He’s lucky he’s cute.
Little bastard bit me on the nose this morning.
Perhaps I should have named him ‘Trouble’. Or ‘No’. Or ‘NoBiting!’ or ‘NoGoddammit!’
(Bean’s name for a time was BeanGoddamit!)
My entire body is apparently a chew toy, and everything in the apartment can be pressed into service for play.
Except, of course, Bean. Bean puts up with nothing.
Perhaps I should develop a convincing yowl and hiss.
Re: the soon-to-be-former governor of Alaska. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Some Freepers are peddling the line that she’s too good for politics, and her decision to ditch is evidence of her superior character—as opposed to, say, an inability either to govern or to develop the skills necessary for political leadership.
And as to complaints about Everybody Being So Mean To Her: If she can’t handle Katie Couric and David Letterman, how the hell could she handle Netanyahu, Putin, Mubarak—or Pelosi or Reid, for that matter?
Fair, unfair: Neither of these matters in political campaigns. Read some Machiavelli, fer cryin’ out loud—and if that’s too much to ask, remember Vince Lombardi.
Shees.
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I know I have issues with community. It’s less that I’m enthusiastic about CAPITAL-I! individualism than I am suspicious of the group—especially a group which claims special status based on its group-ness.
Yeah, I have a past with cliques, the push-pull of wanting to belong and wanting to tell others to fuck off, but I don’t want to reduce this to psychology.
No, I want to reduce this to principle: Don’t tell me [who’s not a member of your group] that I’m less worthy [because I’m not a member of your group]. As a political matter, don’t claim rights based on your group which are denied those not members of the group.
In practice, of course, groups are often religious communities, and the rights claimed are based on the freedom of religion, not on the rights of the group.
All kinds of ways to take off from here, but, after my friend E. called me out on my bias yesterday, I think I need to stay right here, and consider what is principle and what is, simply, prejudice.
Background: I’ve mentioned previously encounters with religious folk which I’ve considered insulting. In one case, two women wouldn’t take an item from my hand, but asked that I set it down before they would touch it. In the second case, a man responded to my outstretched hand with a mumbled request that I withdraw it, out of respect for him and his religious beliefs.
In both cases, I took their reactions to me to be based on their religious beliefs, and further inferred that they thought I was lesser or would somehow taint them with my touch. In both cases, I (behaviorally) respected their expressed wishes, but I was also offended.
E. was puzzled by my response, especially to the situation with the two young women (religion unknown; from their dress, either Christian or Muslim was a possibility). Why do you think that has anything to do with you, she asked?
Because I was there!
Yeah, but they weren’t asking you to do anything offensive.
Huh.
As to the second case, with the no-handshake man, she focused on his explanation for why I should respect him. Why would he assume you’d know about his religious beliefs?
Another good question. I assumed he was Hasidic, although he wasn’t wearing a fedora and it was so dark that I couldn’t tell if he had peyos, but, as E. pointed out, Orthodox men will wear the shawl—and Orthodox men will shake a woman’s hand.
Yes, I agreed, I’ve shaken hands with Orthodox men, and, come to think of it, I don’t know for sure if he was hasidim.
Given my skepticism toward groups and my disdain for patriarchy, I bundled together a few pieces of information about this guy into an unmerited heap of a conclusion. I thought it was about the group and the group’s beliefs about women and his expectation that I alter my behavior to suit him—and I was offended.
But maybe it wasn’t really about me. Maybe, as E. pointed out, his English just wasn’t that great, that he didn’t know a more polite way to make his request.
Well, dammit, E., what are ya doin’, making me rethink these things? I was so comfortable in my anti-fundamentalist stance and here you go redirecting my attention. What the hell kind of friend are you, anyway?
Hmpf.
I’m fine with my skepticisms and criticisms, but I’d rather not be reactionary. So I’ll follow this redirection, see where it takes me—and try to keep my biases out of my way.
Thanks, E.
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Inspired by a segment I heard on WNYC about members of They Might Be Giants banning certain phrases, I humble ask for the retirement of the following (I direct this to myself, as well):
I probably should ban ‘heh’, as well, but no need to get all Puritan, here.
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Jasper update: He is on,
or off.
No in-between.
A little less smelly (gave him a washcloth rinse yesterday), but still in need of a dunking. With soap.
Very friendly, and eager for a lap. Good purr.
Ten week-old kittens have really tiny heads. Tiny teeth, too, but sharp.
Still working on the biting. No biting.
Working on the staying off of computer keyboard, too. He’s logged me out of Firefox a couple of times, opened about fifteen help windows, and at one point sent my computer into hibernation. Fancy feet on that boy.
Not so much in the litter box, however. Jasper has no litter skills. Yes, he uses his wee box (a cereal box with the back cut out, lined with a plastic bag), but he’s a bit fuzzy on the whole covering-one’s-leaving concept: He’ll scratch at the air, at the floor outside of the box, on the wall next to the box, but actually in the box? Not so much. [I know, I should retire this one, too, but it’s too good to lose!]
I hope his skills improve when he moves to the big box.
He has gotten within a foot of Bean, who has responded with hisses and yowling. At one point she swiped at him, but, as he was a good foot-and-a-half away, nothing happened.
Still, at some point there will be contact, and he will learn that Bean is Queen.
. . . well, no. Through the front door, actually, in a cat carrier. And she’s a he, Jasper, the newest member of this absurd household:
He’s about 10 weeks old, 2.1 lbs, found wandering around Jackson Heights and brought to Brooklyn Animal Control.
(He’s propped up on my wrist pad watching me type this right now, which is preferable to having him rolling over the keyboard.)
Jasper’s shelter-given name was Felicia—but, as much as I like cross-gender names, Felicia didn’t cut it.
He is, as you can see, all black, with gold eyes. Feisty, given to chewing on my toes, ankles, and knees, and perhaps more adventurous than a kitten who just got his balls lopped off should be. He’s also a bit stinky, but, due to the aforementioned lopping, can’t be bathed for awhile.
Bean is thoroughly unimpressed.
I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I wasn’t ready for another cat. I still tear up when I think about Chelsea’s last days, and Bean and I had settled into a comfortable routine. Why mess with that?
But I think that admission nudged my thinking along and toward a new kitten: It made me realize that I would miss Chelsea no matter what, and that I shouldn’t use her as an excuse for not bringing a kitten into the household.
Yes, a kitten is disruptive, and that’s all right. That’s what I tell Bean, anyway.
I’m slowly getting used to being a failure.
It was a little hard on the ego, at first, but after that first nip of recognition, things have been much easier.
I’m not being glum, or trying to elicit an ‘oh-you’re-not-a-failure’ response; I’m simply recognizing that by any of the standards I’ve set for myself, I haven’t done much.
I’m alive. That’s one point in my favor.
Didn’t use to be: To be alive was evidence of failure. I was supposed to be dead, and was not.
Now I’m all right with that. In fact, it’s downright fine that I’m not dead.
Okay, so now that I’m alive, I’m off charging up the professional ranks and blazing new theories and astonishing my colleagues with the discipline of my thought and the brilliance of my prose. Tenure? Hah! Why, I’ve already attained a full professorship! Students are scrambling to study with me; other universities are recruiting me. My articles are must-reads.
Oh, wait, no. That’s someone else entirely. I’m an adjunct professor at a CUNY college, with no job security beyond the semester.
What about the writing career? Two novels! Two more in the pipeline! Short stories! Plays! Pulitzers and Tonys and National Book. . . oh, sorry, that’s not me, either.
I live in a junior one-bedroom on the far side of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, with wine boxes serving as bookcases and drawers and end-tables, chairs covered with fabric remnants because I can’t afford to get them reupholstered, socks kept in milk crates, and Trader Joe’s beer in the fridge.
I’m forty-mumble-mumble years old and I live like a grad student. Only I have fewer prospects than a grad student, what with consciously turning away from any attempt at a tenure-track position and not caring quite enough about money to live otherwise and all.
And I’m all right with that. When I was in SmallTown I ran into a cousin I hadn’t seen in, oh, a decade, and each of us mentioned that our lives may not look like other people’s, but they work for us. We nodded at each other. I’m not rich, I mused, but I am free.
And I am. Not free of anxiety (especially not anxiety over—natch—money) or dissatisfaction or anger or any of the other nonsense that comes with a messy (i.e., human) life, but free of the sense that my life belongs to anyone other than me.
So by most American standards, I’m a failure; by my own standards, I’m a failure. But I’m also free to laugh about it, and let it go, and maybe, someday, not to think about success or failure.
It’s not so bad, this failure thing. Feels kind of like freedom, actually. Not bad at all.
Any parade that begins with Dykes on Bikes can’t be bad, can it?
She was cute, but turned her head at the wrong moment:
T. scoped out a spot under a tree near Christopher and Bleeker, and she, E., N., T., T., and I shifted on and off the tree-protector stand and tried to catch whatever breeze deigned to blow our way.
At one point, near the front of the parade, there was an, oh, 10-15 minute break while. . . something was (not) going up further on. While I groused whether this was a parade or a sit-in these 99 luft (and whatever else is German for the rest of the colors) ballons kept us company:
Soon, enough, the parade re-upped, with the support of our officers in (pink and) blue:
Of course, this was a gay pride parade, which meant queens:
Fairies:
And niiiiice young men in underwear:
(Be glad I cropped out the guy with bare ass. Not good.)
And, of course, that is gay pride means that this is still (still!) a question:
Overall, it was nice. I’m not really a parade person, but there are worse things than hanging out with T., E., and N. (T. & T. booked at some point) on a warm Sunday afternoon in the Village.
One final note: There was a lot of Michael Jackson music. A lot. The sweetest moment, however, may have been when one group played Whitney Houston’s ‘I wanna dance with somebody,’ and the whole crowd sang along. As the float moved down Christopher, all you could hear was us singing ‘I wanna dance/with somebody who loves me.’
There will be no porn in this post. It’s about cats (NOT pussies). Got it?
It’s been about 2 months since Chelsea died, and while I think about getting a kitten, it’s more an abstract than real thought.
I have almost a week off between summer teaching sessions at the beginning of July, and toyed with the idea of getting a kitten then. I’ll be home; I’ll have time; I’ll be able to referee between kitten and Bean.
But I’m not ready. And I don’t know if Bean is ready.
Bean has never been an ‘only’ cat. Sweet Pea was three years old when I picked up the second legume, and thus grew up living with another cat and me. Now the other cat is gone and Bean is, I dunno, fine and needy and lonely but really, mostly fine.
She gets a lot of attention from me, which she doesn’t seem to mind. We’ve established a new routine, just the two of us, and it seems to be working. I think she gets a little bored being the only one of her kind around here, but, you know: projecting, anthropomorphizing, etc.
I know she’d hate the kitten. Hate it. Hissing and backing away and hissing some more and batting at the tiny critter whenever it came near.
It’s what Chelsea did to her.
But Chelsea and Bean also curled up together and tussled and chased each other and double-teamed me when they heard me crack open a can of wet cat food. That day I took Chelsea to the vet, I leaned her over Bean, to let Bean sniff her, one last time. Bean licked her head.
Instinct? Habit? I don’t know. It felt like good bye.
And, as I told lesleykim in a comment to another post, as hard as it was coming home without Chelsea, I don’t know that I could have handled coming home to a feline-less apartment.
So I want a kitten for Bean, and for me. Just not yet.
I saw Chelsea on the train today.
There she was, sleeping on a towel in that corner near the end of the car with FatCat, when she woke and stretched and sauntered over to me.
What? There is no corner near the end of the car? Ah.
Did I mention I had been dozing? And that in non-dreamland she would have hated the lurch and screech of the train?
It was good seeing her, though.
To SmallTown and back in 48 fun-filled hours! Whoo-hoo!
It wasn’t bad, actually, and another 12 or even 24 more hours would not have been the worst thing.
Still, all that quiet was unnerving. Fucking BIRDS woke me in the morning!
That’s not right.
Paying the same amount for a pitcher of beer that I would pay for a pint, well, that IS something New York could learn from SmallTown.
Saw family, saw friends, laughed a lot.
Came out as bi to half my friends. Would have come out to them all, but, mm, timing. Besides, one of the people I told is unlikely to keep the news to herself, even though I asked her to.
Ts. knows everything about everyone, and tells all to all. So be it.
Found out something bad a friend had gone through, long ago. Those who heard this were suprised, but not shocked. Certain things made sense, in retrospect.
What was striking, however, was the guilt carried these decades later by the woman who told us. She was a kid, in no damned position to do anything, and unlikely to have found help from anyone in a position to help, and still, she feels she should have done. . . something.
If nothing else, I hope she got a bit of relief telling us. I fear she has not.
Really not happy smelling like an ashtray after my night out. Yes, in this respect, at least, smelly New York is less smelly than SmallTown.
Found out S. and her husband will be visiting New York at the end of this month. I hope we can at least squeeze in time for a beer. At a smoke-free bar.
T. and I firmed up plans for her visit in August. I know: August in New York sucks (hot, smelly, hot & smelly), but she has time and I have time and what the hell, we’ve been through worse together.
Now I have to decide whether to go back for a class reunion this fall. Shees, and I have issues with Facebook; don’t know that I’d do much better face-to-face. . . .
One more question, and I swear to god that I’m done with this topic (for awhile).
This is directed [out into the ether] to those who would enact a legal ban against abortion:
What will you do to the women?
It’s a simple question, but I’ll be damned if I’ve been able to come up with an answer. I’ve checked pro-life web sites, asked this question in comments sections of blogs, listened to those who want abortion made illegal, and no one will say what would happen to women who want abortions and act to obtain them.
Most declare they have no intention of charging women—we’re all just victims of the big, bad abortion industry—unless those women happen to be the ones providing the abortion. No, those on the receiving end, well, we’re to be pitied for being dragged into the maw of the baby-killing machine.
Erin Manning, who comments on and occasionally subs for Rod Dreher at Crunchy Con, accused me of scaring up a Handmaid’s Tale-style scenario when, some time ago, I asked this question to the Crunchy commentariat. (And, honestly, all I did was ask the question, nothing else.) She then went on to outline a future in which life is valued and women and children protected and supported and valued and families supported and, um, valued and. . . it’s all good!
With those nasty abortionists out of the way, girls and women will apparently be liberated from the degredation of sexual autonomy and boys and men will cherish us as the sanctified vessels we are.
I’m only exaggerating a little bit. Really, she wrote in rose- and golden-prose of this spectacular, life-affirming, future. And she absolutely refused to engage the question of law, order, and punishment.
So, to repeat: If abortion is outlawed, what happens to the women who seek abortions?
Anyone?
Or: how not to argue.
I did a little bit of drinking in high school. I mean, I didn’t drink EVERY day, and I was sober during school hours. And it wasn’t like I was hitting the bars every night—not when I didn’t have a decent fake ID. No, until I turned 18 (when I was only at the bar TWThF and Sat nights), I was forced to drink in cars and on country roads and in barns and friends’ basements and at the beach.
It was all very trying.
Anyway, one night my friends and I were at G.’s sister’s house, drinking and. . . I don’t know, playing cards or drinking games or something, when J. and I got into it.
J. was pro-life. Vehemently so. As was/am I, on the other side.
Why we thought it was a good idea to engage in this particular discussion at this particular time is beyond me. (I think I recall something about alcohol and impaired judgement.)
Anyway, I don’t (surprise!) remember exactly what was said, but I believe it ended with me pounding my fist on the table and shouting and her screaming at me and crying.
Helluva party.
A day or so later, sober, J. and I had a little sit-down and decided that, henceforth, we would not discuss abortion. Ever.
And that held, including the time our senior year when the sociology or world politics class we were taking screened an abortion (I think it was prolife) film. Other students were all ‘Ooo, J. & [yours truly] are really gonna go at it.’ Another teacher left his post to witness the fireworks.
J. looked at me and I looked at her and we both shrugged. Nope, we said. We don’t talk about this anymore.
We were such disappointments.
And that was it. We remained friends and drinking buddies throughout the rest of high school, and while we have long since lost touch with one another, I still remember what a truly good and funny friend she was.
There is an important epilogue to this story: At one point after our blow-out/armistice, I asked her if I could ask her some questions about abortion for a paper I was preparing. I don’t want to debate you, I said, or get into an argument. I just want to know.
She was wary, but she agreed. And in the library, just the two of us, I was able to ask her why she was pro-life, what she thought about the women, and what exceptions, if any, she would allow.
Her views, at least back then, were extreme: No exceptions. But she was calm in explaining her reasons why, and I was calm in my questions of her. There was no argument, and I learned something I wouldn’t have, otherwise.
We had re-established a kind of trust. Each knew where the other stood, and that was it. We could talk about it, carefully, without screaming about it.
So, J., wherever you are, thanks.
AbsurdBeats 