Damp kitty

[nullalux]

Why, oh why, must Spencer hop in the shower with me? Cats are not supposed to like water, are they? Madi likes to survey the tub after someone has showered, but Spence gets right in, under the spray and everything. Oimoi.

tutordennis and I saw Hero last night. I really enjoyed it, although I anticipate that lots of right-wing pro-war comparisons are being made between Bush and the Emperor of the Qin dynasty. Rather unfortunate timing. At first, I wasn't sure about the very strong color schemes used in the film, but then I decided that it's brilliant. As a long-time fan of Fong Sai-Yuk and old kung fu movies, it was fabulous to see Jet Li doing something other than the American movies he's been making here (which have without fail disappointed me). Speaking of disappointments, we saw the movie at Oakridge Mall. Walking past Hot Topic is always bizarre; as Dennis puts it, it's jarring to see "the commercialization of our childhoods" capsulized in a chain store. You may be able to market black jelly bracelets, Dickies, Manic Panic hair dye and Wet 'n Wild lipstick #508 to today's disaffected youth, but you can't sell punk rock, damn it. Yeah, we're old skool.

I've had a lovely feeling of well-being this past week or so. Perhaps it's due to school starting again. I'm not sure, but I'm enjoying it. I'm still a little sad about the past year, and all the changes and challenges we've been through. I don't object to change per se, but it's very difficult to revamp your both your daily life and your long-term plans without facing some disturbing questions regarding the nature of the self. When B and I decided that— despite our deep love and affection for each other—we could not be lifepartners, it was honestly done with each other's best interests in mind. I truly thought that we would continue to be there for each other, as real friends, perhaps even as sometime lovers. After nine years of happiness together, I thought it couldn't be otherwise. But after a brief period of 'weaning' (for lack of a better term), he forged such distance between us that my head still reels to think of it. Now I don't know who he is.

But I miss him. The 'him' I knew, the one that loved me and held my love dear, the one whose strengths and whose very weaknesses I adored. The one who said I'd better hurry up and finish school so that we could adopt chinky babies together. The person whose family adopted me as their own, the one I held when disease incited his body to mutiny (we were so frightened we'd be parted by his early death), and the one who booby-trapped my suitcases with stuffed monkeys when I went to conferences. That's how my heart works, and eight months later, I still don't know how to undo it. I'm grateful for my recent sense of well-being, but I'm confused that it hasn't lessened this other ache.

Comments

[mamamillie.livejournal.com]

My love says that Hot Topic is non-conformist attire marketed for the conformist. He says it's parental rebellion via the mall.

Love and its slow erosion (or sometimes its sudden flying apart) sucks ass, to put it bluntly and in a Hot-Topic kind of way. I understand exactly the feelings you've described and offer you a long-distance hug. xoxo

The road to hell...

[chalepa-ta-kala.livejournal.com]

Thanks. B and I parted with such good intentions, and he knows (knew) that I completely support his happiness with his new girlfriend. I didn't expect erosion or explosion, just a paradigm shift that I thought we could traverse together. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he decided that I hurt him unforgivably, and that things had to be black and white. I thought we were better than that. I would have given anything not to discover that I was wrong.

[cowgirlnoir.livejournal.com]

The beauty of the world has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. - V. Woolf

I feel like I've quoted this to you before in a post I can't find. Either I did and the situation with B. continues to make me think of this feeling, which I am learning in my own life in a different way, or the lost entry is a dream space where everything was said and/or became clear.

I often feel that joy and anguish have extremely similar edges. The odd thing is to feel both the pain of loss and the pleasant certainty of wellbeing, that the one doesn't go away in the presence of the other. We are often cut twice.

Re:cats and showers
Mine won't jump in but he will harass me in the bath because it is his territory (his litter is in the bathroom). We sometimes stage battles through the shower curtain with giant sponges and kitty body surfing on the curtain.

The dead letter office of dreams

[chalepa-ta-kala.livejournal.com]

The words are new to me, at least in this context. It makes me think of the proverbial caterpillar, inching itself along upon the blade of a knife. Every forward move sunders his corpus further.

But maybe I'm just tired. Regarding critters, I don't mind death, but I mind suffering (i.e. euthanasia is preferable to a slow or violent death, such as from injury or disease). I'm trying not to apply that to the human animal as well.