Just logging on to say that I'll be logging off until next Tuesday. I'm about to get unplugged... the dust is flying... my fur is all musty dusty... everything I cherish is systematically disappearing... including myself...
My human complains of sore paws and limp limbs
My daylong hope of evening pampering dims
JJ sits so tenaciously still
Bending the human to his own will
A game he wants and a game he demands
As he sits looking forlornly and licks proffered hands
I proffer my back, turn tail and stalk away
My human continues to promise tomorrow's another day
I've heard that promise too many times before
I just don't want to hear it any more
Clearly there's something afoot
My human's paws are covered with soot
Or something equally sticky and foreign in smell
Though where those feet have been I cannot tell
My favorite nooks and crannies are daily disappearing
As each time the front door opens more cardboard is appearing
My lungs are so clogged with the dirt and the dust
These boxes must go soon . . . or I must
Today though there's a new smell of soil and fresh-cut grass
With the promise of open spaces across an unknown pass
Those human paws keep wandering away
Those human lips keep promising a new home someday
Times have been tough of late it seems
But I've raised my chin and I'll pursue my dreams
Of chasing spiders and flies and mice
And pouncing on JJ from ambush in a trice
I'll continue to dream of strokings so sweet
From my now rarely seen human when next we meet
Of fingers that travel from my head to my tail
Of the touch that brings pleasure without fail
My satisfaction I'm sure as sure can be I will purr
When my human's hand once again plays with my fur
A long slow rub of my stomach I need
And that right quickly with all due speed
Then and only then will I again raise my chin
Wipe my nose dry and let the rubbing begin again
| Spiteful Loner You are 71% Rational, 42% Extroverted, 57% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant. |
| You are the Spiteful Loner, the personality type that is most likely to go on a shooting rampage. You are a rational person and tend to hold emotions in very low-esteem; not only that, but you are also rather introverted, meaning you probably bury any emotions you feel deep inside yourself. Combine these traits with your hatred of others and your brutality, and it seems that you would be quite likely to shoot innocent people in a rampage. Not only that, but you are also a very humble person--not a braggart at all--meaning you could possibly have low-self esteem. This is only yet one more incentive to go on a shooting rampage, because you wouldn't care if you died as a result. Granted, you probably haven't gone on a shooting rampage and probably never will, but all the motivations are there. In conclusion, your personality is defective because you are too introverted, brutal, insecure, and rather unemotional. No wonder no one hangs around you, you morbid, cold-hearted freak! To put it less negatively: 1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive. 2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted. 3. You are more BRUTAL than gentle. 4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant. Compatibility: Your exact opposite is the Televangelist. Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Capitalist Pig, the Smartass, and the Sociopath. * * If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits. The other personality types: The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble. The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble. The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant. The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble. The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant. The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble. The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant. |
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My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating |
Each day a load of laundry leaves
But does not return --
Where are my piles of warm sweet garments?
Each day the laundry leakage lessens --
Soon all comfort will be gone
And yet, each day brings with it
New and intoxicating smells as well
Unknown scents that make no sense
Beg, nay, demand a context:
Mysterious, unknown, beckoning the explorer
In me to come forth
Promises have been made
And promises broken
But this time perhaps
I really will go along again
To cross the water
And smell new things
And finally kill a spider.
The Michael Jackson verdict is about to be read, but what do I care? Word has come down that it is official: I must say farewell to this habitat that has been my abode for the past three years, to this area I have inhabited since I was but a 12-week-old kitten. Whither we go, I do not know; all I know is that the madness has set in. Worse, I can't get no satisfaction as my human wants to waste precious time being "logical". huh!
P.S. Took about 30 minutes...
The official start of summer is still ten days away, but signs of the season have already begun to manifest around the country and throughout the northern hemisphere. The air is filled with the smells of barbecue and the sounds of music and laughter late into the night. Now the news says that the hurricane season is underway and that the mosquitoes will soon be swarming. I don't like mosquitoes.
My human clips my claws on a weekly basis, besides which my teeth never quite reach the nape of my neck, though mosquitoes do. Frankly, they're just not the kind of females I like to attract, if you know what I mean. So if my human isn't around to scratch me when I itch, I'm in for a miserable time. Fortunately for me, my human has found an article on the Internet that says catnip keeps mosquitoes away. That's the best news I've heard all week! :-)
Life is that way: drinking whiskey isn't generally considered a healthful daily regimen, yet it's a handy way to head off a cold or clear up a sore throat. Garlic and onion reek, besides being downright poisonous to me, but they help my human's circulatory system, or so it's been said. Equally important, I hate my annual visit to the vet because of the regimen of shots I have to endure, but I'm pretty sure they help me through the rest of the year. That's why I'm so excited that catnip, which I love, has been declared a good way to keep mosquitoes at bay, even across the Bay. Yeah!
A feline has a very sensitive olfactory system, so why must my human insist on assaulting it? Is it not enough that I get my daily news from the laundry leavings everywhere? Why must warm weekend days bring the offensively head-banging reek of charcoal and burnt flesh of all kinds? Worst of all, of course, is the kind of barbecue reek that has at its heart that essence of lighter fluid. Where is the humanity?
Now, on a normal weekday, I've come to expect the customary assault of odors such as burning garlic and frying onion, not to mention the variety of pungent cheeses and chilis that pass through this place, all in the name of healthful eating, but what's up with this intentional burning of perfectly good food? Even JJ isn't interested in such incinerated residue, (though neither of us mind the burning of those nasty vegetables...)
Give me a nice pate' of chicken, turkey, beef, lamb, shrimp, tuna, or fish (or even some of that ono pork) and a fresh bowl of water and I'll be a happy cat.
And every once in awhile, if you really love me, you'll slip me some of that McDonald's-type Friskies product. ;->
You humans hustle about through the trivialities of life, so certain that what you pursue is more important than time spent with JJ and me. You set obnoxious alarms that go off in the early morning hours just as I am settling down from a night's industrious and fruitful prowling. You turn on all the lights just as I am seeking the comfort of darkness for my own slumbers. You disturb my sleep with your clanging and banging about as you prepare for your daily adventures. Then, when I finally reconcile myself to according you the attention you so clearly crave on your way out the door, you unceremoniously dump me from your lap -- every single day.
Every five or six days, just when I'm getting used to the idea of being free of you during daylight, you decide to stay home and bother me. Then when I pay you some attention, you toss me off again. What's wrong with you?!?
On the days when you are kind enough to go out and stay out, you come home in a foul mood as often as not. The upshot is that you refuse to open the lanai door and JJ can't enjoy a twilight bark with his fowl neighborhood friends. Then I have to listen to them mock him through the shut glass doors. That's irritating, not that you notice, absorbed as you are by that idiotically oversized glass and plastic box with the flashing lights and fake sounds. . . .
Sometimes you fall asleep in front of that box, blocking out our playing area and disrupting the blessed comfort of night that spreads throughout the house after you have gone to bed. You turn down the sound, but the lights flicker on, and we wait and watch as you snore on the couch or on the floor, exhausted from your day's labors. We know from experience that eventually you will awaken, stop the lights and noise, and stumble into the bedroom. Then it will be our turn to play.
But I forgive you. Because sometimes you do remember to pause between my paws . . . and then we are both refreshed.
There are several websites available on the Internet for neophyte nekko owners, all of which uniformly assert that we cats are happiest when given the same food consistently, day in and day out . . . every day, every way . . . day after day after day after . . . I consider myself a reasonable fellow, so let's try that theory on you for awhile . . .
I'm patient and I love my human, so I put up with this for our first three months together, but enough eventually becomes too much: I quit eating. I mean, seriously, what was the point? Even astronauts get variety in their admittedly pasty freeze-dried tubes. So I quit, cold turkey. Literally. The day came when I just couldn't face another refrigerator-fresh dish of cold mashed turkey paste (and no, I'm not buying that nonsense about pate').
Of course my human was worried, but my human and I are very much alike, so it was a relatively simple task to access the empathic pathways of communication we'd already established. All I had to do was trigger the buffet-response nodes. (My human has zero resistance to buffets.) Since that time, my dietary fare has expanded to encompass the most remarkable range.
Mind you, I don't get to indulge in much junk food because my human is an irritatingly meticulous label-reader, but when the occasional can of Friskies-brand product does cross my dish, you can be sure I cherish the treat and savor the sauce, storing up the memory for the long bleak healthful interval that will inevitably follow.
I appreciate the care and concern my human showers on me, and I do like to know that there are some things in life that are predictable, but without variety my mind goes stale and my muscles stagnate. I think I'm putting on a little weight and if I don't watch myself, JJ sometimes wins a wrestling match. Predictability is a comforting trap. As I grow older, it becomes more invitingly comfortable. At the same time, it is unbelievably boring. I need the freedom to choose complacency.
Ann Bancroft has passed in the night and Broadway will appropriately dim its lights in her honor. She was an amazingly gifted performer with startling range, from her finely tuned performances on stage and in films like The Miracle Worker, The Graduate, and The Turning Point to some of her more madcap turns such as her husband's To Be or Not To Be.
In fact, it's because my human likes to watch The Turning Point that I came to realize that it's more than okay for a buff fellow with superior leaping ability to go bounding around in tight tights, though I can't say it's gotten me any ladies... (though that may have more to do with my early traumatic experiences at the vet's than the fact that I absolutely refuse to wear tights, loose or tight...)
Well, the day is early and the workload heavy, so I'll bound off to check out the raindrops that keep falling on the lanai window for now.
I am, as I have said, a gato of leisure. My days are spent in alternately peaceful and labored slumber, depending on the pollen content of the air on any given day and the dust content of my bedding. All my life I have been told what a wonderful leaper and magnificent mover I am. There has been no reason to exercise daily as JJ does. I have had sufficient activity occasionally terrorizing my companion.
Now, however, I find myself wheezing when I try to make one of my "magnificent" moves, or even when I do something as simple as alter my elevation (from bed to floor or back). I've tried cutting down on my food, beating up on my JJ a bit more, but nothing seems to help. What's more, I feel tension in the air around me. Change is coming, I can feel it; but what?
Sunny wind blows away thick ocean born clouds
Leaves all stark and bare in the harsh light
Lets in too clearly loud noises of neighbors departing
Accentuates stale odors that have festered all week long
Enclosed fish stink that holds no sweet meat
Highlights lies all around
When will the comforting blanket of fog return
Warm shroud that shields me from myself
Blends with my coat of black and gray
Letting me slip back into my accustomed stupor
And live my dreams asleep
I do not wish to know my world's upturned
My life transplanted back across the Bay
Where sights and scents are but remembered mists
And sun burns fog away
But cardboard creeps inexorably upward
Into my home, my lungs, my soul
Boxing me out
Where will the wind blow our belongings
Leaving my secret longings
Exposed?
Dodes 'Ka-Den (1971)
In 1970 Akira Kurozawa made his first color film, according to the write-up on Amazon.com. Amazon has two reviews in its main section, one negative and one positive. Though this is a purely Japanese film, not Asian American, its reviews reflect precisely what I was talking about in my previous post. There seems to be a level of awareness that speaks only to those who are attuned to the possibilities of cultural differences, that eludes those who believe that their specific understanding of absolutes transcends all cultural differences.
In moments controversial my perception is rather fine
I can always see two points of view: the one that's wrong and mine.
Back to my favorite film: This is a series of bits bound together not only by visual aesthetics but by idealism and hope. It really is the way many of us get from high ground to high ground as we navigate the morass that life too often is. It's a patchwork tinkertoy series of strings and things by which we hang on and progress as we make our way, whether forward, backward, or trudging in place.
Meow! The pre-Broadway stage production featuring Esai Morales, Jaime Camil, Cote de Pablo, Albita, and Christiane Noll is a kick-ass high energy show featuring high-caliber acting and high octane dancing. I particularly enjoyed the continuous interaction amongst the ensemble, whether or not they were being featured. It really added credibility to every scene for me. The only really distracting aspect for me is that Morales is perhaps too effective as a former singer whose vocal cords no longer function as well as God originally intended. Other than that, I had the time of my life trying to keep my eyes on everyone doing everything across the entire stage, a less common experience than one might expect. The whole experience was very nearly purrfect.
Just as cats get short shrift in American cinema, so do Asian Americans. As felines are often depicted as villains outsmarted by canines (as if!), so Asian Americans seeking a film presence are too often required to play villainous dolts so inept that they are easily outsmarted and outfought by their Western counterparts. Alternatively, furry felines are depicted as complacent and pampered fat cats akin to Star Trek tribbles, even as Asian Americans are cast as model middle class professionals by day, sex slaves by night. Thus it is that in recent years Asian Americans have joined the ranks of independent filmmakers in an effort to tell their own stories, not only of the assimilation experience in this country but of universal truths in life in microcosm against the macrocosm as well.
Two such films spring to mind today: Better Luck Tomorrow (2002), a disturbing view of the senior year of high school among elite students in Orange County, CA, written by Ernesto Foronda, Fabian Marquez, and Justin Lin, directed by the last; and Saving Face (2004), another examination of the kinds of conflicts that can arise when values and goals differ between generations, written and directed by Alice Wu. While each film begins with the common stereotypes of Asians in America, each likewise does what no outsider has successfully done: honestly and accurately examine the intracultural as well as the intercultural dynamics in play. One enthusiastic viewer of SF has observed that mainstream film critics seem to have missed the subtleties of those familial and cultural dynamics that seem so obvious to Asian American viewers, but as I have not read many reviews, that is not something I can address. I would appreciate feedback from anyone who has actually seen many or any films by and about Asian Americans, (not to be confused with Asian films per se).
Better Luck Tomorrow plays off the John Woo Tomorrow films in terms of drug-related violence, but it is clearly an American tale. The film revolves around four young men clearly marked for academic, social, financial, and professional success. They are respected, honored, trusted . . . and they become the local crime lords, selling homework, essays, and test answers, then graduating to drug dealing. It all ends as one would expect: in violence, death, and loss of respect, scholarships, and life. What's interesting is the interactions among family members during the downward spiral and how the stereotypes play into the whole problem of expectations unmet and pressures unborne.
On a more optimistic tone, there is Saving Face, which has been compared to Ang Lee's Wedding Banquet probably because of its topic and location. Like BLT, SF uses existing stereotypes and set storylines. One of the nice switches is that the "great catch", though a doctor on the fast track to professional success, is a woman. Of course, the object of her desire is the offspring of her boss, which makes for a lovely spin on an otherwise cliched setup. Again, it is in the subtle interactions that there is revelation and/or accurate reflection. Mother and daughter struggle against parental expectations and that overwhelming sense of filial duty that is seen as a tripwire for so many, particlularly though not exclusively for those still in some transitional stage of assimilation. Unfortunately, the reviews I have read don't seem to notice these subtelties, distracted as they are by what are perceived as recognizable "types" and the admittedly idealistic ending. Perhaps these facts are just further reflections on the causes of the obtuseness of the one and the invisibility of the Other.
What can one do but have another catnap and continue to slumber until awareness is ready to awaken? (You see: it's not just movies and books that can utilize copout endings...)
The sun shines bright on this California home
The arctic breeze ruffles my oil sleek fur
I bask in the glow of the afternoon light
Warmed by love
The pot-forested concrete of the apartment lanai
Holds the heat of the day in its stony surface
Where the shadows of the plants have not yet crept
In pursuit of life
Bright harsh glare woos as it repulses
Standing in hard contrast to the cold comfort within
Where the wind rattles blinds and leaves and things
Stealing hope
One banana two banana three banana four
I’m on an eating jag again
All I want is more
Though why I want anything is beyond my ken
I started out my morning with a nanner and a mug
Then segued into two bags of noodles and spam
Though I’m getting so large that I’m too big to hug
Still all I can think of now is a sandwich with lettuce, cheese, and ham
Each morning I promise myself that today I’ll start to work out
I even manage to wait until the morning is almost over
Till I’ve had adequate time to get out and about
To tell myself I’m still a fancy free rover
But noon passes by and the sun starts back down
My energy lags and my bed calls me back
My mood turns sour and my smile is replaced by a frown
Only food in large quantities can supply what I lack
My rhyming is weak my rhythm has abandoned me
My concentration is totally shot
I truly believe only mounds of food can set me free
Until I eat; and then it’s not.
George Mikan was a formidable hoopster
Who let his game do his talking for him
Unlike another unnamed rooster
Whose mouth was always shooting off on a whim
Mikan was the first to switch hands
On his way up to the rim
His name alone could pack the stands
With fans there to see only him
He dominated the boards
On both sides of the court
His hair brushed the net cords
As his teammates he'd exhort
He swatted away the opposition's shots
Like ants at a picnic
On defense he'd claim his own spots
On offense he was just so quick
But time takes its toll on us all
And the day finally came when he had to retire
Other stars now perform magic with a ball
But high as they soar no one will ever fly higher
I only wish I could do better than doggerel for the man who did so much for the greatest game in the world.
W. Mark Felt's family has urged him to emerge from anonymity and acknowledge his role in American history as the mysterious informant of the seventies: Deep Throat. At the time then President Richard Milhouse Nixon labeled him a traitor, and contemporary Republican leaders have reiterated the characterization. Felt's family members, on the other hand, are presenting him as a hero who dared to do what was necessary to right an injustice that they decry as a cancer that needed excising. Both sides are accurate, even as the first American revolutionaries were traitors to England but heroes to those who wanted a separate government for a land geographically separated by the second largest ocean on the planet.
Likewise, veterinarians who "fix" animals are seen as a positive necessary force in human society but are villified by their relatively helpless victims. Think about it: how has the act of forcefully removing one's reproductive organs come to be considered in any way "humane"? On a personal level, it is a very painful and ultimately humiliating experience that has lifelong repercussions. I'll never get a female feline and, sadly, have had to resort to periodically dry-humping my Boy-Toy "brother". He is in a similar situation . . .
Now, humans say that the castration was for our own good, that it prolongs our life expectancy, that it makes us more docile and therefore more amenable to the enforced incarceration that is our lot in life as domesticated "pets". What they're really saying is that it is good for their living spaces and their peace of mind, not ours.
How does this apply to Deep Throat? Felt knew what he was doing was illegal. He knew that he wasn't supposed to be leaking confidential information, possibly even illegally obtained. He even had the sense to obtain assurances that his identity would not be revealed in his lifetime. Now he's had the better part of three decades to reflect on his actions and on their consequences. It just doesn't seem in character that he should choose at this stage in life to alter his course. It seems far more likely that his family, specifically his daughter and her son, are hoping to capitalize on the actions of his now distant past. It is a curious thing that they have chosen to do so under a Republican regime at a time when the history their family patriarch helped shape is being repeated, at least in part.
Hero or goat? Ultimately, your perspective has to depend on which side of the scalpel you're on. . . .
There are all sorts of things making the news today: Deep Throat, the SF 49ers "Training" Video, the mudslides in Laguna Beach that have caused at least a dozen multi-million-dollar homes to slip down their hillsides, but I want to talk about a more serious problem: laundry leakage.
I love laundry leakage. Piles of clothes that have been worn retain the loveliest odors. They are my "newspapers", my best source of information about the world beyond the walls that bound my existence. True, I do sniff them when they first arrive, then again when they have been discarded, but when they are allowed to sit and stew on the floors awhile, that is when I get to make them truly mine, to delve into their depths and explore the true meanings and messages they bear. It is only when my dusty atmosphere is allowed to merge and meld with the odors that enter through worn laundry, when my essence is allowed to mingle with that which has entered my world thusly, that I can take it all in and incorporate it into my life experience.
The best way to get essences to blend is to have some moisture in the mix. That's why I like sweaty clothes and towels freshly damp from showers and baths. If I'm lucky, my human leaves those around for me, allowing the pile to grow and develop a nice mildew content.
Unfortunately, mine is an all too fastidious human, all too often snatching up ripe clothing before it has a chance to properly permeate the carpet, floor, and walls. Come on: JJ and I need variety and news in our lives, not just musty dusty air. Still waters may run deep, but still air is the number one cause of hack attacks. That's why I'm here to advocate increased laundry leakage, the leaving of used, preferably damp clothing until a pile is good and deep, properly ripened for the edification of otherwise sequestered four-footed friends.
