5-18-08 It's Not OK

The cat complains as I come through the door. She stands in my path on the tile floor, all twelve inches of her, stares me dead in the eye, and states, in her clearest, loudest voice, precisely why she is upset with me.

Her eyes are green and slitted, and she does not hiss, because she is not angry. She is upset, because I have been gone two days, and she would like to tell me why it's not OK.

1-16-08 No Rest for the Wicked?

The air in my bedroom is cold, for a change, even after I've finally retired the in-window air-conditioning unit to a space on the floor in the unused room in my apartment. I wake up, shivering, in the early hours before the alarm on my phone shrieks its obvious electronic censure of my dreams, and I pull the comforter up to my shoulders from where I kicked it in the night.

The cat, hearing me wake, mutters a half-yawned meow from the other side of the room. The darkness is grainy from the street light outside, and I am warm and safe in my bed, drifting back to sleep.

12-29-07 - We Gotta Get Outta This Place

If you sleep until noon, you don't get to feel bad when it gets dark at 4:30. My cat, Honey, stayed at Steph's house while I was in Arizona, so today I went down to Brooklyn to pick up her up (Honey, that is, not Steph), and since Steph lives in roughly the same neighborhood as Katie, I rode to Flatbush and walked.

Amazing how a few days in car-culture will make you forget what it means to ride the subway everywhere you need to go: it took me an hour-and-a-half to get there, all of it torture. My resolve to move to Brooklyn was increased substantially.