6/7, or awkward fractions make awkward titles.

Going to the gym regularly takes a certain kind of insanity.  It’s work that has no immediate benefit besides making you sweaty and tired.  If people didn’t realize the long-term benefits, nobody would do it.  Isn’t it easier to entertain yourself for that one hour of the day, sitting at home, watching TV in your undies, rather than having go to well-lit building with other sweaty people grunting, farting, and staring at you condescendingly?

Thankfully, I like to take the long, hard, and questionable path to glory, so I started going to the gym six days a week

Naturally, it has decimated the last remnants of my social life.  Not that I had much to begin with anyways.  It takes time to write out lengthy rants about your cat and her perverted sleeping habits.  And it takes more time to get to the gym and move heavy metal plates around in a safe and coordinated fashion.  And when all that time is used up, all I have left is time to work and sleep, and I haven’t found much time to sleep in a while because I don’t get paid to do it.  (I don’t get paid to blog, and if I did I’d worry about that state of the universe.)

Perhaps worse, is every single muscle in my body is sore.  Sneezing, when it happens, and it will happen, is a painful shock of tissues contracting and expanding in the most horrifying manner, and it doesn’t help that mucus also happens to be flying out of my nose at 60 miles per hour.  Hiccups, my arch-nemesis of bodily functions (which should be explored in a Grapes-like rant.), are an even worse state of being because not only am I out of control, it never ends until I want to curl over and die.  Thankfully, all other movements that occur through the day are manageable, because I can at least expect SEARING PAIN when I’m reaching to grab another bottle of water.

The only thing that keeps me doing it is listening to my new Pod Nano the idea that it will all someday payoff.  Maybe I’ll be able to squeeze myself into those skinny jeans one day longer.  Maybe I won’t get a heart attack.  Maybe I’ll have arms so big people won’t know where they start and the sky begins.  Whatever the future brings, I know my touch of madness will at least let me tell my doctor that I went to the gym, so it’s not my fault when my body starts falling apart.

Intimacy, or how I spend too much time with my cat (as if you didn’t know that already)

After my last post, where people begged me to see pictures of Chibi’s plastic claw covers, you think I’d post more pictures with my writing.  I could take the time to get to know my audience and cater this blog a bit more too them, but then I wouldn’t be true to myself, and leave you all begging for more.  And some of these images may not be suitable for anyone, anywhere.

But anyways, back to the feline.

It’s the time of year where it gets chilly here in North Carolina.  The cold is nothing compared to the more Northern parts of the country covered in ice and snow, but if you wander around the house naked with only a coat of your own fur, you might just want to find some source of external heating.  With that in mind, Chibi decided my crotch is the best source of heat in the winter.

It started when she was a tiny furball whose skull was bigger than the rest of her body.  At the time I was in my first college apartment, and we kept the heating low to save money on the bills.  I slept under some heavy duty blankets, and being as tiny as she was, Chibi usually slept on the side of the pillow I wasn’t inhabiting.  But then, one night, it got too cold apparently, and she burrowed under the covers and made her way between my legs.

(Some of you may be wondering what perversion this sleeping arrangement makes, but I can assure you, I typically always sleep wearing sweatpants.  Mostly because I’m always freezing, but also because I don’t want to be attacked by the ferocious kitten.)

When I woke up and realized the arrangement, I laughed it off as a one time occurrence.  Surely figuring out how to get beneath the blankets would keep her warm enough, right?

No.

This has gone on for FOUR winters now.  She starts by sleeping next to me underneath the covers.  This is a nice arrangement, I can move around enough, and don’t have to worry about crushing her with any movement I might make.  But eventually she decides that between my legs is the best place to sleep, and stakes a claim there each night.  Now that her body has caught up with her head, this arrangement is uncomfortable, as I need to split my legs into a wide “V” to accommodate her.

And moving out of that arrangement is not an option.  If I do, Chibi will move to the other side of the bed.  While this is more comfortable, it’s emotionally devasting.  Its her way of saying, “You don’t love me, because you don’t contort yourself unnaturally for my comfort and amusement.”  AND HOW CAN I SAY NO TO THAT?

Nocturnally Yours

I love the switch to Standard Time from Daylight Savings Time.  It’s not just the extra hour of sleep for one night.  It’s the darkness that permeates the world each day time.  While other people loathe coming out of work and being veiled in blackness, it gets me ready to work and be active.

Perhaps I am nocturnal, but I always feel like my best work comes out after the darkness has settled in.  In the shadows I have the entire world to imagine, to shape through my mind’s eye.  What was clear has now become open to interpretation.  There are edges to define, shadows to color, a whole world to discover.

As winter drags on, I will loathe its cold and spending my waking hours in the what seems like an endless night.  For the moment though, I will enjoy my world of darkness.

Proper Placement Leads to Increased Sales

In case you haven’t noticed, I. LOVE. THE. RAVEONETTES.  They capture effervescent pop and combine it with the most twisted ideas into some outrageously fun and sexy music.

Being as obsessed as I am, I had to get their new album, In and Out of Control, on CD, the day it came out.  I needed the actual disc, the thing, to hold and keep and love forever. So, after work, I rushed to my local Barnes and Noble, thinking that they would probably have a single copy that I could get.

They didn’t.

Thankfully, I also passed by a Border’s, which did have the album.  However, this particular Border’s was one of the saddest book and music stores I have stumbled into.  Their entire music collection lived in one tiny corner nook, and this nook didn’t even have a new releases section.  I scoured the section, going through all the displays and cases, which because of its small size, took me five very frustrating minutes.  As I left the store, I found the lone copy CD in the book section, on a cart with a bunch of other new CDs that may or may not have been on their way to be put out.  I scooped it up, made my purchase, and cursed the ease of online music purchases and the horror of that Border’s music section.

For all the benefits of owning the physical media, the hunt for it made me want to eat my eyeballs.

Zombie

Tonight is one of those nights where I didn’t have anything to do after I got home from work.  It’s a rare treat when I don’t have a rehearsal or something else to do, so I try to take as much of that time for myself in different little ways.

Working out is one of those times I like best.  It’s a little investment in myself.  It grounds me into the physical world in such a primal way, with little artistry and grace.

When it was time for me to get moving in some way however, I started feeling like crap, so I laid down.  An hour and fifteen minutes later, I’m groggy, the gym closes in twenty minutes, and it’s just too dark for me to feel comfortable running.  So, I walk.

I walk around the nieghborhood like a zombie, shuffling quietly, quickly on the sidewalks.  Tonight I’m listening to a podcast of This American Life.  It’s all similar, but not the same.  My companion isn’t here to slow my down, to speed me up, to point out the hundreds of things outside of my perception.

So, I continue on as a zombie, both alive and dead, moving on and lingering, savoring the moment, and letting it all pass by.

The Fear of Sleep

It’s night time again.  Mom is falling asleep on the couch.  Dad is laid out on the recliner, nodding off himself.  Trooper is laid out on his side in the kitchen, and somewhere between all three of them, Chibi has found someone to cuddle up with for a short while.

It’s the moment when Dad goes to bed that things get scary.

Trooper has been sick (see here).  Recently, when he gets sick, he’s had diarrhea on the carpet.  It’s horrible to clean up, as anyone might expect, and we all go to bed at night worrying about what will happen this night.

Going back to that moment though, when my Dad shovels himself out of cushions of the recliner, I can tell how Trooper feels tonight.  If he gets up to go with my Dad, he’s feeling good.  If he stays still, he knows he’s going to be sick.  He can’t tell us when, but he knows it will happen.

His eyes show it.  They’re wide open, looking around, trying to figure out where he can go to relieve himself when it happens.  He knows he can’t control it, and looking in those dark orbs show his fear and worry.

There’s nothing more depressing than talking about his health, and our worries that we can’t do anything about it.  At this point, we haven’t been able to get any answer about what is wrong, and what might be done.  What methods and medicines our vet has prescribed has not helped.  If his quality of life continues to deteriorate, then we will have to look into letting him go.

I imagine this makes him worried, and therefore amplifies his sickness.  It freaks me out thinking about having to put him down.  I know he doesn’t speak English, but I know he can pick up on the tones of our voices.  They’re never happy tones.

To me, his quality of life hasn’t deteriorated so badly that it’s his time to go.  He still plays ball, eagerly goes on walks, and is of his normal disposition.  He barks at people who walk down the street, he gets excited when you ask to take him on a walk.  When he doesn’t feel sick, he carries his tail high.

But he is sick.  He is crapping himself to death.

And I’m not ready to let go at all.

Tired? HA!

Have I said I’m busy?  Because today was a choice example.  I’m sitting down for the first time today, and the last thing I want to do is relax now.  There’s just something about getting home at 11:00 that makes me want to do anything but crawl into my bed.

But now I can’t figure out what I want to do and I just want to eat.

I think it might be time to lay around regardless of my lack sleepiness.