Mind the Spherical Voltage Oblongata

More About the Cat's Habits

The cat has a new game he likes to play: One of us (usually me) tries to go to bed. The other then sneaks outside through the cat door and lets loose with a shocking and bewildering array of nocturnal noises, concluding a few plantive mews at the bedroom window. The one in bed then cries out "be quiet kitten, that won't work this time."

"That's right," says her boyfriend. "You'd better not let him make a habit of this."

The one outside then proceeds to make a few more intermittent mews, mews with just enough time elapsed between them to allow one to (theoretically) begin to drift off. The one in bed's boyfriend may have gone to sleep by this point, or may be off getting a glass of water, or maybe it's one o'clock in the afternoon, and only those who have trouble sleeping nights are abed. Anyway the mewing continues. And the one in bed's willpower crumbles, and the window is opened, and purr purr purr purr purr, the cat was never cuter.

And then the window is closed, the cat runs outside, and the game begins anew. Finis. (Except not really).

Statistics

Hours of sleep I got last night: 3
Hours before I have to teach: 4
Ratio of clean clothes to dirty in my bedroom right now: roughly 1:five billion
Days since I last showered: two? three? ten? I'm not sure.

At least the cat's happy

I just woke up from my second nap today. The cat is a major fan of my new sleep schedule. The rest of the day, he prances and demands and hisses, but once I'm recumbant on the couch we become the best of friends. For the last two hours, he slept on the open face of Aristotle's Metaphysics, while I dreamed that I found a baby that no one else could see. Once I realized this, I started wearing said baby on my head. You know, because I could.

But now I've got to get back to all the other things I was supposed to do today. Like laundry, and lecture notes, and other things beginning with 'l' (lesbianism! lying! learning Latvian!).

Hypnogogia

Oh, I can't sleep. Or at least I can't sleep during normal sleeping hours. Just strange, sleepy person times. Last night I tossed and turned until the wee hours, only to sleep the (sunny and springlike) day away. And now I'm up again, restless, reading and listening to all the funny night sounds (some rowdy street noise, but mostly just the rustling of the cat as he searches for new nooks to nap in, and the stompy stompy stompy of the upstairs neighbor as he trundles out of bed to run some nocturnal errand).

Actually, for all my offness, I think I'm actually sleeping more than usual. I'll probably go to bed pretty soon, this in spite of the fact that i was hardly awake at all today (I crawled to bed at eight this morning and slept 'til eleven, then went back to bed and slept from two til sixish. And this was after a tossy-and-turny but nonetheless moderately sleep-filled night). Mending bones, I'm learning, is exhausting work. And I'm so out of it, even when I am awake. But between the meds and the mending, it's no wonder my brain's hardly stirring. You don't want to know how long this has taken me to write (and how many times I accidently typed 'sleep' in lieu of some other word).

Oh, I was going to write more, but my brain's shutting down now. Off to bed.

Whoa. It's Wednesday? Whoa.

The weird thing about having my mother here is that, like, 90% of this blog's readers are spending all day, every day with me (how large are mom and Brian that they make up 90%? How small must my other reader(s) be to make up 10%? Oh, this is impossible, and strangely discomfiting).

And yet! And yet not a day goes by that someone, some 45th percentile doesn't say, "hey, why haven't you updated your blog?" And I'll say, "I'm right here! Ask me how my day was! Tell me about your socks and I'll blog about it!" But do they comply? No. They go right back to being un-anecdotal, threading beads or knitting or whatever it is you do when you're keeping the newly surgiated company.

Brian just doddered in and asked if I was ready for bed. "Go away," says I. "I'm blogging!"

"About time," says he, taking of my shoes (I'm pretty good with most dexterous things, post surgery, but my shoes are very far away). "Come to bed soon, though. I'm turning off the lights and you might hurt yourself." I scoff. Our bedroom, dear 10th percentile, is very straightforward. No moats or casements or aligators or catamounts. I will not hurt myself. My collarbone has been resectioned, not my in-the-dark-navigation bits.

So anyway, that's that. Lump gone. Clavicle resectioned (is that even the right word? Sounds off). Blogger sleepy. Readers restless.

Busy busy busy

Brian's been nagging me to post more ("'Pondering!?'", he says. "You're still pondering your silly Quaker tree?"), and even though I have no new argyle stories to tell, I'm caving.

So. How you been? I am busy. So busy, in fact, that I have become paralyzed by the sense of my own business, unable to finish any task, be it laundry or course proposals, because don't you know I'm busy!? I must lie here and eat goldfish crackers, so busy I am.

Course proposals for next semester are due on Monday. On Friday, I go in for a second round of surgery (remember that schwannoma way back when? Yeah, that). Thursday, my mom arrives from out of town (hi mom!). I'm hoping the house will be at least moderately clean by then (she's not a judgemental woman, my mother, but I don't want her to feel like she's raised some sort of squalid so-and-so). And Aristotle! I've got to read me some Aristotle before Friday, and get some percocet-proof lecture notes together for my first post-surgery class next week. But have I done any of this? Of course not, I'm far too busy. Oh, and plus? The prospect of surgery has me a bit scared. Not that there's any risk or scariness this time 'round. But my lizard brain doesn't know that. My lizard brain says needles are bad. And knives. And those drugs that steal your consciousness away. Oh, ack. I'll stop now.

Pondering

Its been raining like crazy lately, huge storms replete with thunder and lightning and hailstones like gum balls. On the way to the grocery store tonight, I noticed that a huge branch (half a tree, really) had fallen just outside the neighborhood friend's school, blocking the sidewalk in front completely. Which makes me wonder: if a tree falls outside a Quaker school, does it make a sound?

(Insert Wookie Sound Here)

Star Wars Horoscope for Taurus

You are a dependable creature, but you do tend to be stubborn. You like material possessions and love to win at games. You hate being bossed around or losing. You may succumb to your physical strength when upset. Star wars character you are most like: Chewbacca

What Is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

Seriously, though, how would you spell the wookie roar? Mweaaaaaah? Rwea-a-a-a? Mehraaah?

P.S. More information about wookie roars can be found on the internet

[EDITED TO ADD: G-g-g-g-geeaaah?]

How I spent my Wednesday morning

10 Zen Monkeys has posted an article entitled 5 Freaky Muppet Videos complete with YouTube links and videos. If you're anything like me, this'll send you trolling through YouTube for hours, until you finally dissolve into a puddle of tears watching Deborah Harry sing "The Rainbow Connection" with Kermit the Frog.

Words fail him

From Salon.com's War Room:

What Americans really think of Bush

Twice a year, pollsters for the Pew Research Center ask Americans to say the "one word that best describes" their "impression of George W. Bush." As late as February 2005, the top two volunteered responses were "honest" and "good." The new top two: "incompetent" and "arrogant."

"Honest" has fallen to No. 3. Rounding out the top 10: "good," "idiot," "integrity," "leader," "strong," "stupid" and "ignorant." "Ass" checks in at No. 13, "president" sits at No. 18, and "unconfident" brings up the rear at No. 32.

-- Tim Grieve

What's funny to me is that the pollsters don't prompt at all -- they just ask for one word (and accept two, but don't prompt for the second). And since the last election, the list of words that jump out of people's mouths at the sound of his name has just been getting longer and longer, with nineteen words between "honest" and "selfish" in February 2004 and thirty one between "incompetent" and "tough" in March 2006. The longer the man's in office the harder it gets to sum up just what the American people think of him.

Socks and Monsters

For a few months now, Brian has been contemplating the aquisition of some argyle socks. As with all major life changes, this sartorial switcheroo has been carefully pondered, researched, discussed with friends and significant others. "I've been thinking about getting some argyle socks," he said to me one day. "I think they'd go nicely with all the corduroy I've been wearing."

Of course, not everyone was supportive. Our friend Jason called them old man socks. I just teased and brought it up (repeatedly) over dinner with friends.

So the weeks went by, and like many people finding themselves at life's crossroads, Brian stalled out for a while. H&M's socks had skulls on them. The socks at the fancy shoe store near our house were twenty bucks a pop. Then he needed a new hard drive, and then a new planer. And the Search for Sock fell by the wayside, for the most part. So far, he only has one pair (selected for him, as a gesture of support, by the aforementioned Jason). But argyle remains a funny little obsession with him, and it's become one of our little rituals: window shopping wherever we go, looking for argyle socks, and then judging said socks on various criteria to determine whether or not they are in fact the argyle that he is looking for (pink and brown argyle will not do. Neither will argyle impersonaters that lazily substitute mere diamond shapes for the more complex traditional pattern. I'm looking at you, Donna Karan).

Anyway. That's that.

Today Brian and I went to the grocery store twice -- once for dinner things and once for juice. On the way back with our dinner things (pasta sauce has been on sale lately, it's all we eat. Well, we put it on pasta), Brian and I started talking about cats, and how he'd read this article about this parasite common in domesticated cat poo that causes "mass personality changes" in affected populations, the most consistent being "guilt proneness (a form of neuroticism)." Apparently when this same parasite makes its way into rats, it causes the rats to become "active, less cautious and more likely to be eaten by a cat, where the parasite completes its life cycle." And Brian was telling me that this isn't the only parasite like this! There's another one that affects ants, and needs to complete its life cycle inside a sheep. So it actually causes ants to climb up stalks of grass so that they'll be chomped up! Just like that!

So, yeah. Apparently Brian's infected with some sort of argyle parasite. It's just not ready to complete the cycle yet. And pink and brown just won't do.

Poor Brian. This is what he gets for bugging me to update my blog more.

In other news

It's time to give the cat his monthly flea treatment.



The first time we tried to do it (a mere dab of Frontline between the shoulder blades), he howled so loud and long that I worried our upstairs neighor would think we were strangling the little guy. And for months after, just the merest waft of fleagle treatment was enough to send the clawed beastie scurrying for the cat door. But these last few months, we've had it down to a science: one of us distracts the Monster with pets and treats while the other -- in the next room -- cracks open the dread treatment. Then while the boheamoth's attention is elsewhere, squirt! Another thriving flea metropolis is no more.

Hello, you.

Oh, it's been too long. After last November's post-every day challenge, I swore I'd never neglect this blog again. So easy, this posting every day! So rewarding! So connected to the outside world I was! But then November was over. And with nothing to say and no reason to say nothing anyway, posting fell by the wayside.

So, what have I been up to? Hard to say. Teaching, but I don't want to discuss that too much on these here internets (my students are all web-literate, as are my bosses). Writing, but nothing too noteworthy (click here for some oldish news). Organizing my vaguely ordered stacks of paper into actual labeled and color-coded files. Updating my CV and dreaming of full-time work. The mundane day to day of growing up, in other words.

Figures

So I just went on the library's website to see if they have the book on procrastination that I was looking at in the bookstore today. Turns out, they have five copies. And every single one is overdue.

Top Ten: The Final Few

Still one short. There are a few more good books I read in 2006, but great? The best? I'm not entirely sure.


8. A Loeb Classical Library Reader, by the Loeb Classical Library

V. Detrahere igitur alteri aliquid et hominem hominis
incommodo suum commodum augere magis est contra naturam
quam mors, quam paupertas, quam dolor, quam cetera,
quae possunt aut corpori accidere aut rebus externis.
Nam principio tollit convictum humanum et societatem.
Si enim sic erimus affecti, ut propter suum quisque emolumentum
spoliet aut violet alterum, disrumpi necesse est,
eam quae maxime est secundum naturam, humani generis
societatem. Ut, si unum quodque membrum sensum hunc
haberet, ut posse putaret se valere, si proximi membri valetudinem
ad se traduxisset, debilitari et interire totum
corpus necesse esset, sic, si unus quisque nostrum ad se rapiat
commoda aliorum detrahatque, quod cuique possit,
emolumenti sui gratia, societas hominum et communitas
evertatur necesse est.

V. Well then, for a man to take something from his
neighbour and to profit by his neighbour’s loss is more contrary
to Nature than is death or poverty or pain or anything
else that can affect either our person or our property. For,
in the first place, injustice is fatal to social life and fellowship
between man and man. For, if we are so disposed that
each, to gain some personal profit, will defraud or injure
his neighbour, then those bonds of human society, which
are most in accord with Nature’s laws, must of necessity be
broken. Suppose, by way of comparison, that each one of
our bodily members should conceive this idea and imagine
that it could be strong and well if it should draw off to itself
the health and strength of its neighbouring member, the
whole body would necessarily be enfeebled and die; so, if
each one of us should seize upon the property of his neighbours
and take from each whatever he could appropriate
to his own use, the bonds of human society must inevitably
be annihilated.

9. Only Revolutions, by Mark Danielewski

A rounding circles with hooks,
shimmying duckily, if
the Bentley Mulliner blasts clouds
now of hotoil seizure. Rusty shrapnel
plincking Picnickers, Fishers, Weary
Laborers failing at leisure
Towards worse
By Bobo to Hushpuckena
By Dinkering Eskimo Chickens.

Allways away with Sam.
Even if I've scraggly hair. Gross
overalls. Have to pick my nose.
He's why September never goes.
Our Subaru SVX releases curves.
I'm a thousand Septembers. And he's
all deserts east when the payloads explode.

Top Ten: the Year-end Rush

I know, I know, the year's almost over, and I'm only 5 in. And unfortunately, I've lent some of the best books I've read this year out, and can't quote directly from them (the hazards of being a best book, I suppose). So I might end up falling a bit short. Regardless: onwards!

6. Number 6 gets included on the list on a bit of a technicality -- the book came out in hardcover in 2005, but the paperback came out in 2006. And the publicity resulting from the publication of the paperback brought me to one of the best readings I went to in 2006. So there.

Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link

Jeremy runs all the way, slapping his old track shoes against the sidewalk for the pleasure of the jar, for the sweetness of the sting. He likes the rough cottony ache in his lungs. His coach says you have to be part masochist to enjoy something like running. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Its something to exploit.
Talis opens the door. She grins, although he can tell she's been crying, too. She's wearing a T-shirt that says I'm So Goth I Shit Tiny Vampires.
"Hey," Jeremy says. Talis nods. Talis isn't so Goth, at least not as far as Jeremy or anyone else knows. Talis just has a lot of T-shirts. Shes an enigma wrapped in a mysterious T-shirt. A woman once said to Calvin Coolidge, "Mr. President, I bet my husband that I could get you to say more than two words." Coolidge said, "You lose." Jeremy can imagine Talise as Calvin Coolidge in a former life. Or maybe she was one of those dogs that don't bark. A basenji. Or a rock. A dolmen. There was an episode of 'The Library,' once, with some sinister dancing dolmens in it.

7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
Graphic lifted from Salon's review, as I've lent out my copy

Maeby Baby

Welcome to the world, Georgia Maeby Green Rogalski! . You couldn't have chosen a better set of parents. Way to go, kid!

Home again

It's 3:16 AM here in Boston. That's just after midnight my time. Brian and I actually went to bed hours ago, but I woke up at 2:30, far too awake to be in bed or even think of sleeping.

So now I'm downstairs with the dog, who thinks all rules must be suspended, if I'm home and we're up so late. He keeps trying to climb into my chair with me (instead of staying in his chair, as he's trained to do), and he's sniffing around, convinced that treats are afoot. Oh, poor thing, he's blinking so sleepily.

Anyway. Happy Christmas(ish)! And to all a good night.

More towards the top ten

5.
Light and Shade: New and Selected Poetry, by Tom Clark

Vagabondage

Summer night
klang of stars


inner acoustic


water diamonds
around
the oars