Sep
6
September 6, 2007
JB and I used to sleep with both the cat and the dog piled on the bed with us, a situation that sounds about as attractive to me now as inviting several Himalayan yaks to snuggle under the covers. It’s not that I love their pea-headed, useless selves any less, but I’ve come to prefer the sensation of a fur-free mouth, and the absence of someone repeatedly licking their reproductive parts within five inches of my head. (JB only wishes he could do this.)
Cat is hardly ever in the house at night these days, choosing instead to hunt small defenseless animals during the summer evenings. Our vacation threw her out of sorts, though, because while she is in fact comprised primarily of Evil and Healthy Weight Cat Food For Adult Cats, there is a tiny portion of her diabolical catbrain that actually cares about us. Or at least cares about the possibility of being present during the event of our untimely housebound demise, so she can fulfill her feline destiny by feverishly gnawing the tips of our stiffening-with-rigor-mortis noses.
She was unusually clingy on Tuesday night, so despite my misgivings we allowed her on the bed with us. Just like old times, except despite Dog’s liquid gaze I did not go so far as to make it a four-mammal party.
After one night of this, I can’t imagine why anyone sleeps with their pets. I kept waking up and readjusting the comforter, because there was always a dead, purring weight preventing me from covering myself. She did the grippy-claw thing over and over, kneading our sheets with an annoying little rip rip rip sound. She slithered around our heads and stuck her butt in our faces, she padding over our prone forms looking for the warmest spot, she tried to sleep directly on our mouths, prompting JB to announce at midnight that “Jesus fuck, the cat is trying to steal my breath!”.
I felt like I had been slowly and ineptly molested all night by a shedding, purring blob of Purina Breath. Most unpleasant. Not only that, but right on schedule, in the wee hours of the morning when all was still and the human occupants—especially the pregnant ones—should have been blessed with silent, restful slumber, she hitched a leg northward and started vigorously slurping at her, you know, chocolate starfish turd cutter mahogany knot Rusty Sheriff’s Badge anal region.
No more of that, then. Last night we put her out as usual, but as you might expect from such an instrument of Evil, she exacted her revenge: for the first time, she figured out that the rain barrel directly outside our bedroom window is a perfect place to sit and yowl at top volume. At 5-goddamned-AM.
In other news, I’ve been feeling weirdly unsettled recently and I think I’ve figured out why: my house is a disaster. I don’t just mean the general filth and chaos caused by the now-seemingly-paused remodel work, I mean there is clutter and disorganization in every single room, on every surface. Clothes half-unpacked from the trip, mail strewn across the table, toys everywhere, books and magazines and old newspapers and laundry and grocery dry goods that don’t fit on our makeshift pantry and etc, etc, etc. Have you noticed that when your home surroundings are particularly unkempt, it dumps a sort of psychic detritus in your brain that follows you around all day? I feel like I have a mental Pigpen cloud hanging over my head, this sensation of unfinished business that’s lurking somewhere just out of sight. Know what I mean? Damn it, am I ALONE HERE?
Oddly, parts of my house are sparkling clean, as the cleaning people just did their business on Monday. When we started the remodel work JB put forth the opinion that we should pause the cleaning service during the, ha ha, short amount of time that the house would be torn up, and boy howdy am I glad I didn’t listen to him. My kitchen may be AWOL, but by god my toilets are ring-free.
Every time the cleaning people come, there is some strange, yet welcome touch they leave behind. Sometimes they arrange Riley’s stuffed animals in a tidy, alert-and-staring sort of manner on his shelves. Sometimes they fold the toilet paper into a crisp little point. This time, someone took the time and effort to squeeze all the toothpaste in my nearly-empty tube down towards the cap, a useful maneuver I never bother with, preferring instead to crush the holy hell out of the thing until it’s a crumpled aluminum ball.
It is sadly comforting that in the midst of a messy, deranged-looking house, my toothpaste tube is a model of efficiency and harmony. Aquafresh: teeth whitener, zen koan.
Sep
5
September 5, 2007
Check it out: a short story of mine (an old one, a couple of you may actually remember it from its brief appearance on the Diaryland blog) is in the current issue of Thug Lit. The same issue includes a story by the esteemed Matthew Baldwin, so clearly I’m in good company.
(No worries on the anonymity issue, for those who may be concerned.)
I am now the proud owner of a Thug Lit t-shirt, which features the brass-knuckle logo and the line: WRITING ABOUT WRONGS. I think it will be particularly fantastic when stretched over a 3rd trimester belly.
In other news, here is an exhaustively detailed list of what the workers did while we were conveniently out of the house for six full days:
• Delivered, but did not install, one (1) new front door
Aaaaand that’s it. Soon the cavernous, sawdust-choked space where our kitchen should be and the associated never-ending parade of microwaveable meals will prompt us to begin scratching for grubs in the backyard and foraging in the decrepit, bird-pecked vegetable garden. At the very least, I fear the onset of scurvy (unless Ding Dongs contain vitamin C?) and I blame our mouthbreathing project manager whose most recent work experience, according to a cell phone conversation I could not help but overhear as it was happening six feet from my head during breakfast, includes a five-year stint at GUITAR CENTER. Whither subcontractors, Guitar Guy Who Can’t Schedule Worth a Wet Fart? The gingival hemorrhaging, it is eminent!
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