a wolf angel is not a good angel

Now I’m at work (what I am doing is clear from the title of this post), where one of the main reasons I needed to come in All Day today was changed. I am okay with this, actually, because I am downtown and they will pay my parking and I can (a) buy running shoes and (b) go to the bookstore for a quick book infusion before my flight. Some suggestions at scribblingwoman and Crooked Timber have piqued my interest — but mostly I’ll be hoping to find something heavy and paperback (sorry, Michelle: not Tristam Shandy). Also puzzles or something, because I’m running low/out.

48 hours from now I will be on a plane. My actual goal is to be fast asleep for the entire trip; I will ensure this plan’s success by essentially not sleeping until I get on the plane. And then I will be near beaches and waterfalls and beaches and it will be good. Beaches! (And no camping in a tent on one, either, C.)

Michelle and Clancy have talked about dreams. My strangest dreaming experiences all involve cats, somehow.

My cat Gus was a big orange cat. Sweetest thing around. But a lot of sweet, because he weighed a good 25 pounds. For a while I was dreaming, night after night, of drowning or being suffocated. Nightmares all the time, nightmares so bad I was woken up by them. Shot straight up, breathing hard, scared.

And then, once, I woke up to Gus sitting on my chest, fast asleep and purring — he was a bit higher than normal so I couldn’t sit up and disturb his sleeping on my ever so comfortable lungs.

Once I knew, the nightmares stopped, though I still sometimes woke up short of breath.

The other story is actually a dream (fragment).

I was in a superstore, something almost like a Costco kind of warehouse. Except it was a pet warehouse. I was in the cat aisle. There were small animals — some cats, but also squirrels — in those plastic bubble cases you get small electronics in and that you cannot open without scissors and much determination. But the animals were fine, just sleeping, all curled up into the spherical opening each of their packages had.

I walked a bit further in, and I walked by the 6′ tall blue cats singing Elvis tunes and listened to them for a while.

ADPRB (sorry, but I was too amused by that particular misreading) talks about school dreams.

When I was in chemistry, there was one class that was quite possibly the hardest strictly undergraduate classs in the entire university. And it was a required course. (After that semester I was complaining to an academic advisor about a mark, and he looked and said “What, the C?” and I said no, I was thanking every god from every single religion for that C, and he said “Ohhh, that’s Stat Mech, I’ve heard about that. Yes, that’s very impressive.”)

After the final exam, we were discussing exactly how terrified we all were of the course. I had dreams about how we were canoeing down a river (don’t ask — I haven’t canoed since 1993) and we’d keep getting grounded on these random beaches and we’d be stuck there until I could solve a question. Also there were piranhas, but it was unclear what they were doing. But someone else had the best/worst dream ever. She dreamed that every time she got a question wrong, they’d drop a bomb on Chechnya, and if she got too many wrong, World War 3 would start.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a dream to equal that one.

I’m tired. The entire recent issue over the vacation has worried me. I went for a picnic with friends and realised I mostly didn’t want to see any of them. I went to a shelter here, to start volunteering, and there are hundreds of cats all desperate for attention, and I want to adopt them all, but I can’t; I can’t even begin to touch their loneliness. I’m deserting my cats for three weeks; I’m afraid Matilda will stop eating (as she has done) or one of the cats will get hurt or stolen. I also feel guilty, because I so clearly favour Til to Sam. I’m angry at my sister.

I look at this big blank box and think I need to write something, or I’ll go crazy, but I have nothing to say. I read what I think might be the saddest post I’ve ever read. I sat and cried.

So I am writing, because it’s good to write. And I listen to my elephant-footed kittens. They all weigh under 10 pounds. Cats! You are supposed to be elegant!

I wish I could write the clever, witty blogs I read. Oh well. Can I have an option on clever & whiny?

I always plan to love summers, but I can’t.

And I thought this was unreal enough.

My mother spoke to insane nut woman on the phone today.

“About your staying here. I’m afraid that won’t work.”
“But I can’t find anywhere else to stay.”
“I’m sorry, it won’t work.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know. But you can’t stay here; we’ve rented it.”
“Well, you’re not paying enough. I’m staying there.”
“You agreed to this amount. It won’t work.”
“Well, I thought it was just the five of you, not also your parents.” (Untrue.) “Anyways, when I’ve had friends stay we’ve had up to 10 people.”
“But we’ve rented it. You can’t stay here.”
“I’m staying there for a few days.”

We seem to be at an impasse. The fun thing is that we take up all the beds, and I can see that developing into an argument. We of course do not plan to give one up. But who knows what she will think of.

My mother phoned my uncle, mostly hysterical. Perhaps he can talk some sense into her. I’m trying to look up the law in Hawaii — any lawyers around? We have not told my grandparents about this, in the hopes that it will go away and they won’t need to go apoplectic and die. Also if we tell them this somewhere public, it might be easier.

Also they have a rabbit. My mother’s hatred of birds is exceeded only by her hatred of small-mammals-other-than-cats. So we’re supposed to take care of it. Anyone have a good recipe?

I’m trying to have different individual archive pages than main pages. This is seriously very much not working. I tried to follow Shelley’s directions on how to do it, and I really think I followed them, but it’s not working. First the change in my .htaccess didn’t seem to move my archive pages from /index.php/whatever to /individual.php/whatever, which is just as well, because my individual navigation icons, instead something like previous post title : main : next post title doesn’t get the previous/next stuff right at all. I have the : main :, and the appropriate link, but nothing else. (Yes, I have it after the important loop thing.) I’ve read the readme, I’ve read the wiki.

I’ve tried to go to the irc channel for help before. I got people playing with the bot, which is, I know, fairly standard for irc channels that have been around beforehand, but not so useful. I might try the forums again. Right now I’m going to shower and be frustrated there instead.

The 2004 results from the (in)famous Bulwer-Lytton contest are available now.

Some highlights:

As he entered the room within which so many a wild night of their sweltering love affair had been spent, the White Rabbit regarded her with benevolent eyes, her posture such that he suspected something was wrong, but before he could speak Alice unburied her face from her trembling hands and between her intense sobs he made out the words, “I’m late . . . I’m late.”

Cory Gano

Looking up from his plate of escargots, Sean gazed across the table at Sharon and sadly realized that her bubbly personality now reminded him of the bubbles you get when you put salt on a slug and it squirms around and foams all over the place, and her moist lips were also like the slime on a slug but before you salted it, though after all these years Sharon still smelled better than slugs, but that could have been the garlic butter on her escargots.

David K. Lynch

“This town’s not big enough for the two of us,” growled Slim Jenkins, “but I think that if we can get the townspeople to agree to issue a bond to annex the Carter Ranch, we can then incorporate and there should be plenty of room for everyone.”

Patrick McNamara

Anyone have any suggestions for very long books to take on the plane? Right now I’ve called The Bounty: The True Story of the mutiny on the Bounty for the plane ride there, but I’m going to need more than one book for the way there (some horrible number of hours in a stopover in Vancouver, plus two at least 5 hour long flights), and probably also on the way back. I need things that aren’t quick reads, but also ones that aren’t deathly boring.

I feel remarkably proud of myself for finally making the move. Enough kvetching about Typepad, I guess, and I decided to put my money where my mouth is, or something. Also we’re leaving in a few days and I told my family I’d set up a blog for the trip, which I’m going to do here, too.

Deadlines are magic!

So my family is renting a place for three weeks (starting Saturday!) in Hawaii. This is cool. We were supposed to go to Maine but the people we’ve rented from for years decided to give our time away to someone else. Fixing the huge holes in the walls of this house? Postponed.

Anyways. When we were planning to go to Maine, we were bringing my sister’s friend, because my sister gets bored without friends very easily. And this friend’s parents were going to allow her to come to Hawaii, too. But no! said the people we were renting from. There is absolutely positively definitely 100% not room for 8 people in that house. No. Nope. Never.

Okay. Whatever. Disappointing (though now I don’t need to share a room with two 11 year olds, just one, so yay for me), but okay.

And today we get an email. This is the magical soap you must use to clean the sink. This is how often you must wash the tub. Here’s how often you have to feed the fish. What fish? Oh well, my sister has fish. My sister likes fish. Okay. Here’s how often you have to feed the oh my fucking hell there are *birds*? My mother hates birds. Despises. My grandmother is scared of birds. Surprise!

Later today, my mother is on the phone with the owner. She — or maybe her husband — will meet us at the house, show us around the house. Thank you. That is nice. Then, since we’re due in so late (seven! o! clock!) it’s too late for him — or her — to leave, so they’ll just stay there that night, okay? And since she might have to work during August, is it okay if she spends maybe three or four or probably not more than five nights in the house, the eighth person in the house that only ever ever can have seven people in it, the house we’re spending hundreds of dollars a night on?

cruelty. don’t talk to me about cruelty
or what i am capable of.

when i wanted the roaches dead i wanted them dead
and i killed them. i took a broom to their country

and smashed and sliced without warning
without stopping and i smiled all the time i was doing it.

it was a holocaust of roaches, bodies,
parts of bodies, red all over the ground.

i didn’t ask their names.
they had no names worth knowing.

now i watch myself whenever i enter a room.
i never know what i might do.

-Lucille Clifton