Posts tagged with "cats"

it hasn't been quite a whole year yet

I still have fond mem­o­ries of the fall. It’s when the light is at it’s most neu­tral, not warmed by the sum­mer sun or cooled by it’s reflec­tion on the snow. The time of long show­ers, kit­ties being even more affec­tion­ate, and girls always find­ing the right spot to nes­tle under your neck.

On par­tic­u­lar­ly bright, chilly days, with all the leaves a flat lemon-yel­low, I can hard­ly take it all in.

cat in sunbeam

We are on this plan­et to move our cats direct­ly in the path of a sun­beam every 15 min­utes.

The sun­beams form a celes­tial cal­en­dar across my floor, slow­ly creep­ing along as they threat­en to warp the wood in my instru­ments, remind­ing me that I haven’t spent a win­ter in this room yet. I can only hope the mem­o­ries will be bet­ter this time around.

These days, I still dream of a nylon-stringed beau­ty, with warm tones and crisp bass close to the sad­dle. I won­der what she’ll feel like under my fin­gers, mahogany or rose­wood, satin or glossy. It’s a dream that nev­er seems far away cause I know it’ll hap­pen some day, so I try to cher­ish the antic­i­pa­tion.

toy plane

I’ve been feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly nos­tal­gic. When the right song comes on, I’m tak­en to the time in my life when it was the only thing I played for a week straight. I used to write so much, but late­ly I hard­ly have any­thing to say it all. That’s why I’m addict­ed to the feel­ing of feel­ing, search­ing for inspi­ra­tion, using my dreams to keep me alive.

I want to know do I stay or do I go

So.

Filmed a great wed­ding yes­ter­day, one that left me tired and sore and much deserv­ing of a break. It’s a hazy Sunday morn­ing, and anoth­er day that it’ll feel like it’s above 40°C with the humid­i­ty. Working near­ly 13 hours and turn­ing into a lit­tle pud­dle of Asian man means I’m con­scious­ly avoid­ing the out­doors today. I’ll be con­tent to sip my cof­fee and peer out the win­dow at the gen­tly sun­lit trees.

cat and drink on a hot day

Majel helps us taste-test cock­tails for the recep­tion.

Even though it’s get­ting ever clos­er to her wed­ding, and Lisa has an increas­ing num­ber of things to get done, we’ve been able to see each oth­er more late­ly. I’ve real­ized that it’s not good enough to have her meet my needs. I have to fill a cer­tain role in her life too. That’s what brings mean­ing to the rela­tion­ship, cause it means she appre­ci­ates me the way I want to be appre­ci­at­ed. So often, it feels like that’s all I’ve ever want­ed.

I’m glad to have devel­oped a rit­u­al get-togeth­er with Aaron too. When we don’t see each oth­er one week, it feels like a year the next time we catch up. Tonight I’m head­ing over to his house for the start of bach­e­lor week, some­thing we’ve been excit­ed­ly plan­ning for a while now. It’s the first time he’s had the house to him­self since the kids were born, so I’ll be stay­ing there for a few days of games, movies, bar­be­cue, and gen­er­al guy stuff, com­ing back home to feed the kit­ties every now and then. We’re doing a six per­son Magic tour­ney tomor­row, my first in the Constructed for­mat, and every­one’s mak­ing new decks for the chance to open some M13 boost­ers. I think my deck con­cept is BRILLIANT and I can’t wait to try it out.

Chet Atkins has also been keep­ing me com­pa­ny late­ly. I’m so glad to have found his instruc­tion­al DVD, where he talks with his old man charm about what he likes in each song and how to play them, phrase by phrase. I grew my thumb­nail out nice and long for near­ly two months, cut it off for prac­ti­cal­i­ty’s sake dur­ing wed­ding sea­son, then imme­di­ate­ly regret­ted the deci­sion. The elec­tric strings I’ve been using have a real­ly flat, dull tone in the low­er reg­is­ter, and since the bass line is so impor­tant in Chet’s arrange­ments, it’s like an entire part is miss­ing from any song I try to learn. I’m going to try learn­ing with a thumb pick, which is some­thing I’ve been avoid­ing for a while now cause I hate the loss of sen­si­tiv­i­ty (like a con­dom on your thumb), but hope­ful­ly the com­pro­mise is worth it.

I have things to orga­nize, chores to do, errands to run, and a house to clean before I leave. For now, I’ll enjoy the rest of the morn­ing, wast­ing time.

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.

a path you didn't choose

People are for­go­ing their heavy coats for light jack­ets, even a litte skin. But win­ter still lingers in the crisp air, a reminder that it has­n’t been long since those frigid nights, but that it’ll soon be warmer and brighter. On the right days, I can wake up with the warmth of the sun on my face, dri­ve with the win­dows down, and eat din­ner in the day­light.

The cats sit intent­ly by the back door for hours, lis­ten­ing for any birds come home for Spring. They haven’t heard any since last year, and for Byron, that’s pret­ty much a life­time. Nowadays, I mea­sure time by how much heav­ier feels every day. There’s a com­fort to be found in know­ing that your cats are grow­ing and healthy.

cats eating

It feels like so much of what I used to cher­ish has fall­en to the way­side. Like I’m relent­less­ly try­ing to catch up on sleep, on time spent with friends, on gui­tar prac­tice, on var­i­ous projects, on get­ting to inbox 0. With time now such a valu­able resource, I’ve been re-eval­u­at­ing things to sal­vage as much as I can. Figuring out the dif­fer­ence between what I tru­ly enjoy and what I enjoy because I think I should, between what I need and what I want.

It’s strange to think that I’ve end­ed up here, and yet it’s hard­ly dif­fer­ent from where I was not so long ago. Life is always inter­est­ing, no mat­ter what age you are, and regard­less of how you think you’ve set­tled into it. If you’re doing it right, at least.

is this it

I learned that the mea­sure of a man is his abil­i­ty to stir-fry bok choi hearts.

That High Fidelity is the new (500) Days of Summer.

That it’s nice to be need­ed.

That I still won­der if I’m for­got­ten.

That it’s not so much that I don’t have any­thing to write about, but noth­ing ever seems impor­tant enough to put down on paper nowa­days.

That I say oh my god a lot.

That food poi­son­ing is like a lax­a­tive for both ends.

That I’m allowed to miss her.

That it’s okay to think oth­ers are cute too.

That I’m doing the whole Swingers thing with Lisa, where she’s try­ing to con­vince me I’m a big fuck­ing bear.

That I can’t read sig­nals.

That it does­n’t mat­ter whether or not you’re invit­ed, as long as you’re hap­py where you are.