Posts in category "Random"

new kitten

Leonard has died. :( I made a short film about his life.

Adopted anoth­er kit­ten from the Humane Society (and I was­n’t able to wait until the new year). When I went to go see him at the shel­ter, he jumped into my arms, start­ed purring, and would­n’t stop nuz­zling my face. Even if he was any less cute, there’s no way I could have left him there.

He’s exact­ly what I was look­ing for: four months old, neutered, male, with a stub­by tail. Cats with stub tails from shel­ters usu­al­ly have their tails cut short because they’ve been run over by a bike, or caught frost­bite, but on him there’s no sign of scar­ring so he was prob­a­bly born with it.

I’ve yet to name him cause I want to see what kind of per­son­al­i­ty he devel­ops first.

new kitten

At this point, his res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion led to sores and he was bleed­ing from him nose. That’s why he looks sort of sad and grog­gy.

When I got him, he had an upper res­pi­ra­to­ry infec­tion and was infest­ed with fleas. I kept him sep­a­rat­ed from Dolly for more than a week, but she still man­aged to catch both. Now she’s real­ly grumpy and sick, and he’s com­plete­ly over it. She also feels huge, because the lit­tle guy is so small right now.

He likes to sleep by rest­ing his chin on my cheek, or lying right across my neck. I’m cur­rent­ly try­ing to change his sleep­ing pat­terns because he’s still a noc­tur­nal cat and gets up in the mid­dle of the night to lick my face. And because he’s a kit­ten who does­n’t know any bet­ter, he thinks Dolly is play­ing with him when she gives him a swipe in annoy­ance. There haven’t been any real scraps between them yet. More of a play­ful fight­ing, where Dolly gives as good as she gets.

new kitten

He tries to sleep with her all the time, and Dolly is usu­al­ly just too lazy to move away. I’m pret­ty sure this has helped her get used to hav­ing him around.

His tail isn’t buried under Dolly’s fat — that’s how long it is.

I won­der if I can be as good as Tiana and only write about him once a month the way she does with her son. But cats grow up so fast; they reach adult­hood in one year instead of 18, so I’m more tempt­ed to record him as much as pos­si­ble when he’s so small and cute. I just don’t want to be a mom­my blog­ger.

keith asks

I some­how came across your work through morn­ingdisc, a group of ulti­mate fris­bee play­ers in Brooklyn Prospect Park… not sure exact­ly how, but I real­ly like your work… I hope to do some­thing sim­i­lar, blog­ging, shar­ing images, trav­el, etc.

I would like to ask you a bunch of tech­ni­cal ques­tions, like do you use word­press or how do you update while abroad… or what few words of advice you can give to some­one who has nev­er done this… any­way… your pho­tog­ra­phy is great. Thanks!

Continue read­ing “kei­th asks”…

The Partisan

The Partisan, orig­i­nal­ly titled “La Complainte du par­ti­san” in French, has always been one of my favourite Leonard Cohen songs. The lyrics are from the point of view of a sole par­ti­san secret­ly fight­ing an occu­py­ing force in his coun­try, but I had no idea it was specif­i­cal­ly about the French resis­tance to Nazi occu­pa­tion dur­ing WWII, as the only ref­er­ences to this are in the French vers­es.

You hear of sol­diers nowa­days with iPods and their mur­der mix­es; playlists of heavy met­al, used to keep them moti­vat­ed (or, in some cas­es, inhu­man so they can com­mit inhu­mane acts). I’ve long held the belief that if I was ever fight­ing in a war, this would be my song — the only one I’d lis­ten to, and on repeat — because the nar­ra­tor is so cold and sto­ic in his pur­pose.

Members_of_the_Maquis_in_La_Tresorerie

A group of par­ti­sans join­ing forces with the Canadian army at Boulogne, in September 1944.

Continue read­ing “The Partisan”…

Seagull

Watched an old crush get mar­ried today.

There was­n’t a hint of pre­ten­tious­ness in her face. She was nev­er pos­ing, nev­er reserved. Atop a sim­ple wed­ding dress — which she once told me her mom was sav­ing for her to be mar­ried in one day — she wore the taught smile that always scrunched up her cheeks.

Ten years lat­er, and she still has the same hair: short, sandy, with curls part­ed in the mid­dle. She was one of those peo­ple who did all her grow­ing in high-school. By the time I met her, she was already the per­son she was going to be for the rest of her life.

And that was okay, cause she was already great.