying down and going to sleep. He's so motionless that sometimes I get a little nervous and poke him just to make sure he's alive. He makes an "I'm not dead yet!" squawk, and usually repeats the food thing.
The little one, on the other hand, is only, I think, pretending to sleep. From my railroad flat vantage in the living room or kitchen, every time I look in at my bed, she's in there, lookin' at me. And lookin' at me some more. She will occasionally decide the I've summoned her telepathically and tear ass into the kitchen, where HER demands must then be met. She's one of the only cats I've ever had who actually says, "Meee-owww." The unbearable cuteness of this cannot be explained but must be witnessed, especially when I pet her and it turns into a Lumbergh-like "yeeeahhhh." It's not so cute when she jumps into my lap and "forgets" that my jeans-clad leg isn't a scratching post. She then visits the food bowl, where her eating habits seem to consist mostly of flinging the kibble all about the kitchen so I can sweep it up and throw it away.. Then it's time for HER visit to the litterbox, which mostly seems to consist of her covering up Mambo's leavings, then spending the next ten minutes or so gleefully flinging cat litter about the box as if it's New Year's confetti while meowing loudly. This is followed up by several hounds-of-hell laps of the apartment, after which she settles back onto the bed for more of that lookin' at me action. She's doing it right now!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all the proof you need that I have spent far too much time on vacation, my brain has turned to mush, and it is most definitely time for me to go back to work.
Mambo tends to curl up in his chair for hours at a time, then he wakes up, hurls himself off the chair, flops around on the floor like a landed fish for a second, then regains his feet and staggers around until he accidentally finds the food bowl. He eats for a little while, wanders around some more in the vicinity of the food bowl until he accidentally runs into it again, and chows down once more. Given his age (19+) I kinda think he eats the second time because he forgot he just ate two minutes ago. Then he wanders around some more, exploring the apartment with his forehead (punctuated with an occasional "chunnng!" when he makes contact with my geetar), looking for all the world like Stevie Wonder doing his "Isn't She Lovely" thing. This is broken up by his occasionally getting lost in a corner and wowling his way out. There are usually six big "WOOWWWWL's." I've counted. If I pet him in the middle of his litany, his tone immediately changes to a soft and inquisitive, "berruooot?" Then he wanders in the general direction of one of the 3 litter boxes in the house. If he poops, it's always IN the box. But because he's old and feeble, he never covers, just walks away nonnchalantly, ignoring the labrador retriever sized turds he leaves behind. (Where do they COME from! I ask you) If he pees, more often than not it is "litterbox adjacent." (Hence the rising stock price of Bounty paper towels, wee-wee pads, and "Nature's Miracle.") After two or three tries, he manages to hop back into one of the chairs, where he stares into the cushion for a half hour or so before laying down and going to sleep. He's so motionless that sometimes I get a little nervous and poke him just to make sure he's alive. He makes an "I'm not dead yet!" squawk, and usually repeats the food thing.
The little one, on the other hand, is only, I think, pretending to sleep. From my railroad flat vantage in the living room or kitchen, every time I look in at my bed, she's in there, lookin' at me. And lookin' at me some more. She will occasionally decide the I've summoned her telepathically and tear ass into the kitchen, where HER demands must then be met. She's one of the only cats I've ever had who actually says, "Meee-owww." The unbearable cuteness of this cannot be explained but must be witnessed, especially when I pet her and it turns into a Lumbergh-like "yeeeahhhh." It's not so cute when she jumps into my lap and "forgets" that my jeans-clad leg isn't a scratching post. She then visits the food bowl, where her eating habits seem to consist mostly of flinging the kibble all about the kitchen so I can sweep it up and throw it away.. Then it's time for HER visit to the litterbox, which mostly seems to consist of her covering up Mambo's leavings, then spending the next ten minutes or so gleefully flinging cat litter about the box as if it's New Year's confetti while meowing loudly. This is followed up by several hounds-of-hell laps of the apartment, after which she settles back onto the bed for more of that lookin' at me action. She's doing it right now!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all the proof you need that I have spent far too much time on vacation, my brain has turned to mush, and it is most definitely time for me to go back to work.
Monday, December 14, 2009
I Know I've Been Missing For Awhile
No, I haven't disappeared in the Facebook, and I continue to refuse to be a Twit(terer). I've just been preoccupied with other things. Work has been distracting, my old cat now has a diagnosis of high blood pressure requiring daily medication (blind, deaf, shaky in the legs with hypertension -- I swear my Dad has come back to reside in this fur person), and I just haven't had much to say.
I honestly think this cat is going to live to be 25. Someday you will see me featured on Huffington Post, I just know it. "Mambo, world's oldest cat, turns 25." Yikes.
Jack Skellington's Cat
Wait, I always have something to say...I just haven't been saying it on the Blog. Huh. I keep having ideas for blog posts then not writing them.
Besides, I think I have been quite admirably silent on the subject of Governor Quitter for long enough. Don't you know how HARD that has been for me?
Some of the ideas that came and went since October 22nd:
Did you really think I was going to put the actual book on my blog?
November was apparently "Special Olympics of Publishing" month, as half-a-retard Wasilla housewife Sarah Palin got a whole lot of trees murdered on her behalf. A book ghost-written for a maroon who doesn't think, to be bought by a whole lot of other maroons who can't read. But frankly, isn't it about time the white trash parts of America get a coffee table book to call their own?
But it does inspire me to suggest some holiday mischief for all you holiday Krampuses (or is that "Krampii?") At any rate -- go into your local Barnes and Noble or any big box bookstore and move the books around. Switch "The Nation's" version with the "not written by Sarah Palin but by her Ghost Writer Lynne Vincent" version. Move them one at a time to the bookshelf outside the store bathrooms. I have to confess to doing some variation on this petty vandalism every time I travel -- I move Glenn Beck's books around in airport bookstores, turn them upside down, or put two copies of someone else's book on top of his. Since most people who are looking for Sarah Palin's book have probably never been inside a bookstore before, it should be really easy to fool them.
If you look really closely, those two Penguins are Evgeni "Geno" Malkin and Sidney "Sidney" Crosby
I went to the NY Rangers game on November 30. That would be the one where they got totally spanked, and really hard with a wooden spoon drilled with holes, by my beloved Penguins. The Rangers have been on a bad slide after a strong start, mainly because they seem to be relying on Marian Gaborik to throw the entire team over his shoulder and fireman-carry them through the entire season. If he gets hurt they are TOAST. In other hockey news, Alex Ovechkin, who is probably the best player in the NHL -- I have to admit, that guy is an ANIMAL -- learned about karma the hard way, not only getting kneecapped and injured, but he earned a suspension in the bargain. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, Sergei Gonchar had to have said (like that Chinese guy in "The Hangover"), "see you later, muthafuckaaahhhh." Don't know if Ovie's back on the ice yet.
Apparently morning TV needs another Mommy.
No matter how much I try to like her for being the "liberal" voice on "Morning Joe," I find Mika Brzezinski completely annoying. She gets this purse-lipped puss on her face and climbs up onto her moral high horse where she wags her finger at Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle every morning. Blecch.
You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what's funny!
Bullet in the Eye, Back of the Garbage Truck. I have to admit to having this fantasy, folks. First, you have to imagine you hear the piano outro from "Layla" as background music. Then, long shot on a Cadillac. Pink. Camera moves in, to reveal two dead people in the front seat. Look, it's Dick and Liz Cheney! Fade to shot of refrigerator truck, move past frozen slabs of beef on hooks, to show another frozen solid corpse on a hook...Joe Lieberman! Last, but not least -- and "Layla" is still playing, folks, while Ray Liotta supplies our voiceover -- we see the garbage truck, churning its fetid refuse, turn out the bloated corpse, with a closeup on the bullet in the eye, of Glenn Beck! Ahhh, a girl can fantasize, can't she?
ET, phone home.
I saw "This is It," in November. I have to admit, in between marvelling, "That's a 51-year old man!" I wept several times. MJ was like some creature from another planet that we got to borrow for a little while. What a loss.
International Paper -- Drunk on Black Liquor
Last but not least before I check out and go to bed...if you want another group of corporations to be angry with, I say, go with American paper and pulp manufacturers. Not for the expected reasons (decimation of forests, replacing them with those heinous "managed forests") but because they are pocketing your tax dollars, to the tune of billions -- yes, that's billions with a "B" -- by exploiting a loophole in a bad piece of legislation. They're getting checks written to them by the IRS -- that's BILLIONS, folks -- for something called "black liquor." I suggest you check out a blog called Dead Tree Edition. And if you were wondering how Baucus and company got Snowe, just consider that the loophole is scheduled to close at the end of 2009, and Maine happens to be where an awful lot of pulp and paper is maufactured. Congressional back-scratching at its finest, folks. It makes me feel dirty.
Well, that's all I've got for tonight, folks. But just remember, black liquor.
Oh wait, one last thing: that 16-second "surprise kitty" video may be the cutest video EVER posted on youtube. I think it even beats the NY Lottery Sweet Millions commercials.
I honestly think this cat is going to live to be 25. Someday you will see me featured on Huffington Post, I just know it. "Mambo, world's oldest cat, turns 25." Yikes.
Jack Skellington's Cat
Wait, I always have something to say...I just haven't been saying it on the Blog. Huh. I keep having ideas for blog posts then not writing them.
Besides, I think I have been quite admirably silent on the subject of Governor Quitter for long enough. Don't you know how HARD that has been for me?
Some of the ideas that came and went since October 22nd:
Did you really think I was going to put the actual book on my blog?
November was apparently "Special Olympics of Publishing" month, as half-a-retard Wasilla housewife Sarah Palin got a whole lot of trees murdered on her behalf. A book ghost-written for a maroon who doesn't think, to be bought by a whole lot of other maroons who can't read. But frankly, isn't it about time the white trash parts of America get a coffee table book to call their own?
But it does inspire me to suggest some holiday mischief for all you holiday Krampuses (or is that "Krampii?") At any rate -- go into your local Barnes and Noble or any big box bookstore and move the books around. Switch "The Nation's" version with the "not written by Sarah Palin but by her Ghost Writer Lynne Vincent" version. Move them one at a time to the bookshelf outside the store bathrooms. I have to confess to doing some variation on this petty vandalism every time I travel -- I move Glenn Beck's books around in airport bookstores, turn them upside down, or put two copies of someone else's book on top of his. Since most people who are looking for Sarah Palin's book have probably never been inside a bookstore before, it should be really easy to fool them.
If you look really closely, those two Penguins are Evgeni "Geno" Malkin and Sidney "Sidney" Crosby
I went to the NY Rangers game on November 30. That would be the one where they got totally spanked, and really hard with a wooden spoon drilled with holes, by my beloved Penguins. The Rangers have been on a bad slide after a strong start, mainly because they seem to be relying on Marian Gaborik to throw the entire team over his shoulder and fireman-carry them through the entire season. If he gets hurt they are TOAST. In other hockey news, Alex Ovechkin, who is probably the best player in the NHL -- I have to admit, that guy is an ANIMAL -- learned about karma the hard way, not only getting kneecapped and injured, but he earned a suspension in the bargain. Somewhere in Pittsburgh, Sergei Gonchar had to have said (like that Chinese guy in "The Hangover"), "see you later, muthafuckaaahhhh." Don't know if Ovie's back on the ice yet.
Apparently morning TV needs another Mommy.
No matter how much I try to like her for being the "liberal" voice on "Morning Joe," I find Mika Brzezinski completely annoying. She gets this purse-lipped puss on her face and climbs up onto her moral high horse where she wags her finger at Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle every morning. Blecch.
You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny, what the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me, tell me what's funny!
Bullet in the Eye, Back of the Garbage Truck. I have to admit to having this fantasy, folks. First, you have to imagine you hear the piano outro from "Layla" as background music. Then, long shot on a Cadillac. Pink. Camera moves in, to reveal two dead people in the front seat. Look, it's Dick and Liz Cheney! Fade to shot of refrigerator truck, move past frozen slabs of beef on hooks, to show another frozen solid corpse on a hook...Joe Lieberman! Last, but not least -- and "Layla" is still playing, folks, while Ray Liotta supplies our voiceover -- we see the garbage truck, churning its fetid refuse, turn out the bloated corpse, with a closeup on the bullet in the eye, of Glenn Beck! Ahhh, a girl can fantasize, can't she?
ET, phone home.
I saw "This is It," in November. I have to admit, in between marvelling, "That's a 51-year old man!" I wept several times. MJ was like some creature from another planet that we got to borrow for a little while. What a loss.
International Paper -- Drunk on Black Liquor
Last but not least before I check out and go to bed...if you want another group of corporations to be angry with, I say, go with American paper and pulp manufacturers. Not for the expected reasons (decimation of forests, replacing them with those heinous "managed forests") but because they are pocketing your tax dollars, to the tune of billions -- yes, that's billions with a "B" -- by exploiting a loophole in a bad piece of legislation. They're getting checks written to them by the IRS -- that's BILLIONS, folks -- for something called "black liquor." I suggest you check out a blog called Dead Tree Edition. And if you were wondering how Baucus and company got Snowe, just consider that the loophole is scheduled to close at the end of 2009, and Maine happens to be where an awful lot of pulp and paper is maufactured. Congressional back-scratching at its finest, folks. It makes me feel dirty.
Well, that's all I've got for tonight, folks. But just remember, black liquor.
Oh wait, one last thing: that 16-second "surprise kitty" video may be the cutest video EVER posted on youtube. I think it even beats the NY Lottery Sweet Millions commercials.