NaPoWriMo Day 2

Prompt: A poem about the stars

Tonight the stars are missing
The clouds descend to envelop
A shroud of drifting white
It's easy to forget that above
The stars still spin and spurt fire
The moon still dances her nightly rounds
The dark velvet vault of the sky still arches overhead
And the Evening Star still sends out her light
Trying desperately to reach a blinded lover
Crushed beneath the weight of pain and fear
And fog

NaPoWriMo Day 1

Prompt: a poem of negation

Your absence is a vacuum that reaches into me and drags my heart out

Through my eyes, as tears

Through my mouth, as words to drive away all who are not you

Through my hands, that find all they create is empty

Through my feet, that can't run fast enough to avoid its dragging pull

Through my head, as an ache that no amount of tears relieves

Your absence is a vacuum

And in it there is nothing

Tigger

Lord o'er all he surveys

Eight or maybe nine years ago, someone abandoned a cat inside of a carrier in the parking garage of Judson Park where my mother worked. They had a floor where animals and the elderly lived together, so we assumed someone thought that if they dropped the cat off there, the retirement home would take them in. Unfortunately it didn't work that way, and someone who knew that my mother had cats called her to see if she could help. We already had an old cat, a pale, easy-going orange tabby named Buff, so mom wasn't interested in having another one. When she went out to the parking garage to investigate, she found a hard carrier with "Tigger" written on it in black sharpie. Inside was an empty plate that had had some kind of food on it and an orange tabby cat. He was an unusual color, a deep almost red orange without very many visible stripes, except for the end of his tail which was white with rings. Mom took him home with the intention of taking him to the vet in the morning to see if he was healthy before seeing about finding a place for him to live. Because we didn't know if he was vaccinated or anything like that, we quarantined him in our front entry space. At some time during the night, my mom woke to a tiny cat voice at the side of her bed. She said she woke up thinking, "wait, that's not my cat." (Buff was quite the loudmouth when he put his mind to it) Tigger had discovered that the door to his quarantine wouldn't stay securely closed and had made a break for it. He would prove to be a competent amateur escape artist for the rest of his life.  When the vet said he was not only neutered, but also declawed, mom decided it was meant to be and took him in.  It was strange having a younger cat again after having only the old guy for a while.  Tigger would chase strings and run around.  If you touched the back of his back legs gently, he would flip his foot around like he was shaking off water.  If you touched both of them at once, he would shake them one at a time while giving you a very meaningful glare.

He essentially wanted nothing more than to roam the outside world

When my mom died, I knew I wouldn't be able to care for Buff who was geriatric at that point.  He went off to live with my friend Clare's amazing grandmother, where he lived to the end of his days helping her watch soaps and snuggling on her couch.  Tigger came to live with me in Oberlin.  Having never been much a fan of living with another cat (in fact, he claimed the downstairs of the house and never went up, and wouldn't let Buff come down), he was understandably furious with me for abducting him and putting him in a house with three other cats (soon to be two) and four other people.  He avoided all of the cats as much as he could, and bonded with my male housemates.  He always had a preference for men, although he warmed to the ladies with time.  

One of my favorite pictures of all time.  Two of my favorite gamers.

When I moved to Boston, he had to face the fact that That Annoying Orange One (my other cat Henry) wasn't going anywhere.  They came to a detente, and it helped that Henry had a new friend in Zoe's cat, Calliope, who was closer to his age and who would frolic with him.  As long as Tigger had a place to curl up and sleep by himself, he was pretty content.

See?

He wasn't always perfect, though who among us can claim to be?  When he was unhappy, he would do naughty things.  Once, he apparently pooped in my roommate Tomio's bed, prompting Tomio to write this note:

Oops.

We submitted this photo to PassiveAggressiveNotes and achieved brief internet fame.  In the end, Tomio forgave him and they went back to gaming together.

In 2010, I moved to Austin.  The long car trip wasn't exactly either cat's idea of a good time, but although Henry was a nervous wreck pretty much from the time I started packing until two weeks after I arrived, Tigger seemed to rediscover the enthusiasm of his youth.  He made a break for it at the hotel in Memphis, darting out the door and down the hallway as fast as his legs could carry his waddling self, with his tail sticking straight up like a periscope.  When I arrived in the new apartment, he was observed doing wholly out of character things like leaping to the countertop and up onto the fridge, or running from one end of the hallway to the other like a kitten.  Since many apartments here in Texas have balconies, he discovered the unmitigated joy of being able to be outside smelling the air and basking in the sun.  This is the period of his life in which he refined his escape skills so that the door would hardly even have to be cracked open before he was out by the railing, hanging his head over to sniff the morning breeze.

Trina discovered that he didn't mind her using him as a pillow

Although we've never been able to remember exactly what year he was left in the parking garage, he made it to 10 or 11 years of age.  A pretty good run, as cat lives go.  As often happens when cats get older, his kidneys failed, and he went on to the Great Balcony in the sky this morning.  May he find a blanket to curl up on and a patch of sunlight.

A very common pose for this cat.  He liked to have his armpits scratched.

Interlude

Maybe it's not whether you are where you want to be so much as it's whether you are not where you do not want to be. Or is it?

Chicago, briefly

From this angle, Chicago looks a lot like Houston.

In which I experiment with mobile blogging

Greetings from Houston Hobby, the first of my unexpected stopovers.  I was suspicious when nothing was listed for a 5 hour flight.   Can I just say that there's a special kind of misery in setting one's alarm for 3:45am?  The best thing about getting up so early is that it can only get less early from then on.  On to the next: Chicago!

What I have been doing lately: Feeding myself better

Don't buy onions at HEB

No, I didn't eat this weird onion. I actually planted it. It's still growing on my balcony, and if you ask nicely, maybe I will update you with a current picture! What I HAVE been eating recently is better. At least, I hope so. It started in January when I decided I was going to wise up and quit sitting around eating nothing but potatoes and take out Indian. I quit eating carbs almost entirely for a couple of months. Ok, that's not entirely true. I quit eating gratutious carbs. Which is to say, I kept eating the occasional whole-grain tortilla and I didn't worry about fruit sugars. This went pretty well, but in the meantime, I started running (more on that in another post). I don't claim to know much about nutrition beyond the obvious (as sick and tired as I am of Michael Pollan, I AM trying to live by "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much") but when I suddenly started asking my body to run, I decided maybe I needed some carbs back in my life. Plus, to be perfectly frank, I'm not entirely sure that a life without tater tots is worth living. So I started on what I like to call the "will it make me happy" diet. I'm perfectly aware that this is ridiculous. But it seems to be working for me so far, though I still have to make a conscious effort to eat more veggies. Mostly what this does is ensure that, for instance, if I'm standing in the potato chip aisle, I'll think "will eating these make me happier than not eating these?" Sometimes, the answer is "shut up and put them in the basket." With tater tots, this is ALWAYS the answer. But sometimes the answer is, "No, I would feel totally gross and disappointed if I ate that entire bag of chips in two days." It's like checking in with My Inner Nagging Self. WWMINSD? Not subsist solely on tater tots, that's what. FYI, I retain exclusive veto power over MINS. So I eat lots of beans and lentils, I take "breadless sandwiches" for lunch most days, cook big batches of chili on the weekends, and don't feel deprived of all things delicious. It's been a challenge to try to eat healthy without a strict game plan, and I'm sure I'm doing it wrong. But I'm trying, and that's something, right?