Random

This is going to be a post of randomness.

Another thirtysomething episode has been added on YouTube, blessedly. It's "Second Look," otherwise known as one of the best and saddest episodes ever on television. So if you need a good honking cry, have at it. (An interesting old article about Nancy's cancer storyline can be found here.)

Here's a Sheriff Seth Bullock Alert: He's appearing in a movie called Catch and Release starring Jennifer Garner. I am a sucker for both Jennifer Garner and Sheriff Seth Bullock, so I'm sure I will end up seeing it even though once again I have to state my hatred of trailers that give away the entire movie.

This amused me deeply.

I've really been enjoying Cold Feet on DVD, and I'm all set to start season three, but I'm bummed to discover that seasons four and five aren't even available on DVD. So I'll have to stop mid-series. Which is frustrating. I could buy them used from the UK, but they wouldn't play in my DVD player. Piss.

Much suffering in human life results
from a fruitless attempt
to retain a note that has
already ceased to sound
or to anticipate a note
that has yet sounded.
I found this quote in a little plastic table card rack at lunch the other day, handwritten beneath a drawing on another card. I liked it, so I wrote it down on a takeout menu. Supposedly it's from a book called The Theory of Conscious Harmony by Robert Collin. The only place I can find it online is on a single MySpace page of an 18-year-old. So it might be made up or misquoted. I have no idea.

I like it.

I've been won over by The Office (U.S.), okay, it only took me a few years. I really like it, and I really like reading Jenna/Pam's blog. I've also decided that other than The Office, the best sitcom on television is How I Met Your Mother. I like it more every week, and last night's made me laugh out loud. Especially the way that Barney says, "Uh, dance?" And in case you missed it the first time, this remains one of the best talk show appearances ever by anyone.

I can't stop going to the memorial site set up for Helen Hill. I can't stop reading about her and her family and what a wonderful person she was and how many people's lives she touched. I did not know her, but the stories of her life and death are filling me with both inspiration and despair. My boyfriend told me this afternoon that there is much to be happy about and thankful for even in this messed up world, and I am trying hard to remember that.

(Photo by B.)

Emily

Emily
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Emily the great grey cat is now gone. My boyfriend made the best decision he could in letting her go, there is no doubt about that, as she was suffering. Even though she was pretty old and I knew in the back of my mind that she would not be here forever, her last illness came on rather suddenly and it was stunning that she was gone so quickly. I tried to be strong for my boyfriend, but when I first walked into his house the day after she died and she was not there, I was overcome and had to excuse myself to the bathroom before properly greeting his mother and cry my eyeballs out for a few minutes. She was not mine, but I loved her.

I have only known Emily a relatively short while, so it is not my memories of her that matter most, but I will always remember her. She stayed with me for about two months after her hurricane rescue, living in my room away from the other cats most of the time. She would venture out sometimes and they would commence a triangulated staring session. She warmed up to me during those months for the first time, coming out from under the bed for treats and even sleeping with me for the first time on the last night of her stay.

Since then, she has never loved me with the mighty love she reserved for my boyfriend, but she would come to me sometimes when I wiggled my fingers and let me brush her occasionally. She loved being petted and drinking water out of the bathtub faucet. She would jump out with a wet forehead, her thirst happily quenched. She also liked sitting on the back of the futon and lying on the bed in a shaft of sunlight from the window. She loved lying on B.'s chest most of all, I think. One of my last memories of her was laughing at the way she crouched down and approached the new Christmas tree as if an explorer or a stalking tiger. How do you comfort someone you love who's lost the cat he had for, like, 15 years? I don't know. She was very well taken care of and loved and just one of those very good, sweet cats. Life will not be the same without her.

Pink roses

Sometimes I feel like if I don't write about my weekends that they'll be lost somehow.

On Friday night, there was sushi. And, of course, the watching of Battlestar Galactica. On Saturday, there was running shoe shopping, beignets and half-cafe au lait/half-hot chocolate, a stop in my favorite store, a visit to the library book sale where I bought this CD for a dollar, a visit to this store where I accidentally plopped a giant blob of lotion all over the floor, a work fish fry, Vietnamese food, and Wordplay, which was very geekily enjoyable. On Sunday, there was a homegrown orange for breakfast and a game of Scrabble where I got the X, Z, J, Q, and all sorts of other high-scoring consonants so I actually won the game. Then I went on my first five-mile run on a cold sunny day. I was very glad to have my new headband/ear-cover thingie or I think my ears would have frozen and shattered onto the ground. I have no idea how I'm going to run 16 miles this week considering it's Tuesday and I haven't started but I suppose I'll make it happen somehow. Along with a six mile run at the end of the week but I'm not thinking about that yet.

What I'm thinking about is how I have a sudden new obsession with baked Cheetos, how sad and moving Anne Frank Remembered (that I watched Sunday night) was, how very good Case Histories is, how Zuko smells lately like he rolled in something that died which is possible considering the deer legs that were being tossed about to and fro in my backyard by the neighbors until I left them a very nice note asking them to please keep the frightening hoofed meaty limbs to themselves because they are in fact super gross, how Marley spends entire days with her entire body buried under my comforter in a hidden lump of warmth and purriness, how Khaki refuses to get down from her cat bed unless it's time to eat, how totally awesome the James Taylor Great Performances show was on PBS and how I cried at the end when they sang "Shed a Little Light," how Daisy just wants to curl up on top of the pillow that sits atop her crate in ball of shivering my life is so hard-ness, how I don't understand why it was 23 degrees here this morning and 40 degrees in New York City, and how happy I was made earlier by the appearance of pink roses in my office in recognition of two December fifths ago being the scary but exciting blind date I went on with the sender of the pink roses.

I've never really been a huge James Taylor fan the way my sister is a huge fan. I've always loved "Carolina in My Mind" and an old live version of "That Lonesome Road" but I've never really known much about him except that most of his music seemed kind of, I don't know, milquetoastey. But after watching this show, I think I am digging him on a deep level. I mean, maybe there's nothing wrong with singing songs about how we should shower the people we love with love and show them the way that we feel.

Cats and Such

Early morning with Khaki
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Khaki woke up this morning, ate breakfast, and jumped up onto the window ledge, which is what Khaki does most every morning.

Though you probably can't see it on her face, she's pretty excited about the Democrats taking the House, but the fact that seven more states passed same-sex marriage bans makes her want to puke her guts out.

My parents' cat is a cat they've had for twelve years. He was actually my kitten that I got against my dad's rules (he was my landlord at the time) at age 19. He became flea-ridden and tore the apartment apart and I pleaded with them to take him off my hands. They did, and he's been chilling on their brick wall ever since. I've always thought he's lived a pretty charmed life for an outside cat despite a few scrapes with things like racoons. He's always seemed really fat and happy. Lately, not so much. He's thin and dirty and it makes me so sad that I can't even be around him. I know I should take him to the vet but I am scared to. It's weird. I haven't felt any ownership or responsibility towards him since dropping him off at my parents' house twelve years ago, but I feel like I owe him something now that he's not doing so well. I feel guilty and sad about him.

My brother's girlfriend looks after my pets on occasion. She likes the dogs (or claims to) (she's nice that way) but admitted she feels like she doesn't know the cats very well. I told her, "Oh, the cats are perfect. They are the sweetest girls." Which was the barfiest thing to say, but I mean it.

I feel like so many people are driven so crazy or even terrorized by their cats. But I must have lucked out with mine. Sure, sometimes they puke on the rug and they manage to track cat litter into every nook and crevice of the house, and sure, they scratch things and shed and meow annoyingly like they are being starved to death and act like I'm murdering them when I trim their claws, but they make up for it in so many leaps and bounds with their cuteness, their sweetness, their spazziness, the way they wrestle in the bathtub, and the way they cuddle up on the couch with me always when I need them to. I love them. It's true.

I've decided all I'm doing tonight is petting my animals, watching last night's Veronica Mars and Friday Night Lights, enjoying the smell of my pumpkin candle that smells so good it almost makes me feel drunk, eating breakfast for dinner (eggs and grits), and waiting to see who takes Virginia.