zhui long

There’s noth­ing in this world you can’t turn into hero­in.

—Get Him to the Greek

At our last draft, Steph asked me what was new. It was weeks since we played, but noth­ing came to mind, and it felt strange to have no updates at all. It was only a few months ago that things fell apart. Things had been chang­ing quick­ly ever since.

And then, all of a sud­den, sta­bil­i­ty.

the hearth

The hearth.

Meanwhile, I’ve picked up an obses­sion with sort­ing my Magic cards. Darren came by a few weeks ago and he gave me his col­lec­tion, which we both start­ed around high-school. I have about 8000 cards now, ordered by rar­i­ty, colour, block, and alpha­bet­i­cal­ly, which took me the greater part of a week. There’s no deny­ing how sat­is­fy­ing it is to have a neat and orga­nized set, where I can quick­ly find a card instead of going through ran­dom hand­fuls.

I also start­ed watch­ing Cops, sea­sons 20–24, non-stop. A strange addic­tion1 for a real­i­ty TV show that’s no doubt biased in favour of law enforce­ment and against low-income cit­i­zens, but not glo­ri­fied with a nar­ra­tor, a sound­track, or any mon­e­tary incen­tives. After watch­ing the same episodes a few times, I feel like I have some inti­mate insight into the peo­ple who choose to break the law, and those who make careers out of stop­ping them.

They’re signs that I’m a glut­ton now, hav­ing to lose myself in some­thing, whether it’s being pro­duc­tive or social or hap­py.

Love used to be my drug of choice, but nowa­days it’s any­thing I can get.

  1. I used to see an episode here and there when I was a kid, but it was nev­er with any fre­quen­cy, and I haven’t seen one in years. I have no idea why I find it so fas­ci­nat­ing now. [↩]

He Who Cannot Be Tamed

Byron’s over a year old now, which means he’s offi­cial­ly an adult in kit­ty years. I’ve giv­en up on my dream of hav­ing anoth­er big cat to cud­dle, as he’s retained stocky limbs and long tail, but grown into a small and slen­der body.

Dolly more than makes up for that though, even though she’s still a lit­tle sore at me for bring­ing him home. She’s nowhere near as tol­er­ant to my teas­ing as before, but she’s still social and still nes­tles against my chest when she’s in the mood (usu­al­ly dur­ing naps, nev­er at night nowa­days).

he who cannot be tamed

Disguised in this inno­cent yawn is a silent roar from the killer with­in.

My rela­tion­ship with Byron is very dif­fer­ent from the one I share with Dolly. She’s a cat who appre­ci­ates the love and atten­tion I give her, and she shows me this with every nuz­zle and purr.

Byron, on the oth­er hand, is more of a pet; a cat who’s nice to have around, but who does­n’t inter­act with me on the same lev­el. He has a few social habits — hang­ing out with me when he knows it’ll soon be meal time, or jump­ing on me for a nice rub­down when he hears me stir­ring in bed as I’m wak­ing up — but that’s usu­al­ly as far as it goes. I’ve tried to nour­ish a stronger bond with him by prac­tic­ing con­trolled feed­ing and mak­ing sure I pick him up sev­er­al times a day, but he’s always remained a kit­ty of his own.

Protected: lost rites

This con­tent is pass­word pro­tect­ed. To view it please enter your pass­word below:

nothing little about it

How is it July already. Jew-lie.

My anchors are the peo­ple I spend time with; the only rea­son for me to remem­ber the days of the week. Otherwise, I’d lose track of time as the sum­mer slips through my fin­gers.

It feels like I’m liv­ing the same life I had back in my apart­ment on Lees, soon after grad­u­a­tion; unem­ployed, sin­gle, keep­ing myself busy, co-habi­tat­ing with two cats, not going out much, not hav­ing any long-term goals, and not over-think­ing things. I’m doing what I want. My needs are being met. I’m invest­ing in the right kinds of rela­tion­ships. I’m enjoy­ing things as they are now, instead of try­ing to chase a sense of hap­pi­ness in the future.

This means I get to focus on one project at a time. Being able to lose myself in some­thing for days is a lux­u­ry I’ve rarely had. I think I’ve always pre­ferred to work like this, but hav­ing a 9–5 job tends to get in the way.

magnetic poetry

My eyes go straight to one line.

At the same time, I feel com­plete­ly obliv­i­ous to some things. I don’t have cable, so I can’t remem­ber the last time I saw a com­mer­cial. I nev­er know what movies are out. I’ve start­ed see­ing par­o­dies of pop­u­lar songs before I hear the orig­i­nals.

I used to be afraid that these were signs I was los­ing touch with the world, turn­ing into an old man, but I don’t mind any­more. There’s so much shal­low con­sumerism, celebri­ty obses­sion, and dis­pos­able cul­ture out there, and I don’t want any­thing to do with any of it.

I’ll just live in my lit­tle world, big enough to get lost in.

i miss

try­ing new foods with my Uncle Joe and the fas­ci­na­tion I used to have for Six Feet Under and being able to sleep more than four con­tin­u­ous hours and gui­tar lessons and the sound girls make when you squeeze them just right and the idea of camp­ing but not the actu­al act and remem­ber­ing how to play Sunny Road and Trolley and Steph already and snow and peo­ple-watch­ing when tak­ing the bus and long-term rela­tion­ships and

two girls and a baby

these kind of moments before we all par­take and

the smell of rain in Paris and make­outs and know­ing what to say to peo­ple when they ask me how I’m doing and being led by the hand to the bed­room and being called Jeffy Bear and hav­ing a rea­son to wear Classic by Banana Republic and get­ting real­ly excit­ed and being pur­sued by some­one I’m not try­ing to avoid and the time in my life before all this med­ica­tion and hav­ing some­one I could call my best friend and cud­dling and walks and old /b/ and Bruce Springstein before he went rock and no one I should­n’t and hav­ing a Tai Chi teacher and

bums like this

lit­tle bums like this and

know­ing how to play piano and pounc­ing on sur­vivors with Dave and Tyler and hav­ing a sta­ble source of income and being part of her life and hav­ing her in mine and Hawaiian sun­sets and find­ing sales for clothes that fit me and play­ing songs for Antje and the inti­ma­cy of oral and simul­ta­ne­ous orgasms and sex, obvi­ous­ly and hav­ing some­one to spoil and new episodes of Reno 911 and host­ing big par­ties and the way Leonard would sleep on my neck.